Cuts in the Children's Health Insurance Program and ties between the governor and the private company hired by the state to run CHIP are linked in a new attack on Gov. Rick Perry from Democrat Chris Bell.

The spot implies the hiring of Accenture led to precipitous drops in the number of kids enrolled in CHIP, and that Accenture was hired because it brought in Perry staffers to help sell Texas on its services. In fact, the CHIP cuts were made by the Legislature and Perry at the same time they were changing the law to privatize the program. Accenture was hired after that. Accenture's problems delivering service have raised questions about the firm; those aren't mentioned.

The spot opens a second front in Perry's reelection bid. Carole Keeton Strayhorn is running ads attacking the incumbent's transportation and road program. Perry, meanwhile, is running ads calling Bell a liberal who's relying on trial lawyers — one in particular — for support.

Both Perry and Strayhorn clearly have the funds available to keep the ads coming. Bell got a well-publicized infusion of $1 million from Houston millionaire John O'Quinn; whether he's drawn in more money to keep the air wars going is not clear. His campaign aides say they've got the money to run the ad, that they've received new contributions, and that they're not going to get specific about it until their next campaign finance report is due on the day before Halloween. O'Quinn said at one point he'd invest as much as $5 million in the campaign.

The script:

Male announcer: "Rick Perry gives the children's health insurance contract to Accenture — a Bermuda-based company represented by his former staffers — and a quarter-million children lose their health insurance. Our children's health, sacrificed for Perry's corruption. Democrat Chris Bell will fire Accenture and protect our children's health insurance."

Bell (in front of a Texas flag, talking to an audience of supporters): "When I'm governor, we're going to clean up the corruption and our kids will have health insurance."

A new commercial from gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn is like every kid's nightmare — a report card from a teacher who really and truly doesn't like you.

This is the first of her run that doesn't have the candidate in it. Instead, a quintet of teachers and teacher representatives (from groups that have endorsed Strayhorn) scold Gov. Rick Perry on education issues. The folks in the ad are Jennie Anderson, Rita Haecker, Louis Malfaro, Lisa Maxwell, and Judith Miller. All five are identified in the ad as public school teachers. Malfaro and Haecker are president and vice president, respectively, of Education Austin. Malfaro's also a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers. Both are former teachers. The other three are current teachers in the Austin and Round Rock school districts.

The ad starts with an excerpt from a Perry spot that ran in early summer: "… and more money for our schools. We kept our promises to you."

Maxwell: "No, Governor, you didn't. State funding for education hasn't gone up."

Malfaro: "And you cut health insurance benefits for teachers."

Anderson: "Now, 37,000 Texas teachers are leaving our classrooms every year."

Haecker: "That's why Texas teachers are supporting independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn."

Maxwell: "Carole's been a teacher. She cares about our children."

Malfaro: "We've heard enough political promises. We need Carole Keeton Strayhorn to shake Austin up."

Miller: "So kids can learn and teachers can teach."

Air wars are well underway, making the Texas governor's race more interesting — or at least louder — every day. Down-ballot and up-ballot races are lighting up the blogs, like the congressional campaign in Waco and several Houston-area state House races. Oh, and watch out for Photoshop, especially in the hands of your critics.

* * * * *

The Goobs

Democrat Chris Bell asked independent Richard "Kinky" Friedman to abort his campaign, for the sake of their common goal of defeating incumbent Republican Rick Perry.

Vince Leibowitz at Capitol Annex (a former county Democratic Party chair) supported the maneuver: "Smart move for Bell. He's got Friedman on the ropes as the bad guy who will prevent another four years of the Perry era or, just as bad, Strayhorn."

Eye on Williamson County said, "Chris Bell's action of calling Kinky and asking him to step aside, Bell did what everyone in Texas has been thinking since the debate, It was fun Kinky, but it's over. Do what's best for Texas, step aside, and endorse the best candidate of the three left in the race."

Evan at Rick Perry vs. The World is amazed by people who think independent candidate Friedman will win. "It seems like Kinky Friedman is the gubernatorial Rorschach test, as long as they haven't paid that close attention. Conservatives think he's conservative; liberals think he's liberal. They see whatever they want to see. If he'd have kept his mouth shut about some things, he might've had a chance to win."

At In The Pink Texas, Eileen Smith sets new reaction records every time she mentions Friedman. Most recently, she blogged about Sen. Royce West and Rep. Garnet Coleman's radio ads encouraging Black voters to support Bell (after Friedman's past and present racial comments got some publicity). "Sen. West is a very large man who could probably knock Kinky over by pretending to punch him. If Kinky thinks he's so funny, perhaps he would like to perform a one-man show for West. Gives a whole new meaning to 'tough crowd.'"

In spite of all the challengers' efforts, Paul Burka of Texas Monthly's BurkaBlog says Gov. Perry's strongest opponent is voter apathy. "A significant drop in GOP turnout could reduce the Republican advantage by as much as 5 points. That's not all. Some Republican consultants have noticed that Libertarian candidates are polling better than usual. Maybe this is another sign of disgust with the GOP. So, 5 points lost to turnout, another 3 to 4 lost to Libertarians, and poof! The Republican advantage is about gone."

Eye on Williamson County thought Burka's analysis was lacking. "He didn't even mention the TTC (Trans Texas Corridor) and what that has done to change the politics of rural voters. Many of the people in the path of this disaster were reliable Republican voters and will not vote for Republican candidates, up and down the ballot, that are not against the TTC."

Meantime, independent candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn unveiled several new ads, which were detailed on several blogs.

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Wacko Waco

In Waco's CD-17, incumbent Democrat Chet Edwards appears to be on his way to winning another election, in spite of a majority-Republican district and an Iraqi war veteran opponent.

Right of Texas, which has spent much of the campaign season promoting Republican congressional candidate Van Taylor, posted a photo of one of Edwards' interns with a desecrated flag. A few people responded that you can't judge a person by their interns (is that the same argument they used with Monica Lewinsky?).

Vince Leibowitz at Capitol Annex said, "… it illustrates exactly why Van Taylor is resorting to such filthy tactics as leaking photos they probably found on MySpace or Facebook of young campaign volunteers or Democratic activists who support Edwards and claiming they are 'interns' doing irreverent things to flags."

One man's desecration is another man's irreverance…

* * * * *

Wong vs. Cohen

Rep. Martha Wong, R-Houston, is getting plenty of grief from left-leaning blogs that actively support her opponent, Ellen Cohen.

Perry Dorrell of Brains and Eggs offered up his review of a Wong-Cohen debate: "Ellen Cohen handled this affair the way Chris Bell managed his competition last Friday night: if it had been a prizefight, the referee would have stopped it at the halfway mark."

Kimberly at A Little Pollyanna gives a more detailed account of the event, what the candidates said, and how the audience reacted.

Wong's direct mail pieces have also garnered attention. Burnt Orange Report said, "More recently, Wong sent out a mailer listing a number of bills regarding crime. Trouble is, she didn't sponsor or author any of the bills." And Charles Kuffner of Off the Kuff said the Houston school district's superintendent was a little surprised to find something written in a private thank you note was turned into a campaign endorsement. "I'm really stunned that she hasn't backed down and moved on," Kuffner said. "Is she trying to force Dr. Saavedra into issuing a more strongly worded refutation of her endorsement claim? Maybe she thinks if she holds firm people will believe her, I don't know. Weird, just weird."

* * * * *

Immigration

Rep. Aaron Peña, D-Edinburg, wonders if the Texas Legislature will follow some other border states in trying to address the federal issue of border security next session. On this blog, A Capitol Blog, Rep. Peña said, "Is this any way to run a country? Let's hope we do better in Texas!"

Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast analyzes a story by the East Texas Review on ways the state might get involved in immigration issues.

Meantime, a Republican congressional candidate from Pennsylvania decided to visit the Texas-Mexico border to see what the fuss is all about. After watching several men swim across the Rio Grande, Lone Star Times reports, "…our imaginative candidate did what any of us would do. He hired elephants and a band to demonstrate the ease of crossing the border." Border Patrol agents must have been busy elsewhere because the elephants were never challenged. The candidate said, "If I can get an elephant led by a mariachi band into this country, I think Osama bin Laden could get across with all the weapons of mass destruction he could get into this country." We'll let them think about that argument in Pennsylvania.

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Backbreaking Humor

You have to have a good sense of humor or a thick skin or be provisioned like Willie Nelson when you're running for office, especially with all of the software that can be used to manipulate images. Pink Dome got some laughs this week by tinkering with a file photo of Gov. Rick Perry that originally ran in the Abilene Reporter-News. Yikes.

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Robyn Hadley cherry-picks the state's political blogs each week, looking for news, info, gossip, and new jokes. Robyn, a veteran of both journalism and the state Capitol, is the owner of Capitol Crowd, a networking site for people who work in and around state government. The opinions she quotes belong to the bloggers, and we're including their links so you can hunt them down if you wish. Please send comments, suggestions, gripes or retorts to Robyn at robyn@capitolcrowd.com, or to Texas Weekly editor Ross Ramsey, at ramsey@texasweekly.com.

The Financial standings in House races on our watch list...The chart comes from campaign reports that cover campaign activity from July 1 to September 28, the period when most campaigns really got busy on the general election. It's often a good idea to look at expenditures as well as cash on hand, since some campaigns buy signs and TV time and such in advance. You can't say someone's campaign doesn't have the money for XYZ based on their cash balance; they might have a big box of XYZ out there in the garage, waiting for the moment they'll need it.

Click on the image (or here) to download a .pdf version. And to look at a candidate's full report, go to the website of the Texas Ethics Commission, plug in the name you want, and off you go.

Gov. Rick Perry started his air assault weeks ago with spots about the Texas-Mexico border, and he's returning to that subject in his newest commercials.

Perry on a hill overlooking the Rio Grande, talking to a sheriff; a silhouette of someone loading a truck at night while someone looks on with a gun in hand; Zapata County Sheriff Sigi Gonzales on an overlook with the river behind him; Val Verde County Sheriff D'Wayne Jernigan on the river bank; a shot of a cop handcuffing someone; some quick shots the river, Perry walking with the sheriffs, a busy border checkpoint, and then a shot of Perry on the river overlook.

The spot also includes several headlines: "Drug war spreads fear along Mexican border"; "Security blitz along border... cuts illegal activity in five Texas counties"; "Perry sends more officers, equipment to battle border violence"; and "Perry commits money to border security plan." Here's the script for the ad called "Border Leader":

Announcer: "Rick Perry, working to protect our border."

Gonzalez: "We were overwhelmed by drug gangs. Thanks to Gov. Perry, we now have more vehicles, weapons, and additional manpower to protect the border.

Jernigan: "The governor's border security plan has resulted in a 60 percent drop in crime in our counties. Rick Perry is making a difference."

Announcer: "Gov. Rick Perry. The only one with a proven record of securing our border, and a $100 million plan to stop border crime. Rick Perry. Making Texas safer."

New polls: Perry and Hutchison still lead on the eve of early voting.

Rick Perry slipped a bit, Carole Keeton Strayhorn held her ground, Chris Bell pulled even with her, and Kinky Friedman dropped into single digits in a new poll done for Texans for Insurance Reform, a political action committee affiliated with the Texas Trial Lawyers Association.

The group attributes the changes from one poll to the next to television advertising by Strayhorn and Bell. But they conclude that Perry continues to benefit from the fractured race for second place; if no candidate breaks out of that pack — and in a dramatic way — nobody will overtake an incumbent who looks to bring in less than 40 percent of the vote on November 7.

In that survey, Perry got 33 percent (including those who say they'll vote for him and those who lean that way); Strayhorn got 18 percent; Bell got 18 percent; and Friedman got 8 percent. Strayhorn is the second-place choice of about a third of the voters, and the only one of the challengers who would beat Perry in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup.

Other tidbits:

• The percentage of people with an unfavorable opinion of Friedman rose to 48 percent, far and away the worst of any of the four main candidates.

• None of the candidates has left more than half the electorate with a favorable impression. Approval of Perry, at 46 percent, was highest, though his unfavorables, at 38 percent outdo everyone but Friedman.

• Bell is better known that he was even two weeks ago, but one in four voters said they haven't heard of the Democrat.

• George W. Bush remains more popular in Texas than elsewhere; 49 percent said they approve of the job he's doing (including 80 percent of Republicans), while 39 percent disapprove.

• Most of Perry's supporters — 67 percent — are Republicans, but a quarter of them are independents. Most of Bell's — 69 percent — are Democrats, but about a quarter come from the independent ranks. Strayhorn's gang is evenly distributed among Republicans, Democrats, and independents. And Friedman gets 49 percent of his vote from Republicans and 35 percent from independents.

• Slice it the other way, to see where the party folk are going (instead of what the mix is for each candidate). Perry's getting 58 percent of the GOP votes, with 16 percent going to Strayhorn and 7 percent to Friedman. Most of the rest are undecided. Bell, with 48 percent, is not quite getting half the Democratic voters. Strayhorn gets 21 percent and Perry gets 11 percent. Friedman gets 4 percent of the Democrats and the rest of that pack is undecided. Independents break this way: Perry, 26 percent; Strayhorn, 18 percent; Friedman, 17 percent; and Bell, 15 percent.

• TIR polled one issue, finding that the Trans Texas Corridor — a centerpiece of the attacks on Perry — has the approval of 17 percent of Texans, while 68 percent say they disapprove of it. Just over half of Perry's own supporters — 50.5 percent — disapprove of his transportation plan. (Here's how they asked: "The Trans-Texas Corridor is Governor Perry's plan to relieve traffic and help interstate commerce by building a massive toll road highway system across the State. This plan involves condemnation of 1/2 million acres of private property, which will be leased to a privately-owned company from Spain for fifty years. That company will build and operate toll roads, setting the price of tolls and determining who will be allowed to operate motels, gas stations and restaurants along the toll roads. Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the Governor's plan?")

The survey was done by Opinion Analysts from October 11-15. They talked to 602 likely general election voters, and say the margin of error is +/- 4 percent. You can look at the entire poll, with questions and everything else, at TIR's website.

A new Wall Street Journal/Zogby poll (subscription required)has U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison comfortably ahead of Democratic challenger Barbara Ann Radnofsky on the eve of the only debate between those two candidates. By their reckoning, Hutchison has 60 percent, Radnofsky has 28 percent, and Libertarian Scott Jameson has 5 percent (that's a large number, historically speaking, for a Libertarian in a race like this). The surveyors were in the field October 10-16, and say their poll has a +/- 3 percent margin of error.

In the gubernatorial race, the same poll has Gov. Rick Perry at 38 percent, followed by Democrat Chris Bell at 26 percent, independent Kinky Friedman at 13 percent and independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn at 13 percent. James Werner, the Libertarian in that contest, got 4 percent from the respondents. The dates of the poll and the margins of error are the same as for the Senate poll.

Early voting in this election starts on Monday in Texas. That fact leads to this one: The ad wars are well underway now, led by the three gubernatorial candidates with money. Republican Rick Perry and independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn, as we've written, have the dough they need to remain in your living room until this is over. Friedman has a limited TV run on cable stations.

Chris Bell's running ads, too, as long as the money holds up. His campaign says they'll be on the air through the election. But they've rejiggered their schedule, cutting back on TV time they'd reserved in some parts of the state and leaving their commercials alone in others parts of Texas. The Perry camp hectored them for pulling down ads in South Texas, saying Bell was ignoring that part of the state. Bell's camp countered by saying their guy had been in South Texas for two days when the Perry camp popped off.

Bell's got a version of the same problem he's had all along. He's running an underfinanced campaign, even with O'Quinn's spigots opened all the way. But his aides say they'll be in front of voters through the end of this election.

Without Houston lawyer John O'Quinn, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell wouldn't be on television during the last three weeks of this election cycle.

The $2.5 million he's provided for that campaign — whether Bell wins or not — will be the new answer to a standard question about Texas politics and the "no limits" policy for campaign finance. That question usually is something like, "Do you mean to tell me that somebody could give a candidate a million bucks and it's legal?" Instead of, "You betcha," we've got a new answer: "Hey, in 2006, a guy gave his candidate $2.5 million."

It's a serious hunk of money, and it almost washes the other gubernatorial candidates of the stains their big contributors left. But not quite. Kinky Friedman's campaign contributions are dominated by the giving of John McCall, a pal of the candidate who has donated $851,000 to that cause. Carole Keeton Strayhorn has received contributions of at least $1.4 million from Dallas tax consultant George Brint Ryan and other executives of Ryan & Co. and its affiliated political action committee. Gov. Rick Perry has a number of big donors, the biggest of whom is Houston builder Bob Perry and his wife Doylene Perry (no relation to the governor), who's given the governor $330,000 over the last two years. (The Perrys have contributed $15.9 million to various politicos in Texas since January 2000, and $6.1 million since the beginning of 2005.)

 

The Stars Over Texas PAC, set up by House Speaker Tom Craddick and Republican colleagues to protect GOP incumbents in the House and support Republicans in open seats, listed nine candidates on the protection list in its latest report and gave them contributions ranging from $8,000 to $25,000.

The beneficiaries include Gene Seaman of Corpus Christi and Bill Welch of Austin, $25,000; Kirk England of Grand Prairie, Toby Goodman of Arlington, Tony Goolsby of Dallas, Bill Keffer of Dallas, and Jim Murphy of Houston, $10,000; and Byron Cook of Corsicana and Martha Wong of Houston, $8,000.

The list of donors had some interesting names, too: Craddick, Houston builder Bob Perry, and the Ryan & Co. PAC that's affiliated with a high profile Dallas tax consultancy, all gave $50,000. The Heart Place PAC of Dallas gave $25,000, and Midland oilman and former gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams Jr. gave $20,000.

• Gov. Rick Perry got to the end of September with more money in the bank than any other state candidate who's on the November ballot. He had $9.2 million in the bank. Next on the list: Attorney General Greg Abbott, $7.7 million; Carole Keeton Strayhorn, $5 million; Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, $2.6 million; Agriculture Commissioner candidate Todd Staples, $1.4 million; Senate nominee Kirk Watson, D-Austin, $1.1 million; Comptroller candidate Susan Combs, $1 million. See the whole list, derived from Texas Ethics Commission reports and sorted by dollar amount, in our Files section.

• El Paso Republican Dee Margo raised $194,204 for his challenge to Democrat Eliot Shapleigh over the last three months, and got to the end of September with $159,903 in the bank.

• If it was the price keeping you from buying a Kinky Friedman action figure, you'll find them on the candidate's website at a discount. The talking Kinky dolls were $29.95; now they're available for $20.

• Democrat John Courage — one of several candidates challenging U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio — is touting a poll that shows Smith has support from just 45 percent of the people in the district. Courage is well behind, at 30 percent, followed by five other candidates. Undecided voters made up 12 percent in the poll by Forensic Economics Data Consulting. The margin of error was +/- 5 percent.

• Rep. Gene Seaman, R-Corpus Christi, is under attack from the Good Government PAC and blames his opponent, Democrat Juan Garcia, for that third-party offensive. Garcia — he's quoted in Seaman's own press release — says he doesn't have any control over the political group's ads. The PAC's sole contributor in the last report — the Corpus-based Watts Law Firm — gave $100,000. The PAC then spent $58,670 on a "voter contact program" on Garcia's behalf. That report only covered sending through September 28. Seaman's complaint is about what's going on now, which could involve new spending (or could have been purchased last month for delivery now).

The one debate of this year's race for U.S. Senate didn't produce any real news — meaning it was a win for the incumbent.

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison stayed on message and didn't make any mistakes, and she handled questions about Iraq, transportation funding and her broken term limits promise of 12 years ago without any fumbles. She said she'd have voted against the Iraq war if she'd known there were no weapons of mass destruction. She defended her record on transportation funding, saying the state's haul of federal dollars is second only to the one bigger state, California. And she called the question on term limits a fair one, saying she didn't stop at two terms, as promised, because senators from other states don't have to and she didn't want to put Texas at a disadvantage. She said she'd vote for term limits if they affected everyone.

Democrat Barbara Ann Radnofsky tore at Hutchison's record, saying the state should be doing better on transportation funding when measured on a per capita basis (Hutchison prefers total dollars, where the state looks better). She reiterated her support for a withdrawal from Iraq, and she said the state needs a senator "who is five-foot-nine and looks good in purple."

The Libertarian in the race, Scott Jameson, was less confrontational but had studied up. He answered a question on federal earmarks by citing statistics more dramatic than the questioner's, and answered another by saying the disconnect between rising congressional salaries and stagnant minimum wages dated to the mid-1950s.

But in the end, there wasn't much news in the one-hour public television forum in San Antonio. And without a goof by the front-runner or a remarkable performance by a challenger, that's a win for the incumbent.