Posted on 10/01/2010 7:48:42 AM PDT by laotzu
If former Houston Mayor Bill White is able to prevent Gov. Rick Perry from an unprecedented third term in November, he’ll most likely have received an assist from Libertarian Kathie Glass.
Glass, a Houston lawyer who has been keeping a rigorous traveling schedule of tea party events, American Legion venues and radio talk show appearances, is campaigning on a platform of limited government and secure borders. On the stump, her blunt talk, accusing Perry of giving a wink and a nod to President Barack Obama, makes her an immediate presence. And a poll taken earlier this month showed her registering 5 percent of the vote.
While that’s not an eye-popping number in a state that has a history of third-party candidates leaving a significant mark, the rise of Glass could pose problems for Perry in a single-digit race.
“That’s the first poll that’s ever even mentioned my name,” Glass told POLITICO, referring to the University of Texas poll taken between Sept. 3-8. “Hardly anybody knows my name when I walk into places. But when they leave, they walk out with my yard sign. My challenge is to get before as many people in a short amount of time.”
Glass, of course, says her goal is to win. But as the UT poll demonstrates, the more realistic impact of her candidacy appears to be holding Perry under 40 percent, handing White a narrow opening on which to seize. A Rasmussen Reports survey released Friday provided more evidence of a close contest, with Perry leading White, 48 percent to 42 percent. That poll did not include Glass.
Glass’s strict-constitutional message, coupled with her ability to deliver biting one-liners, has many observers comparing her to Debra Medina, an early tea party-fueled candidate who captured 18 percent in the March GOP gubernatorial primary against Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Most recently, Glass sent a message to supporters praising the candidacy of Delaware GOP Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell. “Another gutsy woman has stepped up to lead this country back to freedom. Go Christine!” she wrote.
“She’s talking to the same voters Rick Perry is trying to. If the polls show her at 5 percent already, you get disaffected Republicans, they’re going to end up voting for Glass,” said Phil Martin, who works for the Texas Democratic Trust, a group that provides strategy and fundraising to Lone Star State Democrats.
Perry received only 39 percent of the vote in his reelection in 2006, and Libertarians consistently draw between 3 and 5 percent of the vote. In an anti-establishment year, a compelling candidate like Glass “could easily get up to 7 [percent],” Martin said.
While Glass offers sharp critiques of both White and Perry, her comments about the governor are more passionate and pointed. She accuses Perry of talking tough on border security but using Washington as a cop-out, neglecting to use the means readily at his disposal.
“The state Guard is under his control. He’s had 10 years to send them to the border. He’s part of this elitist crowd. He does not want a secure border,” she said. “Texans need to stop accepting Rick Perry’s word and go with action.”
Glass said she considered the possibility of damaging Perry’s chances and thereby providing an opening for White is “of no concern whatsoever. Whether we have Rick Perry or Bill White does not matter a hill of beans. We’re still going to hell in a hand-basket.”
“Rick Perry does not own anybody’s votes and if I get them I earned them. I work far harder for my votes than any votes Rick Perry has gotten,” she continued.
On Saturday, both White and Glass are scheduled to attend a tea party forum in Rowlett, just northeast of Dallas. Perry’s decision not to attend has caused a stir in tea party circles, with one widely read conservative blogger calling the governor “an ass.” The governor has also taken flak for shunning the state’s editorial boards and ducking debates with White.
Perry consultant David Carney said that despite the hysteria, the basic contours of the race have remained the same for most of the year. He pointed out that Libertarians have long had a presence on the Texas ballot and said the campaign has not discussed the impact of Glass even once over the past year.
“It isn’t anything unusual. It’s not anything we’re worried about. It’s just a fact of life. It’s not a worry to us,” he said.
Carney dismissed any Glass-Medina comparisons: “We are in good shape with people who believe in the tea party.”
Nonetheless, Democrats have been happily surprised by White’s ability to keep pace with Perry. Democratic Governors Association Executive Director Nathan Daschle said this week that he felt “better about this race every single day, and that’s sort of a surprise to me.”
With Perry’s polling percentage being held consistently under 50 percent, national Democrats insist Texas remains a top priority, framing the incumbent as a “part-time governor” in a midterm being rattled by another “change” narrative.
Glass’s challenge remains raising her profile in the five weeks left, with little cash and resources. But if she creeps up in the polling, Perry’s team will be confronted with the dicey decision it also faced against Medina: whether to engage her.
“Their challenge is they can’t discredit her without making her name more public. If it stays close, she really could have an impact on this race,” Martin said.
And don't forget "Sanctuary City Bill" and what he would do to our borders - despite what his ads say about border security.
To be sure, the pragmatic vote would have to go to Perry.
If all the pragmatists would instead vote their conscience, would vote conservative, the landscape would change.
True, but it isn’t going to happen. She isn’t well known so her votes are throw aways this year.
Those votes for Perry weren't big scores last time around.
Texas still misses you PA girl.
We’re back in Texas - four of us, all conservative voters!
Predictably, this great nation has made mistakes & committed sins, as it is populated by humans. The more agregious are:
- slavery
- segregation
- betraying the indians, and herding them onto reservations
- Jim Crow laws
- incarcerating American Japanese, Italians, etc, populations during war time
- the 'Civil War'
- fighting against civil rights
History documents that all of these....every single last one, was perpetrated by the left.
The majority of our bitch-slapping should be directed at them.
Outstanding!!! Welcome home.
A compilation of compassion from the left:
“I think one man is just as good as another so long as he’s not a n*gger or a Chinaman. Uncle Will says that the Lord made a White man from dust, a n*gger from mud, then He threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman. He does hate Chinese and Japs. So do I. It is race prejudice, I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion Negroes ought to be in Africa, Yellow men in Asia and White men in Europe and America.” – Democrat President Harry Truman
“Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.” –Democrat Senator Robert Byrd
“You cannot go to a 7-11 or Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian Accent.” – Democrat Senator Joe Biden
“I’ll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.” – Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson
Mahatma Gandhi “ran a gas station down in Saint Louis.” –Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton
“I did not lie awake at night worrying about the problems of Negroes.” –Democrat Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy
“I mean, you got the first mainstream African American [Barack Obama] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy.” – Democrat Sen. Joseph Biden Jr.
“You’d find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they’d just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva.” – Democrat Senator Fritz Hollings
“Republicans bring out Colin Powell and J.C. Watts because they have no program, no policy. They have no love and no joy. They’d rather take pictures with black children than feed them.” – Democrat Donna Brazile, Al Gore’s Campaign Manager for the 2000 election
“He’s married to a white woman. He wants to be white. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn’t want to be black.” – Democrat California State Senator Diane Watson’s on Ward Connerly’s interracial marriage
“I am a former kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County and the adjoining counties of the state .... The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia .... It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state of the Union. Will you please inform me as to the possibilities of rebuilding the Klan in the Realm of W. Va .... I hope that you will find it convenient to answer my letter in regards to future possibilities.” – Democrat Senator Robert Byrd
“These laws [segregation] are still constitutional and I promise you that until they are removed from the ordinance books of Birmingham and the statute books of Alabama, they will be enforced in Birmingham to the utmost of my ability and by all lawful means.” — Democrat Bull Connor (1957), Commissioner of Public Safety for Birmingham, Alabama
(On New York) “Kiketown.” – Democrat President Harry Truman
“There’s some people who’ve gone over the state and said, ‘Well, George Wallace has talked too strong about segregation.’ Now let me ask you this: how in the name of common sense can you be too strong about it? You’re either for it or you’re against it. There’s not any middle ground as I know of.” — Democratic Alabama Governor George Wallace
“You f*cking Jew bastard!!” – Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton
‘Hymies.’ ‘Hymietown.’ – Democrat Jesse Jackson’s description of New York City while on the 1984 presidential campaign trail.
“Jews — that’s J-E-W-S.” — Democratic State Representative Bill McKinney on why his daughter Cynthia lost in 2002
“I want to go up to the closest white person and say: ‘You can’t understand this, it’s a black thing’ and then slap him, just for my mental health.” – Democrat Charles Barron, New York city councilman
“Civil rights laws were not passed to protect the rights of white men and do not apply to them.” – Democrat Mary Frances Berry, Chairwoman, US Commission on Civil Rights
(I) “will not let the white boys win in this election.” – Democrat Donna Brazile, Al Gore’s Campaign Manager on the 2000 election
“The old white boys got taken fair and square.” – Democrat San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown after winning an election
“The Medicaid system must have been developed by a white male slave owner. It pays for you to be pregnant and have a baby, but it won’t pay for much family planning.” – Democrat Jocelyn Elders
The white man is our mortal enemy, and we cannot accept him. I will fight to see that vicious beast go down into the lake of fire prepared for him from the beginning, that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring on us for 400 years.” – Democrat Louis Farrakhan who campaigned for Democrat congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in 2002
“We have lost to the white racist press and to the racist reactionary Jewish misleaders.” — Democrat Rep. Gus Savage after his defeat 1992
“White folks was in caves while we was building empires... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.” – Democrat ‘the Rev’ Al Sharpton
“Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.” – Democrat appointee to Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.” –Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson
“I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia [Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan recruiter] that he would have been a great senator at any moment. . . . He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this nation.” –Democrat Senator Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), 2004
“I am a former Kleagle [recruiter] of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County. The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia. It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the union.” — Democrat Senator Robert Byrd
“I don’t care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day. This city will be a majority African-American city. It’s the way God wants it to be.” — Democrat Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin
“Segregation Forever!!” – campaign slogan for Democrat Governor George Wallace
“.....African-Americans watch the same news at night that ordinary Americans do. “ – Democrat President Bill Clinton on Black Entertainment Television, November 2, 1994
“I don’t talk to you white motherf*ckers! You bitch motherf*ckers in the white press! F*ck you, you motherf*cking a$$hole white devils!!” – Democrat Congressman Gus Savage
“[Spitting into the food of white customers at a hotel in Greenville, South Carolina] gave me psychological gratification.” — Democrat Jesse Jackson
“Barack...he’s talking down to black people...telling n*ggers how to behave...I’d like to cuts his nuts out.” – Democrat Jesse Jackson
“If you feel that you just got to mug somebody because of your hurt and your pain, go to River Oaks and mug you some good white folks. If you’re angry that our brother is put to death, don’t burn down your own community, give these white folks hell from the womb to the tomb.” — Democrat Quanell X
“A few years age he (Obama) would be getting coffee for us” — Democrat President Bill Clinton
“The only concession I might make to him(King Saud) is to give him the 60 million jews we have in the United States” — Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt
“We(african-americans) are sort of a mongrel people. I mean we’re all kinds of mixed up” — Democrat President Barak Obama
“The country is ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama..a light-skinned African American with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one” — Democrat Senator Harry Reid (he later apologized)
“I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, okay. Do I need to say more?” — Democrat Senator Harry Reid
“If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very very low crime rate.” — Democrat Marion Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC
Add spitting on returning soldiers to the list.
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