Perry and Hutchison Vie for Hispanic Scraps

Perhaps the only issue that ultra right conservative Texas Governor Rick Perry and moderate conservative soon-to-be ex Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison seem to have exchanged sides on is the issue of a border fence at the Texas-Mexico border.

Perry scoffs at the idea of building a border fence along the entire border, citing the use of technology to secure the border. Kay Bailey, on the other hand, “has supported a border fence every time it has come up for a vote in the Senate, claims Perry.

This was pointed out despite the fact that the so-called “Hutchison Amendment” Senate Amendment 2466 released the Homeland Security Department from any requirement to build a fence, or anything else for that matter. It reads in part:

“… nothing in this paragraph shall require the Secretary of Homeland Security to install fencing, physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors in a particular location along an international border of the United States, if the Secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain operational control over the international border at such location..”

But all of the bluster of Perry is all for naught. Because who is the audience here?

Hispanics.

Hispanics who have been running away from the Republican Party in droves over just this issue: a single-minded attempt at excoriating Hispanics, painting them all with the same broad brush as illegal aliens.

My advice to Perry and Hutchison is to keep up the good work. Keep on engaging the Hispanics, use up precious time an treasure to woo their vote.

Because they just aren’t listening to them anymore.

Rick Noriega’s Extensive Interview on Valley Newsline

I was looking to see if anyone had put Texas State Rep. Rick Noriega’s 1 minute campaign ad on YouTube yet (it’s there) but in so doing, ran across an interview that Rick sat through this past week in the Rio Grande Valley. It’s a monster in terms of YouTube standards, running 22 and a half minutes long.

The interviewer was a local radio and TV newscaster, a guy named Ron Whitlock. I found it interesting that he had Rick sit through 2 long pieces done when John Cornyn was in the Valley recently, one on his announcement that he was submitting companion legislation in the Senate to fund the construction of a VA hospital in South Texas, the other a short hallway interview with the junior senator.

Then he started grilling Rick on his reaction to what Cornyn’s answers were, particularly on the border wall. Apparently when Cornyn is in South Texas he’s against the wall, and when he is in East Texas (or DC) he’s for it. “Waffling on the wall” Rick calls it.

The overall impression I got was that Whitlock is a Republican, and that he was trying to turn up the heat under Rick. This was most obvious in his reaction to Rick’s answer to his question about whether he will vote along party lines or not. Rick’s answer was that he would vote “for Texas”. “That’s your answer,” Whitlock said, “For Texas.”

Anyway I embedded the clip below. Before you click on it, get comfortable. Go get a beer, maybe some chips, and put your feet up.

Mending Wall

This poem by Robert Frost came to mind this morning as I read about Michael Chertoff’s plans to start building a border fence in Texas this fall.

Mending Wall
By Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors?
Isn't it Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."