At the Capitol Grill, a.k.a. the cafeteria in the Texas Capitol basement, you can enjoy all-you-can-eat toppings on your frozen yogurt one day a week. I never know which day it is, so it's always a pleasant surprise when "Unlimited Toppings Day" comes along.
Up until recently, I also looked forward to "Chicken Fried Steak Day". And since the Capitol is a place where acronyms run wild, from here on out I will call it "CFS Day".
Chicken Fried Steak at the Capitol. Just $5.95. A better deal than that impostor Chicken Marsala.
I knew that CFS Day was on Tuesdays. So I would often try to wrangle someone to venture up the great walk to down some CFS.
That is, until I learned that Wednesday IS ALSO CFS day. So is Thursday! I bet if you request it, you could also get it on Fridays.
Outrage! How can you look forward to a meal that's so readily available?
The Obama campaign picked San Antonian Juan Sepúlveda as its Texas State Director.
"Our priority is expanding our strong grassroots movement for change across the state so we can help Democrats up and down the ticket and win the White House in November," said Sepúlveda.
Sepúlveda is President and Founder of The Common Enterprise (TCE). Sepúlveda is a member of Obama's National Latino Leadership Council and served as a senior advisor for Bill Bradley's 2000 presidential campaign.
He will take a leave from TCE starting today to serve as State Director.
House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, and Patrick Marsteller, a Dallas travel company owner, have settled the lawsuit and countersuits they filed against each other.
Marsteller first sued the speaker and lobbyist Bill Messer last May, accusing Craddick of abusing his power in demanding a refund for a five thousand dollar fishing trip that didn't happen.
Craddick sued back for his refund. The deposition got a little tense, the video is here.
Last week, the parties settled quietly. Craddick and Messer agreed to transfer the trips they purchased to other people. And both parties released each other from other claims.
Republican presidential nominee John McCain is expected to meet up with Austin-based cyclist/cancer-fighter Lance Armstrong in Ohio today. I asked Armstrong who he might endorse for president back in March. He said he'd rather stay out of it so he can have more influence in his anti-cancer activism.
But the legendary cyclist and the GOP presidential nominee will be be side by side tonight when McCain goes to Columbus, Ohio for the LIVESTRONG summit. (It's supposed to be in all caps, right? Like Yahoo! has the exclamation point! on the end?)
The conference, brought to you by the Lance Armstrong Foundation, focuses on cancer prevention and promotes awareness and research.
Governor Rick Perry and U.S. Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, are today getting a bird's-eye view of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Dolly's damage. The storm came ashore Wednesday afternoon packing 100 mph winds, officials said.
The Governor and Senator will leave from Weslaco, and take a blackhawk on the same path that the storm took.
Emergency management officials are expected to brief Perry and Cornyn in Weslaco before they hold an afternoon press conference at the Mid-Valley airport.
Did House Speaker Tom Craddick pull a "Jennifer Kim"? The former Austin City Councilmember ruffled some feathers when she tried to use her position to get through security without going through screening. This morning, one of our KVUE photographers, who is on personal business, caught Craddick and his wife Nadine cut in front of 50-60 people in a line of hundreds at Austin-Bergstrom.
House Speaker Tom Craddick in his leisure wear at the Austin airport.
Turns out lines were long due to a "technical malfunction" at security checkpoint 3, the west checkpoint. Our photographer waited 35 minutes to get through, but says the Craddick's barely waited at all, after finding a way to cut in front of about 50-60 travelers.
Oh! There he goes! In front of the folks who have been waiting.
Our photog overheard other people in line call their friends, telling them they couldn't believe Craddick did that. But unlike Jennifer Kim, Craddick doesn't depend on the voting masses to stay in office. House speakers are elected by only 150 people in the Texas House, and the people who don't support him already cite "abuse of power" as the reason. So his line cutting likely has little bearing on his political prospects.
I asked the speaker's press secretary, Alexis DeLee, why the Craddick's needed to cut in line.
"I'm sure there was a good reason for it, they're likely getting on a plane right now so I can't find out right now," she said.
UPDATE 4:24pm: The Speaker's press secretary, Alexis Delee, says she spoke with the speaker and that he says he never cut in line.
"They split up and Nadine waited in line while the Speaker checked their bags. Then the he joined Nadine in line. They were in line for more than an hour."
So then I checked back with our photographer, who said he saw something entirely different.
"They walked up together, saw the end of the line, went to check in, then cut.
She couldn't have been in line [already], because I was at the end... and the end was outside! He definitely had a look of surprise when he was told that [outside] was the end of the line. [Nadine] was about 10-15 feet away from me, and he then walked over and told her. Then suddenly they were inside and in line 15 minutes later. Everyone around me recognized them and thought they cut."
If you were at the airport this morning just before 8am and saw this go down, please email me with your account of the situation.
I don't know how it happened after my haiku shenanigans, but my producers are letting me go to Austin City Hall again. The new City Manager, Mark Ott, is presenting his first budget, and it comes in the face of a $20 million shortfall.
"Expect talk of library closures," said City Council Mike Martinez. We chatted briefly at my stop at the East Austin Block Party hosted by the Travis County Coordinated Campaign.
My time to catch-up is short, so I thought crowd-sourcing could help. What should we be watching for during tomorrow's city council budget deliberations? What is of interest to you? Leave a comment or email me. Looking forward to your input.
My counterpart at the ABC affiliate in Houston, Miya Shay, scored some video of President Bush in Houston for a fundraiser this past weekend. Check it out.
Bush says:
[The economy] is uncertain, there's no question about it. Wall Street got drunk, it got drunk, it's one of the reasons I asked you to turn off your TV cameras. It got drunk and now it's got a hangover. The question is how long will it sober up, and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments.
And now we got a housing issue, not in Houston, and evidently, not in Dallas, because Laura was over there trying to buy a house today. (Laughter)
I like Crawford, unfortunately after eight years of asking her to sacrifice, I'm now no longer the decision maker. She'll be deciding, thanks for the suggestion! I suggest you don't yell it out when she's here. Later, telling her, "Hey honey, we've been on government pay now for 14 years... so go slow!"
It's uh.. caused me to lose my train of thought. Anyway.
Capitol Hill paper Roll Call is reporting the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's field operation, which was surprisingly successful in 2006, will target 17 states this election year. Texas is not one of them.
There is a US Senate race here in the fall, but it appears the campaign arm of the Senate Democrats has decided to invest its millions in competitive races in other states.
The 17 Targeted States
Alaska
Colorado
Kentucky
Maine
Minnesota
Mississippi
New Hampshire
New Mexico
North Carolina
Oregon
Virginia
Georgia
Kansas
Nebraska
Oklahoma
New Jersey (playing defense)
South Dakota (playing defense)
From Roll Call:
The DSCC has built its field operation -- which has a presence in 17 states, 11 of which are being heavily targeted -- by transferring funds to state party committees. The DSCC can afford this effort because it has a favorable map -- only 12 Democratic seats up for election, while 23 Republican seats are up -- and because it has maintained an almost 2-1 cash lead over the NRSC for the balance of the 2008 cycle.
Some states on the DSCC's target list have anywhere from 30 to 40 organizers who are on the state party's payroll but are focused solely on the Senate race. Money also is being spent to build and update voter files, advertise in the mail and on television, and on get-out-the-vote activities that are geared toward individual voters' habits, taking into account early and absentee voting schedules.
The DSCC would not say how much it plans to spend on its field operation overall this cycle. But last cycle, the DSCC transferred $29.5 million to state party committees for field operations compared with the NRSC's $294,000. The DSCC credits that investment, which included expenditures on direct mail and will again this cycle, with helping it flip six seats in 2006 and win back the Senate.
An email between U.S. Senator John Cornyn's staffers and subsequently forwarded to supporters says that the Netroots Nation convention in Austin has helped bring in about $10,000 in the past two days. The subject line is "Nutroots":
"According to finance team, the fact that Dean and Pelosi came in to shill for Noreiga really fired up our supporters the last 24 hours. We have raised well over 10K and I think we could another 10k," writes Cornyn spokesman Kevin McLaughlin.
He adds, "Our guys at the convention told us Noreiga and his out-of-state buddies spent the morning attacking Senator Cornyn."
General Wesley Clark is bouncing all over Texas with Democratic US Senate candidate Rick Noreiga. He started at a Dallas fundraiser on Wednesday. Then he came down to Austin to deliver the keynote at last night's opening of Netroots Nation. Afterwards, Texas bloggers hosted him at the Netroots Nation kickoff party. I stopped by long enough to take an out-of-focus picture and listen to some speeches.
Clark introduces Noriega at a Netroots kickoff event.
Noriega went on with a high-decibel delivery of his usual talking points, with a welcome to the out-of-towners thrown in here and there.
The PUC meets, ostensibly it will choose a scenario to connect West Texas wind farms to the big city Texas markets that need it. The build-out could cost anywhere between three billion to 6.4 billion, depending on which plan is approved.
Netroots Nation kicks off downtown. DNC Chairman Howard Dean will help get things started after he first makes a stop in Crawford, Texas as part of a multi-state voter registration bus tour.
The Public Safety Commission meets for the first time since DPS chief Tommy Davis announced his retirement. There is an item on the agenda about the Governor's Mansion fire and security, but Chairman Allan Polunsky says it will be a few hours before that item is taken up because the commission has a discharged officer's hearing, first.
First Lady Anita Perry will hold a presser with other first families about the Governor's Mansion Restoration Fund which she launched earlier this week.
Bottom line, I think Harvey and John will have plenty to sort out for the QR Newsclips tomorrow.
I hope internet connections don't slow down around the convention center this weekend. 3,000 or so left-leaning bloggers are headed to Austin for Netroots Nation (formerly YearlyKos). Kos himself (Markos Moulitsas Zuniga) is already in town and going to do some community radio this afternoon.
Kos, who founded Daily Kos and continues to be its principal writer, will talk internet activism and the 2008 elections on KOOP 91.7 this afternoon. The show airs between 2:30pm and 3:00pm. If you aren't in Austin but would like to hear what Kos has to say, the show will stream live at www.koop.org.
State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, is getting in early for a U.S. Senate run. U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is widely expected to make a run for governor in 2010, and if not, her senate term is up in 2012. Shapiro has formed a committee to explore a run in 2012 "or sooner", and it's headed by former Cowboys QB Roger Staubach.
"Florence Shapiro's passion and commitment to public service is unsurpassed. Should the opportunity arise, I am confident Florence's proven leadership on the local and state legislative government levels have prepared her well to be a great United States Senator for Texas," Staubach said in a statement.
Full Disclosure: "Flo-Shap", as many have nicknamed her, was my State Senator growing up. In fact, I dug up this picture from my Student Council class coming to Austin to visit her when I was in 11th grade, and took a grainy photo of the photo.
It's the 2nd quarter fundraising reporting deadline! Senator John Cornyn walloped his challenger, Rick Noriega in 2nd quarter fundraising. As for cash-on-hand, Cornyn's stash is ten times the size of Noriega's, which is going to come in really handy as people start paying attention to this race after Labor Day. A look at the top lines:
CORNYN
2nd quarter fundraising: $1.7 million
Cash-on-hand: $9.4 million
Who can blame Barack Obama for loving him some Austin? After all, Travis County voters went with Obama two-to-one in the March primary. And while he was here in the much cooler months of February and March, he got a good enough taste of Austin to realize he liked it more than he expected. That's according to the New York Times, anyway:
Senator Barack Obama marveled at the view here in Big Sky Country. He discovered that the gumbo in New Orleans was far tastier than in Chicago. And he was pleasantly surprised that he loved Austin, Tex., and its music -- but who doesn't?
Later in the story, we get to Obama's quote.
"A place that I've come to love, which I did not expect until this campaign, is Texas," he said in an interview the other day aboard his campaign plane, a patchwork of the countryside passing below him. "I ended up loving Texas! I've been struck by how many beautiful places there are in the country that you don't necessarily think of as beautiful. Pittsburgh, for example, is a really handsome town with the rivers and the hills."
Not sure if that was one of those backhanded compliments. There's the whole lumping Texas in with Pittsburgh thing. And the construction of the sentence makes me wonder why he did not "necessarily" think of Texas as beautiful in the first place. Aw man! If the Senator needs more convincing of the state's natural beauty, I think Pete Gallego could give him a nice tour around his district...
This feels like the Texas Capitol Press Corps equivalent of The Beatles breaking up. The four-man Fort Worth Star Telegram Austin bureau is soon becoming a one-man shop.
(The original band members: Jack, Jay, Jake and John joining up for some brew at Jake's farewell gathering.)
It was almost too perfect. Four cool dudes with alliterative names? One had to know it wasn't going to last. Star-Telegram's owner, McClatchy, made across-the-company cutbacks which led both Jack Plunkett (a photographer) and Jake Dyer (a kickass watchdog reporter) to take buyouts.
Jay Root, the bureau chief, will soon be joining the Associated Press' Austin bureau. My BFF John will stick around, as far as I know. Best of luck, boys! As the real Beatles told us:
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.
We got a photo from the trip! And a reeeeally long press release from former Capitol Press Tribe member, Mike Rosen*. So I'll just post the photo:
Texas Congressmen Michael McCaul, Gene Green and Henry Cuellar just got back from their official trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan. McCaul's office says he talked about the need for more military resources in the region. As they left Afghanistan, suicide bombers blasted the Indian Embassy in Kabul.
McCaul met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf (seen above), and toured a hostile region along the Pakistan border in a Blackhawk helicopter. He visited U.S. troops at bases in Khost, Gardez and Ghazni.
We've been gathering string on this story all day long, but it's taken me awhile to dump it all on the blog.
Here's where we're at. The kid bloggers* over at Burnt Orange Report discovered that their prolific pro-Cornyn commenter, Buck Smith, was none other than Dave Beckwith, longtime Cornyn staffer, former aide to Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Vice President Dan Quayle.
Dave Beckwith, aka "Buck Smith". This picture was taken sometime within the past few years.
Beckwith is kind of a legend for the way he deals with reporters when they write stories he views as unfair or unfavorable. He once "berated [NYT's Maureen Dowd] in public on several occassions... at one point, she left a dinner distraught because of Beckwith's open hostility toward her," according to a 1990 Beckwith profile in the Washington Post.
His online persona doesn't differ.
"Buck Smith, time and again, comes in, makes fun of people, challenges them to a duel," said Matt Glazer, BOR's Editor.
But "Smith" never disclosed his true identity. He left more than eighty comments on the left-leaning BOR and in other places, like Daily Kos, since last summer.
I asked Cornyn's campaign whether they stood by all of their paid senior staffer's online comments.
