Squeezing Blood from Turnips: White Stumps for Votes in East Texas

Yesterday in looking at the early vote trends and seeing that there is definitely elevated interest in this mid-term election, much higher than in 2006, I came to the conclusion that, in the end, getting your base out to vote is going to be the key to winning an election this year.

And now, in an irony of ironies. I read this morning that the Bill White campaign is stumping for votes in East Texas.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“Republicans have carried the region in the race for governor since Democrat Ann Richards narrowly lost it to George W. Bush in 1994. This year, the GOP is blanketing the airwaves with ads tying local Democrats to an unpopular President Barack Obama.

“But White thinks he can again turn this swath of Texas — more culturally like the Old South than other parts of the state — into a political battleground.”

“‘A lot of Texas Democrats are coming back home in my campaign,’ White told The Associated Press. ‘We're going to be stronger than other statewide candidates in a long time.’”

Now it is one thing to be out there getting your base to the polling booth, and another thing to be out there hammering at persuadables and independent voters. One is a sure thing, the other is a little more iffy in getting positive results.

But it is a completely different thing to be out there in the middle of the last of the Old South trying to turn a region of Texas away from their approval of all things Rick Perry. A region of Texas that went for McCain/Palin in a huge, huge way just 2 years ago. Nacogdoches County, where Bill White and singer Robert Earl Keen visited this weekend voted 63.4% for McCain/Palin in 2008, exceeding the Texas statewide average by 8 points.

Well at least they spelled "African " correctly

This is a region of Texas that has actually gotten redder if that is at all possible. It is a region that has been home to redneck racists for years now. Signs like this appear in front of homes in this area of Texas. In short, Bill White is out there in East Texas trying to squeeze the blood out of a turnip. Ten days out from the General Election, and this is where the White Campaign has decided to concentrate its efforts.

I don’t know who is making this decision for Bill White, but I hope he or she continues their practice in political consulting by working for Republicans next time, because they are doing a smash-up job working for them this year.

$50 Million in BP Cash Goes Toward Sprucing Up Its Image

Have you seen the new BP television ad that is going out – a little belatedly some say – on the airwaves this week? In case you haven’t I cadged the YouTube embed code and have the whole thing below.




That ad, and apparently more to come, is not the brainchild of their regular advertising company but of a pair of political consultants who run DC-based Purple Strategies. A company that is said to be getting at least $50 million from BP to promote their soiled image.

Now admittedly using BP’s CEO, Tony Hayward, as the spokesman is probably the right thing to do – who better to apologize to America than the guy who is ultimately responsible for the murder of 11 oil workers and the destruction of the Gulf ecosystem – but right now this seems to me to be a stupendously bad idea.

BP’s name is drilling mud right now and they should have to weather this storm just like the people whose lives have been temporarily or even permanently altered. No, they don’t get to spend the money we give them by using their products to promote themselves. Not right now.

The analogy to this is a bank robber who kills 11 bank employees in commission of the act and then using the money he stole from the bank to go on TV and apologize for killing them so maybe he can get a sympathetic jury.