The Polling Center: First Take on the February 2010 Results | 2/12/10
The University of Texas / Texas Tribune poll, conducted from February 1-7, shows Gov. Rick Perry holding a 24-point lead over U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican gubernatorial primary contest, with Debra Medina posing a surprisingly strong challenge to Hutchison for second place. Perry garnered 45% of the vote, Hutchison 21%, Debra Medina 19%, with 16% undecided. The sample of 366 Republican primary voters has a margin of error of +/- 5.12 percentage points.
In the Democratic primary, former Houston Mayor Bill White has a 48%-14% advantage over businessman Farouk Shami. Thirty-eight percent of the Democratic sampled ...
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Cowboy wrote on 1/7/2010 5:53 a.m.
Barry is right in his recounting of the sleazy operations of the fast talkers that have convinced so many municipalities to buy their scams.
Hardin has been empty over two and a half years after completion. That's a long way from the Corplan/Municipal Capital Markets record, however. In Pioche, Nevada they built a spec prison for $5.5 million in 1993 which remained empty until it was sold to the county for $500,000, seven cents on the original dollar controlling for inflation.
Neither should have been built as there were no employees available to fill them. In fact, the promoters, who took off with millions from Hardin's misfortune, built despite the extremely questionability of the project. They tried exactly the same hustle in Lindsay, Oklahoma, in 2007-08.
RIght now they're trying to build in Montgomery County, Texas, and have probably taken care of enough local officials to succeed. They just finished a ripoff of McClennan county.
The partners have contributed a great deal of money to the campaign of the Texas Attorney General, so we'll probably never see a prosecution in this state.
Cowboy wrote on 1/7/2010 5:58 a.m.
I'd omitted the word "legality" when referring the the questionable aspects of the Hardin and Lindsay Corplan projects. Neither appeared to be legal and only after years of wrangling did Hardin get the right to hold prisoners, but the third-rate design of the jail made it unusable.
Bogus economic feasibility studies made this all possible.
In Willacy county, two county commissioners pled guilty to corruption charges after taking bribes from an out of county commissioner who was a Corplan employee. The Gonzales "Justice" Department shut down the prosecution of the bigger culprits, however.