Peppers and Pigs

I scored a killer place to sit at the recent Texas Democratic Party state convention in Corpus Christi this past weekend. Somehow my senate district delegation wrangled a section on the convention floor. So I was actually close enough to see the speakers at the podium without having to look at the screen projections.

And I was able to make videos of some of the speakers almost unimpeded. I didn’t bring a tripod though so there is a tradeoff between camera steadiness and distance. My favorite convention moment you will see in the You Tube video below. I shot lots of video but this one is definitely the fun one and the one everyone needs to see, so it has been uploaded first.

The speaker is Linda Chavez-Thompson. Chavez-Thompson, former executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, is running for Lieutenant Governor. She has a story worth repeating. She is the daughter of immigrants who had to drop out of high school to help her family in the cotton fields. At 23 she came to work for the Construction Laborer’s Local 1253 as a secretary and worked her way up the ladder to become the first “person of color” of either sex to become an AFL-CIO officer.

On Saturday, Linda Chavez-Thompson had some choice words to say about Texas’ governor, Rick Perry, and how he hopes to lure Hispanic voters to vote for Republicans.

In other words, how to convince Hispanic voters to vote against their own interests, all the time.

Here is a clip from her speech:

You know you have a really good punchline when you repeat it and you get a bigger laugh out of the audience the second time you say it than the first.

For Lieutenant Governor: Ronnie Earle

So since I early voted already I thought I would share the fact that for Lieutenant Governor I made former prosecutor Ronnie Earle my choice to run against Lieutenant Governor David Deworst this fall (I know how to spell his name correctly, I just choose not to).

I know it’s not what other lefty bloggers are doing. They are opting for the former VP of the AFL-CIO Linda Chavez-Thompson. Why they do this escapes me. The idea, I thought, of primaries was not only to choose the best candidate but also to choose the one who is more likely to win in November. Chavez-Thompson’s hyphenated name is not recognized beyond a few, especially here in union-less Texas.

Ronnie Earle, my choice, has a name that is not only recognized statewide, but nationally. He is famously noted as the point man that got Tom DeLay to pose for this mug shot, an act that eventually led to his resignation from the US Congress, a place that he ran like an iron fist. An act that eventually led to his brief stint on “Dancing With the Stars” where he demonstrated how he could nearly drop his dance partner on her keester.

And because he demonstrated this can-do approach to criminal behavior among politicians, Ronnie Earle is the guy who can bring needed change to the way the state of Texas does its business, or should I say, doesn’t do its business.

For instance, Earle is correct in his assessment that Texas’ tax structure is designed to favor the rich, who pay no taxes. Texas, Earle says, runs on the backs of the middle class. A class that he correctly believes is slowly but surely disappearing in Texas. So following this policy is fiscal suicide in the long term.

And yes, I heard Ronnie Earle speak yesterday at a Democratic Party workshop that was held in Bastrop, Texas. He came in toward the end of the workshop and spoke for a couple of minutes, and then took questions.

And yes, I got it on video. I am going to cherry pick a few clips and post them over the next couple of weeks. The first one is a response to a commenter in the audience who also lived in former Congressman Tom DeLay’s district.

Here was the comment:

“We’re from Fort Bend, we want to thank you because your work in Austin led us to getting rid of a scourge for Fort Bend County, Tom DeLay, and we . . . (applause and whoops).”

Here is what Ronnie Earle, who finds himself free of the fetters of office now and can now speak bluntly of his former case.




Even though I had already voted for Earle, I just have to say that anyone who says that going to the penitentiary wouldn’t be as embarrassing to DeLay than “Dancing With the Stars” has my vote.

Club Sandwich Please, Hold the Baloney

Delicatessen magnate Marc Katz has thrown his hair net into the ring for the Democratic nomination for Texas Lieutenant Governor according to this story in the Austin American-Statesman.

“Austin deli king Marc Katz said Wednesday his family members would pour millions of their own money into his campaign for lieutenant governor.”

So in the Sanchez/Watts tradition, Katz will be a self-funded, or in this case, family-funded candidate where fundraising is not the problem.

Name recognition is the problem.

Running for a statewide office is a difficult one here in sprawling Texas, with 5 separate media venues and vast expanses of unpopulated land inbetween. You need name-recognition first and foremost.

Marc Katz may see himself as a big name, his family’s deli business certainly is - - - in New York City. But I think it will be a difficult sell despite the fact that the founding store, Katz’ Deli number 1, is on Houston Street on the lower East Side.

Nevertheless, I welcome Marc Katz’ entry into the fray, because his opposition to Ronnie Earl, that guy who helped to transport Tom DeLay from his powerful position in Washington DC to his role as dance partner to Cheryl Burke in Hollywood in three short years, will only amplify the race for Lieutenant Governor.

This is going to be fun.