Gov. Perry Making Abortion A Centerpiece Of 2010 Primary Campaign

Capitol Annex

By proclaiming his unwavering support for “Choose Life” license plates–an issue that has failed to pass the Legislature five times in the last five sessions–Texas Governor Rick Perry has sent the clear signal that he intends to make abortion a centerpiece of his 2010 primary race against U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who does not as strongly hold the pro-life position.

In announcing his support for the legislation to create the plates, he sent a clear message to the Texas GOP primary voters–a massive number of which are evangelical Christians

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GOTV Consideration - Young Democrats Use Cell Phones Only

The portion of homes with cell phones but no landlines has grown to 18 percent, led by adults living with unrelated roommates, renters and young people, according to federal figures released Wednesday. The figures, covering the first half of 2008, underscore how consumers have been steadily abandoning traditional landline phones in favor of cells. The 18 percent in cell-only households compares with 16 percent in the second half of 2007, and just 7 percent in the first half of 2005.

Leading the way are households comprised of unrelated adults, such as roommates or unmarried couples. Sixty-three percent of such households only have cell phones. About one-third of renters and about the same number of people under age 30 live in homes with only cells. About a quarter of low-income people also have only wireless phones, nearly double the proportion of higher-earning people.

The demographic segments with the highest cell phone only response are the same demographic segments that are most likely to be Democratic voters:

• Nearly two-thirds of all adults living only with unrelated adult roommates (63.1%) were in households with only wireless telephones. This is the highest prevalence rate among the population subgroups examined.
• One-third of adults renting their home (33.6%) had only wireless telephones. Adults renting their home were more likely than adults owning their home (9.0%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
• Men (18.0%) were more likely than women (14.4%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
• Adults living in poverty (26.0%) and adults living near poverty (22.6%) were more likely than higher income adults (14.2%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
• Adults living in the South (19.6%) and Midwest (17.8%) were more likely than adults living in the Northeast (9.8%) or West (13.7%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
• Non-Hispanic white adults (14.6%) were less likely than Hispanic adults (21.6%) or non-Hispanic black adults (18.5%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
• Adults with college degrees (17.1%) were more likely to be living in wireless-mostly households than were high school graduates (12.5%) or adults with less education (10.0%).
• Adults living with children (18.1%) were more likely than adults living alone (10.1%) or with only adult relatives (12.8%) to be living in wireless-mostly households.
• Adults living in poverty (10.8%) and adults living near poverty (10.3%) were less likely than higher income adults (17.1%) to be living in wireless-mostly households.
• Adults living in metropolitan areas (15.0%) were more likely to be living in wireless-mostly households than were adults living in more rural areas (12.1%).
  
• More than one in three adults aged 25-29 years (35.7%) lived in households with only wireless telephones. Approximately 31% of adults aged 18-24 years lived in households with only wireless telephones.
• As age increased from 30 years, the percentage of adults living in households with only wireless telephones decreased: 19.1% for adults aged 30-44 years; 9.2% for adults aged 45-64 years; and 2.8% for adults aged 65 years and over.

The findings have major implications for Democratic candidates and political organizations who will organize Get Out The Vote programs in future election cycles. Traditionally, Get Out The Vote programs use landline phone numbers to contact and motivate voters. In recent months researchers have concluded that people who have only cell phones have more prgressive political views than those who do not. Growing numbers of political pollsters now include cell-only users in their samples, which is more expensive in part due to legal restraints against using computers to call them.

The cell phone only adoption curve is steep and continuing at pace. Cell phone only households will likely exceed 20% during the 2010 election cycle.
The most progressive segments of the electorate will continue have the highest cell phone only adoption rate. Future Democratic GOTV phone banking operations must find ways to reach this segment of potential voters via cell phone numbers rather than landline phone numbers. Future phone banking operations should also consider leveraging this demographic evolution by including "text messaging" as part of the GOTV program.

Can Texas Go Blue Like Colorado?

The survey, conducted by David Hill, who operates the Houston-based Republican Hill Research firm, raises questions about whether the Republican Party might be in trouble in Texas after a decade of political dominance. Hill's survey states, in no uncertain terms, that for GOP candidates to succeed in Texas they must look beyond the party's base voters and wrap up 80 percent of independent voters that he calls the Critical Middle.

A well executed Get Out The Vote program to get just the members of your own party out to the polling places on election day is only part of what it takes to win elections with today's electorate. The other part of winning is planning and executing a Get Out The Vote program to identify, contact and motivate the "independents" that may be persuaded by your party's or candidate's message.

In Colorado the Republican GOTV effort got more Republicans to the polls on election day than did the Democratic GOTV effort - it was the independent voters that switched Colorado's color from red to blue in the 2008 election.

Democrats can win in Collin County, as well as other Republican "dominated" counties of Texas, by extending our GOTV effort to identify, contact and motivate the "independents" living in our counties.

The map at left shows the U.S. Congressional districts carried by Democratic candidates in the 2008 election. This shows that Democrats can win in large sections of the state and with the help of independents more counties can turn blue.

Who are the independents in Collin County? On election day 2008 there were 424,821 register voters in Collin County. Of that number 56,968 registered voters were in "suspend" status leaving 367,853 active voters. 298,647 people voted in the 2008 election in Collin County which means that 69,206 active voters did not vote. (Collin County elections data)

County level Democratic party organizations in each county that have not yet turned their county blue should start identifying the independents. Democratic organizations in Collin County should immediately start preparing for the 2010 election by answering a few basic questions: Who are the 56,968 registered voters in "suspend" status and what will it take to make them not only active voters again, but active Democrats? Who are the 69,206 active voters did not vote this year and why didn't they vote? Are they disaffected Republicans? How many might be persuaded to vote for the "right" Democratic candidate? It is among these numbers that Democrats will find the votes to turn Collin County blue.

Consider these excerpts from an article in The Denver Post.

Colorado Election Turned Out Surprises
The Denver Post
By John Ingold

More Republicans than Democrats voted in Colorado, but unaffiliateds helped color the state's big races blue.

According to new numbers from the Colorado secretary of state's office, Republicans in November voted in greater numbers than Democrats and — even more surprising — also turned out in higher percentages when compared with the parties' numbers of registered voters. In a state at the heart of the Democrats' Western strategy, Republicans still accounted for the largest voting bloc and yet lost in all of the highest-profile races.

That brain-twister, say political pundits, underscores the challenges both parties face moving toward what are expected to be equally contentious 2010 races for governor and U.S. Senate in a state that is now of decidedly mixed political leanings.

About 15,600 more Republicans voted in the election than Democrats, out of a record 2.4 million total voters statewide. In terms of turnout, slightly more than 80 percent of all registered Republicans voted this year, compared with about 79 percent of registered Democrats.

Statewide, Republicans still outpace Democrats in terms of total registered voters — though the numbers are closing and Democrats now count more active voters among their ranks than Republicans.

Independents, who make up the largest group of registered voters, trailed Republicans and Democrats in turnout this year. About 100,000 fewer unaffiliated voters cast ballots than did Republicans or Democrats. About 67 percent of registered independents voted in the election.

The key to the election, though, was how those unaffiliated people voted, said David Flaherty, chief executive of voter tracking firm Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies, which works with Republican candidates.

"The Republican get-out-the-vote effort executed very well," Flaherty said. "But at the end of the day, doing all those things right, it's about appealing to unaffiliated voters."

Home Owner's Insurance Reform In 2009 TX Legislative Session

Texans are paying the highest rates for homeowners insurance in the nation -- six years after an insurance crisis led Gov. Rick Perry and numerous state leaders to promise lower rates that never came. Meanwhile, insurance companies have enjoyed record profits.

With Democrats winning more seats in the Texas State Legislature in the 2008 election, homeowners will have an all-too-rare chance at genuine reform when the Legislature once again debates homeowners insurance in the 2009 state legislative session.

In the two legislative sessions since 2003, Speaker Craddick (R) made sure that few reform bills escaped the House Insurance Committee to come up for votes in the full House.

But next year the dynamic will change for two reasons. The House is more closely divided between Democrats and Republican, meaning Craddick, an opponent to reform, may not be speaker. Craddick can't win speaker's chair again for the 2009 legislative session without a block of support from Democrats, and neither can any other Republican. It would be very surprising if many, or any, Democrat(s) back Craddick for the speaker's chair.

More important, the Insurance Department is undergoing sunset review, the regular process by which the Legislature examines state agencies. That ensures that an insurance bill will move through the Legislature. Many Democrats and Republicans, having heard from angry homeowners in their districts, are pushing for more stringent regulation.

With foreclosures on the rise in Texas, many lawmakers realize that reducing consumers’ insurance bills may allow more folks to keep their homes. Also, Republicans may be more anxious to make a show of "supporting the average Texan" after the Houston-based Republican Hill Research firm, raised such serious questions about whether the Republican Party might be in trouble in Texas after a decade of political dominance. Continued Republican opposition or foot dragging on meaningful Home Owner's Insurance Reform in the 2009 legislative session will give Democratic candidates a giant hammer to swing at their Republican opponents during the 2010 election cycle.

• Read more about Home Owner's Insurance Reform in the 2009 legislative session in the Texas Observer
• Read more about Craddick and the 2009 legislative session Speaker's race at burntorangereport.com
• Read more about closely divided legislature at Fort Worth Star Telegram

Ron Kirk To Be U.S. Trade Representative In Obama Cabinet

Fort Worth Star-Telegram
By Maria Recio

WASHINGTON — Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, initially a front-runner for transportation secretary, has opted to be U.S. trade representative in the Obama administration, sources said.

The announcement of the Cabinet-level position could come as soon as today in Chicago, where President-elect Barack Obama has scheduled a morning news conference.

The prestigious position, which comes with the title of ambassador

Read the full story at star-telegram.com

Those born in Texas, generally stay in Texas

Fort Worth Star-Telegram
By Anna M. Tinsley

There really is no place like home for true Texans.

For now, 75.8 percent of adults born in the Lone Star State still live here — the highest percentage of any state keeping its native residents — making Texas the nation’s "stickiest" state, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data released Wednesday.

But it's not just sentiment keeping nearly 24 million people in Texas, where "y'all" and "howdy" are as much fixtures as the deep-rooted cowboy traditions, love of football and pride in the fact that nearly everything is bigger.

"It's jobs, jobs, jobs," said Karl Eschbach, the state demographer at the University of Texas at San Antonio. "With the job creation in the state of Texas, you don't need to leave the state for employment.

"Why would anybody want to leave Texas?" Eschbach asked. "Texans love their state."

Others do, too.

Between 2005 and 2007, nearly 1.7 million new people moved to Texas, but only 1.3 million moved out, which means Texas is keeping more people than it's losing, said D'Vera Cohn, a senior writer with the Pew Research Center who co-authored the study.

Read the full story at star-telegram.com

Another Republican Running For Hutchison's Senate Seat

Michael Williams, the Republican Chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, who was re-elected in the November 2008 election, and one of the most prominent African-American Republicans in the nation, released a statement announcing his candidacy for Senator Hutchison's Senate seat.

Houston Mayor Bill White To Run For Hutchison’s Seat

TheHill.com
By Reid Wilson
Posted: 12/16/08

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) has scored its first recruiting victory in Houston Mayor Bill White, perhaps the highest-profile Democrat in Texas. White decided over the weekend to run for Hutchison’s seat. Hutchison has filed the committee paperwork for a 2010 gubernatorial run. The filing does not commit her to the race and her Senate seat is not up until 2012, and Texas law does not require her to resign from the Senate while running for governor.

Todd Olsen, a spokesman for Hutchison’s Austin-based gubernatorial committee, told The Hill in December if Hutchison did resign from the Senate early, she would ask Gov. Rick Perry (R) to hold a special election to fill the seat. Perry also has the option of appointing an interim senator.

White’s entry gives Democrats a decent shot in one of the reddest states in the country two years after the party’s under-funded challenger to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) clocked in at 43 percent of the vote.

Video: Mayor Bill White announces he will run for Senator Hutchison's Senate seat.


Bill White's Campaign Website
Bill White hits the Rio Grand Valley in preparation for his Senate run

Republican Party Looses As Democratic Party Gains

Motivated by deep religious convictions, GOP religious conservatives believe that the true "family values" moral code for society can be found only in religion and that "true moral code" should be enforced by the law of the land. This explains their unyielding efforts to encode in laws and constitutional amendments, at the state and federal levels, government mandates of their particular interpretation of "family values." As religious conservatives have increasingly dominated the Republican party they have forced out almost all moderate and "traditional Republican" elements of the party. Politically moderate white Christians are not necessarily motivated by "family values" issues and liberal white Christians outright reject the concept of encoding "family values" moral code in laws and constitutional amendments.

The modern Republican Party has moved far from the conservative principals defined by the legendary Conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater who said:

"By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars... Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state? "The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives."

Goldwater also said: "I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That's a decision that's up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right.... There is no place in this country for practicing religion in politics."

Lincoln Chafee quit the Republican Party and has become an Independent -- and many Republicans -- such as former Republican Congressman Jim Leach and Republican philanthropist and international lawyer Rita Hauser among others -- have not officially left the Republican party, but did organize behind Obama. Christine Todd Whitman and long term Colin Powell aide Lawrence Wilkerson want their party back. Sarah Palin helped push the Republican Party farther to the right this election – a polarization which could lead to the downfall of the party, insists Colin Powell.

"I think that in the latter months of the campaign, the party moved further to the right. Governor Palin, to some extent, pushed the party more to the right. And I think she had something of a polarizing effect when she talked about small-town values are good."

President Eisenhower's granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower, a realist/strategist, Eisenhower-style Republican has quit her grandfather's party. -- really a "wow" moment-- Read her entire statement issued on National Interest Online, a publication affiliated with the Nixon Center, but here is a clip of her statement:

I have decided I can no longer be a registered Republican.

For the first time in my life I announced my support for a Democratic candidate for the presidency, in February of this year. This was not an endorsement of the Democratic platform, nor was it a slap in the face to the Republican Party. It was an expression of support specifically for Senator Barack Obama.

I had always intended to go back to party ranks after the election and work with my many dedicated friends and colleagues to help reshape the GOP, especially in the foreign-policy arena. But I now know I will be more effective focusing on our national and international problems than I will be in trying to reinvigorate a political organization that has already consumed nearly all of its moderate "seed corn."

And now, as the party threatens to trivialize what promised to be a serious debate on our future direction, it will alienate many young people who might have come into party ranks.

My decision came at the end of last week when it was demonstrated to the nation that McCain and this Bush White House have learned little in the last five years.

They mishandled what became a crisis in the Caucuses, and this has undermined U.S. national security. At the same time, the McCain camp appears to be comfortable with running an unworthy Karl Rove-style political campaign. Will the McCain operation, and its sponsors, do anything to win?

Even as people have become disenfranchised from the Republican Party and shift party party allegiances, the share of Americans who self-describe their political views as liberal, conservative or moderate has remained stable over the years. Only about one-in-five Americans currently call themselves liberal (21%), while 38% say they are conservative and 36% describe themselves as moderate. This is virtually unchanged from recent years; when George W. Bush was first elected president, 18% of Americans said they were liberal, 36% were conservative and 38% considered themselves moderate according to a November 2008 Pew Research Center Report.

While the relative proportion of liberals, conservatives and moderates has little changed the proportion of voters identifying with the Democratic Party has grown significantly since the 2004 election, and the shift has been particularly dramatic among younger voters. Fully 61% of voters ages 18 to 29 identify or lean Democratic and a comparable percentage supports Barack Obama. But Democratic gains in party affiliation among older voters since 2004 have been much more modest. Moreover, support for Obama among voters ages 50 and older is slightly lower than the share of this cohort that identifies with the Democratic Party.

In Pew surveys conducted since August of this year, 51% of all voters say they think of themselves as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, up five points from 46% during the same period in 2004. Meanwhile, the number identifying with or leaning toward the Republican Party has fallen from 45% to 41%. In this cycle, the Democratic Party enjoys a 10-point advantage in party identification, compared with a one-point edge in the fall of 2004.

The greatest gains for the Democratic Party have come among younger voters. The percentage of voters ages 18 to 29 identifying with the Democratic Party has increased from 48% in the fall of 2004 to 61% currently. Democrats now outnumber Republicans by a margin of nearly two-to-one (61% to 32%) in this age group, up from only a seven-point advantage in 2004.

Voters ages 30 to 49, a group that includes the more conservative "Generation X, "also have shifted considerably since 2004. Nearly half (49%) of voters in this age group identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, up from 43% in 2004. Democrats currently have a six-point advantage over Republicans among voters in this age group.

Overall, more whites continue to identify as Republicans than as Democrats (48% vs. 44%); this is narrower than the 52%-to-40% advantage the GOP held in 2004. Since then, Democratic Party identification has increased four points (from 40% to 44%) among white voters. (see The Incredible Shrinking Republican Base)

Notably, the balance of party identification among younger white voters has reversed, from an 11-point advantage for the GOP in 2004 to an 11-point advantage for the Democrats today.

NYT:

Southern counties that voted more heavily Republican this year than in 2004 tended to be poorer, less educated and whiter, a statistical analysis by The New York Times shows. Mr. Obama won in only 44 counties in the Appalachian belt, a stretch of 410 counties that runs from New York to Mississippi. Many of those counties, rural and isolated, have been less exposed to the diversity, educational achievement and economic progress experienced by more prosperous areas. ... The Republicans, meanwhile, have “become a Southernized party,” said Thomas Schaller, a political scientist who teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “They have completely marginalized themselves to a mostly regional party,” he said, pointing out that nearly half of the current Republican House delegation is now Southern... Less than a third of Southern whites voted for Mr. Obama, compared with 43 percent of whites nationally.

Teaching Creationism Has Evolved

Forty years ago, in Epperson v. Arkansas, the US Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional an Arkansas law that banned the teaching of evolution. “The [Arkansas] law’s effort was confined to an attempt to blot out a particular theory because of its supposed conflict with the Biblical account, literally read,” the court wrote in its decision.

The ruling was the first major judicial blow to creationists, who had largely silenced evolutionary education in many states across the country—ever since John Scopes was convicted in 1925 of the crime of teaching evolution in Tennessee’s infamous Scopes Monkey Trial.

Since Charles Darwin first put forth his idea of natural selection, the scientific community has viewed evolutionary theory as the unifying principle of biology. Among scientists, there is virtually no debate over its validity. And despite what religious fundamentalists insist, there is no credible scientific evidence backing up young earth creationism.

But instead of ending the cultural battle between religion and science, the Epperson case ignited what has been a four-decade fight to keep God out of science class. Since the Epperson v. Arkansas ruling anti-evolution laws morphed with each constitutional defeat into “equal time” laws and now “academic freedom” laws. Creationism, in trying to pass judicial muster, shape shifted into “creation science,” then into “intelligent design,” and now “strength-and-weakness” requirements.

George W. Bush's recent statement that he believes the Bible is "probably not" literally true has apparently left many Christian conservatives reeling in shock. Bush made the controversial statement during a interview on ABC's Nightline. Bush further stated in the interview, "I think that God created the Earth ... and I don't think it's incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution."

Now this nation will soon be led by a president who firmly embraces evolution theory—and the eight years of a Bush administration hostile to science are almost over. President-elect Barack Obama has expressed firm support for eliminating Bush administration practices of censoring government agency scientific papers, promised to lead a green technological revolution and has pledged to return the United States to its vaunted position as a leader of scientific innovation.

While an Obama presidency may spell good news for science, the truth is that he is unlikely to have much of an impact on the teaching of evolutionary theory on the ground. The Texas state Board of Education is reviewing its science standards in preparation for approval next year.

The results of the board’s decision will undoubtedly have wide repercussions. The review of the standards is to establish guidelines for textbook publishers, who are watching the process closely.

In September, writing teams had removed a requirement that had had been inserted years earlier that said students must learn the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories like evolution. But earlier this month, three new reviewers with strong intelligent-design connections, including Stephen Meyer, vice president of the pro-ID Discovery Institute, were appointed by the creationist-friendly board members to look at the standards. In a new draft submitted last week, students would be required to learn “strengths and limitations” in three courses.

In addition, the new draft calls on middle school students to “discuss possible alternative explanations” for scientific concepts, opening the door for supernatural explanations like creationism.