The Clinton campaign's going to keep Austin State Sen. Kirk Watson's embarrassing MSNBC appearace alive, at least for another few hours. Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson is doing a conference call right now to discuss Watson's appearance during coverage of the Wisconsin returns last night. (They are calling it an appearance on the program Hardball, but it was not.)
Last night in my post about the cringe-inducing interview, I said that everyone would quickly forget about him not being able to name any of Obama's legislative accomplishments. (Some of those accomplishments are here, btw.) I guess our attention spans are a little longer than I thought. Watson told the Statesman it felt like a bad dream.
So the Clinton campaign is getting more mileage out of it, at least here in Texas. Is this a total distraction? Yes. But is this what happens in campaigns? Yes.
"A fantastically awkward mix of dead air, stuttering, laughter and repetition ensued." --Huffington Post
State Senator Kirk Watson, D-Austin, got stuck playing "hardball" with MSNBC's Chris Matthews tonight on live TV. Matthews pinned down Watson, asking him to name "specific legislative accomplishments" of Senator Barack Obama (who Watson supports).
Watson looked stunned and uncomfortable before responding with... nothing.
"I'm not gonna be able to do that tonight," said Watson. "What Obama is able to do is inspire," Watson said.
It played right into the woman spinning for Clinton, Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who says that Clinton has a real record of accomplishments.
Then Matthews gave Watson another chance to list Senator Obama's accomplishments. Another awkward moment, and Watson is stumped again. But Matthews gives him the last word, to talk broadly.
After the pretty painful interview came to an end, Olbermann tried to deflect a little.
OLBERMANN: "In defense of Senator Obama, can you name one accomplishment of the US Senate within the last ten years?"
MATTHEWS: That's a broader question.
OLBERMANN: See, you can't name anything either.
"He's here to defend Barack Obama and he had nothing to say," said Matthews. "And that's a problem. We have to vet the guests occasionally."
Three thoughts:
1.) The takeaway from this is the Obama surrogates probably have to be a better trained before going live on national TV. To be fair, had it been a regular MSNBC anchor asking the questions instead of an overcompensating Chris Matthews, Watson would have been fine, he's a natural on television.
2.) Notice I said Chris Matthews was overcompensating. My takeaway on his pointed challenge to Watson is that it has more to do with Matthews than Obama. Matthews has been taking a lot of grief for his fawning comments about Obama on the evening of the Potomac Primaries:
That's right, Matthews called it an "objective" assessment when he said he "felt a thrill go up my leg" upon hearing Obama speak. Since then, he's taken a lot of grief for what appears to be a strong personal admiration of Barack Obama. He's probably trying to be harder on Obama as a result, which is what I'm gonna call overcompensation. Still, Watson could have been better prepared.
3.) It was awkard, but Watson has little to feel bad about. The viewership of MSNBC at this time of night is small, and Americans have short attention spans. I have already forgotten what I am writing about.
State Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, formally announced his resignation this afternoon, after serving in the Senate since 2003, and in the Texas House since 1995. He brought his father, his brother, his wife and his three young sons along for the announcement, because he says he is stepping down so he can spend more time with them.
"There's a time for everything, and this is the time. A friend of mine called me and said, "What, are you in trouble?" And I said yeah, they caught me stealing. I stole some time from Shannon and the boys and I'm gonna pay it back to them," he said.
He didn't shut the door on the possibility of running again when his kids get older.
55 more young people are registered to vote in Travis County, after State Senator Kirk Watson's "Register to Rock" event Saturday afternoon. He hired a bunch of bands to play at Stubb's AND offered a chance to win two free tickets to ACL Fest for anyone who registered that day. If you were there and have pictures, please email me and we'll put em up.
State Senator Kyle Janek, R-Houston, is expected to make his resignation announcement at 1pm tomorrow at the State Capitol. The official reason for his resignation? Family.
I sure will miss Senator Janek's keen sense of style. I always found him to be an excellent dresser. His ties aren't as awesome as State Senator Steve Ogden's, but they are generally pretty awesome.
The Texas Senate sometimes uses a parliamentary device known as "Committee of the Whole", where the entire body is considered one large committee. NCSL says since it's a parliamentary thing, every state can use this -- but most all other states use Committee of the Whole while they're still on the floor and in public view.
In Texas, the Senate can meet as Committee of the Whole OUT of public view, back in the proverbial smoke-filled room. For example, The C of the W was used before the entire Senate decided to come back after dinner hours in Februrary to call for TYC to be put under a conservatorship.
An NCSL survey of various legislature's rules shows the Texas Senate is one of only a handful of bodies with the ability to close a floor session to the public.
It seems antithetical to the idea of open government, so I took the question to onetime Texan Charles Davis, Executive Director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition.
"It sounds like a cabal," he said. "Clearly it's done for a reason and the reason is to dodge accountability. It may be something that's common in legislatures but that doesnt make it right."
And since open government was the topic of the day, we also took the question to State Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, who successfully passed a measure in the spring session to require recorded votes on final passage of bills. (Now voters have to approve it, in the form of Propsition 11.)
In his response to the question, Branch was careful not to call out any particular members of the Upper Chamber, but did bring up another question -- what's up with the Senate conference calls?
Jake Dyer, FWST: Given your commitment to open government, would you stop the Senate from having committees of the whole?
Branch: It's an interesting question. As an observer, I have a natural reluctance to interfere in how they take care of their business. As an observer, well.. there's reasons for committees of the whole, but I think that we need to be careful that when that procedural device is used, that it's not abused.
So there oughta be a stated purpose for why we're coming together as Committee of the Whole, and that oughta be open and transparent.
And it's my understanding that that chamber uses a lot of conference calls to get a sense of where members are at. And again, there's probably an appropriate use of conference calls or member dialouge, but ultimately, I think you have to say at some point, conduct the people's business in the most transparent fashion possible. And don't abuse devices like committees of the whole to place a veil on what otherwise should be open government business.
State Senator Kirk Watson, D-Austin, is not up for re-election until 2010. But his constituents are getting some direct mail in their snail-mailboxes this week.
See the mail piece here, in a handy interactive format (much better than those annoying pdf's that you always have to resize and then flip around)
It plays off the Bob Dylan video for Subterranean Homesick Blues, where he flashes the lyrics on signs. The Watson lyrics include, "Create Hope", "Talk Honestly and Plainly" and "Don't Delay, Take Action" (Or is it "Don't DeLay, Take Action"???)
Sounds like fun (and fundraising) was had all around Austin last night. President Bill Clinton tells us he had a good time at his fundraiser last night for Hillary (before he headed to Austin favorite Guero's, and State Senator Watson reports his evening under the stars was "just a perfect Austin, Texas night".
At the fundraiser, Watson unveiled a new video, now hosted on YouTube. (No video unveilings that I know of at the Clinton fundraiser).
If you are too busy to click, Watson races through various backdrops like hospitals and roadways, highlighting the issues he wants to work on for Central Texas. He runs in and out of frame from one background to the next, and he seems to be running at a pretty quick clip. He told me once that he was came in first in the Capitol 10K... in the state senator division, that is. (I'm not challening this, though I'm guessing that young Senator Eltife would probably make pretty good time in a long run...)
