To the list of things that Rick Perry shows contempt for — Barack Obama’s leadership abilities, excessive federal regulation, coyotes that interrupt his morning jog — add this surprising one: George W. Bush’s ideological disposition. The governor seems to go out of his way to criticize his predecessor as insufficiently conservative. Bush, for his part, makes no mention of Perry in his memoir. “There’s certainly no love lost between these two men,” says UT presidential scholar Bruce Buchanan.
Politics
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Posted in
Economy
Arlene Wohlgemuth: The TT Interview
The former budget-slashing Texas House member and current executive director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation on how she reads the mood out there, what reductions in state spending should be on the table, whether cost-shifting to local school districts is a plausible option, why lawmakers should forget about new sources of revenue, the trouble with Medicaid and what members of the Republican near-supermajority in the Legislature must do to keep the confidence of voters — and get re-elected.
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Economy
Audio: An Interview With Arlene Wohlgemuth
An interview with Arlene Wohlgemuth of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Posted in
Economy
Wohlgemuth on the State’s Budget Woes
The former Texas House member and current director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation on how lawmakers should address the state’s multibillion-dollar budget shortfall.
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Politics
Jack Martin on Today’s Media Landscape
Austin-based Public Strategies founder and chairman Jack Martin discusses today’s communications landscape and offers a warning for politicians in these media-saturated times.
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Politics
Jack Martin: The TT Interview
The founder and chairman of Public Strategies Inc. — set to be honored today an Austin luncheon — on why the Republicans beat the Democrats so badly on Election Day, whether Texas is philosophically the same state it was 30 years ago, how things have changed for business interests dealing with the government and whether the “little guy” has a voice in our political system.
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Politics
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Our wall-to-wall Election Day coverage — complete results up and down the ballot and county by county, the all-hands-on-deck Trib team on the Republican tsunami, my conversation with George W. Bush’s media adviser and Rick Perry’s pollster about what happened on Tuesday, Stiles and Ramsey on what 194 candidates spent per vote this election cycle, Hu on how the GOP rout will affect the substance of the next legislative session, Hamilton on the Texas Democratic Trust’s unhappy end, Ramshaw and Stiles profile the new arrivals at the Capitol in January, M. Smith on what’s next for Chet Edwards and Ramsey and me on six matters of politics and policy we’re thinking about going forward — plus Thevenot and Butrymowicz on a possible solution to the high school dropout problem: The best of our best from Nov. 1 to 5, 2010.
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Politics
Trust Busted
The Texas Democratic Trust might have been the biggest single loser in Tuesday’s general election, as Texas Republicans swept away most of the advances that the group financed and fought for during the last three election cycles. And the losses came as the Trust prepared to shut down its operations — its mission ended, if not accomplished.
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Politics
The Polling Center: Rick Perry Versus the U.S.O.
No campaign postmortem will be complete without noting the huge role played by Barack Obama in the 2010 governor’s race.
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Politics
Inside Intelligence: The Next Governor of Texas Will Be…
For the first installment of our non-scientific survey of political and policy insiders on issues of the moment, we asked two questions: “Which candidate do you think will win the race for governor?” and “Who are you voting for?” We also gave them a chance to explain — and, boy, did they.