Their mirrors might say otherwise, but Republican rivals Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison didn't look too pretty in recently released videos and book excerpts. Texas House races catch the new media's attention this week, as do statewide Democrats and an incarcerated blogger. Wrapping it up is information about the state school board, the border wall, a town hall meeting and other topics.

* * * * *

Gotcha Guv

Perry appears to be making light of the economic recession in a video taken at a Houston Chamber of Commerce event and posted on the Internet. "We're in one?" the governor asks, to laughter.

"This kind of arrogance will lose the election for Perry," says Hutchison supporter Pondering Penguin. The incident even got Texas Fred, who's a Perry guy, to reminiscing about Claytie Williams. The Houston Chronicle's Texas Politics thinks Perry was joking.

"It could cost him the race," BurkaBlog says. In the comments section to that post, Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, supports his buddy Perry, saying the Guv followed up the remark with an assertion that yes, indeed, there are Texans suffering. Patrick also describes a lone shadowy figure that he fingers as the likely culprit with the camera. Later, Burka considers the possibility that Hutchison operatives shot and edited the tape in order to produce the macaca-like moment. (Sidenote: We're not licensed private investigators, but the Perry video is the first one ever posted by that particular YouTube user, who hadn't even watched another YouTube video before, according to the profile page.)

Speaking of bad publicity, the Dallas Morning News' Trail Blazers got their mitts on the latest tell-all book by a former George W. Bush staffer. Teasers include an unflattering anecdote about Hutchison and her "purse boys" and a declaration that top White House advisors "were completely oblivious" to health care costs, while they got treatment from the President's doctors for free.

A new Rasmussen Reports poll has Hutchison back in a virtual tie with Perry, after being up and down by a dozen or more points at various times. (More on the poll from us here.) The Austin Chronicle's Newsdesk says Perry's "little mid-Summer bump" is over. Texas Politics doesn't think it's fair that respondents were asked about Perry's job performance but not Hutchison's. And the Austin American-Statesman's First Reading breaks the results down by age and income.

Burka pinpoints the following factors for Hutchison's leap: "Overconfidence and misjudgments in the Perry camp"; "Overestimation of Perry's appeal"; "Too much talk about Washington, not enough about Texas"; "Poor political judgment leading to negative press coverage"; and, "Repeating the Claytie Williams mistake" (i.e., not shaking Ann Richards' hand, making light of rape, etc., etc., etc.).

Texas Politics relays a rumor that Hutchison will resign on New Year's (a KBH staffer says that ain't so). Meanwhile, Trail Blazers follows Perry around Washington, here, here, here, here and here. And here's more from the Houston Chronicle's Texas on the Potomac.

The Hutchison campaign is passing around a photo linking Perry to ACORN, which the Huffington Post dug up last October from a 2005 ACORN newsletter, according to Trail Blazers.

Headline of the Week award goes to a couple of bloggers for synchronized titles. Prof13 writes about "The Rick and Rudy Show," saying it was a good move on Perry's part to trot out former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Elsewhere, Texas Observer's Purple Texas tunes into "The Rick and Kay Show," which they feel, like Jeopardy!, revolves around trivia.

And after watching a KXAN-TV news report on the Perry-Giuliani appearance, In the Pink asks what we consider a very astute question: "Why is Rick Perry rubbing that old guy's head?" (See it for yourself 12 seconds into the clip.)

* * * * *

The Replacements

A Capitol Blog has favorable impressions of both Democrats vying to succeed retiring Rep. Kino Flores, D-Palmview. Hearing about Flores' announcement, the Texas Observer's La Linea quips, "We'll miss the gold jewelry and the bullying on the House floor (not!)." (Apparently their WABAC machine was set to the year 1992.) And here's Burka's take on the Flores situation.

Off the Kuff doesn't particular like Democrats' chances in the "pretty red" House District 69, which sitting Rep. David Farabee, D-Wichita Falls, is vacating. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Burnt Orange Report is more optimistic. Greg's Opinion says, "But it definitely puts us [Dems] one down in an already tough election cycle."

Meanwhile, a couple of bloggers look at the situation in HD-52, currently held by freshman Rep. Diana Maldonado, D-Round Rock. Click on the blog's names for takes from Eye on Williamson and Newsdesk, respectively. And Blue Dot Blues surveys several nascent races, predicting that Republicans are poised to give Democrats all they can handle for control of the House.

* * * * *

Democratic Drought Busters?

Texas Politics corners Houston Mayor (and U.S. Senate hopeful) Bill White and asks if there's any chance he would switch to the governor's race. He answers, "I don't think that will be a scenario." (Editor's Note: That's not exactly a No, now, is it?) Walker Report has photos of John Sharp, the former Texas Comptroller and White's opponent, in the San Antonio area. And if there does turn out to be a U.S. Senate contest, White and Sharp would be Tier One fundraisers among Democratic candidates nationally, Trail Blazers says.

Democratic Lt. Gov.-hopeful Marc Katz found himself in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in front of the wrong group of people — including the Statesman's Postcards video blogger Ken Herman — who chronicles the Austin deli owner's futile attempt to file his candidacy for office. (One of Katz's several fatal errors: The filing period doesn't start until December.) Elsewhere, a little birdie tells Texas Cloverleaf that 2006 Democratic Lt. Gov. nominee Maria Luis Alvarado is thinking about making a second try at the position.

* * * * *

Blogman of Alcatraz

New Hampshire law enforcement arrested Ellis County Observer publisher Joey Dauben on fugitive from justice charges in Texas. He's accused of several felonies — engaging in organized criminal activity, obstruction or retaliation, and misuse of official information — related to a feud with Combine (Kaufman County) police Det. John Allen "Jay" Hoskins, a former contributor to the blog. Lawyers advised ECO bloggers to remove posts about Hoskins, and they did. Without delving into the dirty details, we'll share headlines of some of the offending entries (all from within the past week or so), including: "Blogger jailed for posting internal police info"; "Official Oppression Complaint Filed Against John Allen "Jay" Hoskins"; and, "Is Jay Gay?"

In related news, the job fatality rate for newspaper publishers is lower than firefighters but higher than carpenters, according to a dangerous jobs list posted by Grits for Breakfast.

* * * * *

The 56-year-old Virgin

Texas Freedom Network Insider live-blogs from the State Board of Education's Social Studies hearings, here, here and here. In summary, the blogger says that in spite of themselves, board members made "some important progress for ensuring that our schoolchildren get an honest and sound education." More from Postcards here. And here's a rule of thumb: If you're 56 years old, a virgin, and you think a state school board meeting is an appropriate forum in which to air that information, you're going to get blogged about by In the Pink.

La Linea isn't impressed with the latest report from the federal Government Accountability Office on the border fence, which stretches 633 miles (with 28 miles to go). In a nutshell, the feds still aren't sure of the effectiveness of the fence, even after spending $6.5 million per mile on construction. (That's a little more than $102 per inch.)

Bay Area Houston brought his video camera to another one of U.S. Rep. Pete Olson's town hall forums. A couple of commenters question the blogger's objective retelling of the facts. Meanwhile, liberal blogger Dog Canyon calls out several Texas Republicans to address fomenting anger among their fellow GOPers. "Do something about it," the blogger implores pollster Mike Baselice, strategist Mark McKinnon and former Gov. Bill Clements. The post attracted a couple dozen responses as of Sunday afternoon, but none from the addressees.

Postcards tracked U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's movements during a fundraising trip to the Austin home of former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, here, here and here. And Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, uses Blue Dot Blues as an outlet to distribute a letter to Pelosi, which is civil in tone but critical of Pelosi and the Golden State.

Texas Watchdog creates an introductory video on how to use their interactive map of state legislators' ethics forms. Also, Watchdog wants to know why Texas officials' spouses are not required to disclose their finances. (In the beginning of the post, they hold up Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, as an example of someone whose legislative duties "collided" with his spouse's financial life. Down near the bottom, the blogger says Hegar effectively voted against his wife's business interests, for the record.)

---

This edition of Out There was compiled and written by Patrick Brendel, who hails from Victoria but is semi-settled in Austin. We cherry-pick the state's political blogs each week, looking for news, info, gossip, and new jokes. The opinions here belong (mostly) to the bloggers, and we're including their links so you can hunt them down if you wish. Our blogroll — the list of Texas blogs we watch — is on our links page, and if you know of a Texas political blog that ought to be on it, just shoot us a note. Please send comments, suggestions, gripes or retorts to Texas Weekly editor Ross Ramsey.

It turns out Gov. Rick Perry didn't stop talking about the recession when the posted version of his speech in Houston, and his next sentence made some sense of the one he's getting pasted for. Perry's first line, as presented via YouTube last week: "Someone had put a report out that the first state that's coming out of the recession is gonna be the State of Texas... I said, 'We're in one?'" Here's the second line that the Kay Bailey Hutchison campaign cut out of what they posted last week: "Seriously, though, the fact is that because we have positioned ourselves so well economically, we're going to be the first state to start showing that major recovery and the rest of the states will follow us out of it, whenever that's going to be." KHOU-TV found the rest of the tape and the folks who edited it (look to the senior senator from Texas). And here's the full audio clip.

Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison have raised $29 million for their gubernatorial campaigns, and before that race is really underway, Texans for Public Justice has started analyzing the prodigious fundraising.TPJ's report is available online. It concentrates on the two Republicans because their campaign treasuries far outstrip those of the other candidates (Democrat Tom Schieffer has yet to break $1 million in his reported campaign contributions). Some highlights: • Perry has raised more money from big donors (giving $50,000 or more) than Hutchison, getting $3.4 million from those sources while she brought in $1.7 million from the bigs. • The governor has raised more money from out of state than the senator, pulling eight percent of his money from beyond Texas borders; she got two percent of her money from donors outside of Texas. • The report lists 38 contributors who gave both Perry and Hutchison more than $15,000, ten of whom contributed to Perry after Hutchison established her state finance committee.

By Morgan Smith, The Texas Tribune September 28 is a magic date for those speculating about Kay Bailey Hutchison's resignation. Because it's 36 days before the November 3 uniform election, it's the deadline for her to step down and still to have her Senate seat filled then.

Hutchison has said she intends to step down by the end of this year. The next uniform general election date after November is on May 8. So if Hutchison resigns this year—but sometime after the 28th — it could be four months until voters elected a new senator. In that situation, Gov. Rick Perry could choose between two options: wait until May, or declare an emergency and hold the election earlier. Either way, Perry gets to name an interim senator to fill the spot until the election, awarding an ally with a plumb Senate spot. It also comes with a risk. The Texas public has been unfriendly to appointees in this situation, so when the election rolls around, the new senator could be out of a job.

To order an emergency election, Perry can pick any Tuesday or Saturday that isn't a primary election or runoff day, and that is between 36 and 50 days away. (That means the first Tuesday in March of next year and the second Tuesday in April are out). Perry could choose the emergency election for its strategic advantages. The last emergency special election for a Senate seat was in 1993, and it attracted 23 candidates. The high number of candidates makes run-offs likely (Hutchison was the winner in '93, after a runoff). If Perry sets an emergency election for January, the run-off would likely be in February. That would ask voters to turn out for two elections in a row before the March primary; only the most hard-core conservatives — those the governor's strategists believe are on his side — would stick around for a third election in March.

If Monday comes and goes without an announcement from Hutchison's camp, the best fodder for political junkies hoping to probe Perry and Hutchison's strategy is the January 4 filing deadline for gubernatorial candidates. Both of the Republican hopefuls' interests lie in keeping strong Democratic candidates who are eyeing both the Senate and governor's races from running twice (a loser in the first race would be free to run in the second). That means that even if a November date is out of the question, Perry could decide to delay the ordering of a special election until after the January filing deadline to box out candidates who might want to run for both races.

From Hutchison's perspective, stepping down early could yield a few benefits. It would let her focus solely on the race in Texas. If she resigns before next week, she could also avoid any attacks lobbed by Perry advocates that she's wasting taxpayer money by not allowing her vacancy to be filled on a uniform election date. (Texans for Fiscal Responsibility obtained an estimate from Secretary of State Hope Andrade that says a special election to replace Hutchison, with a run-off, could take $30 million from public coffers). If Perry wants to push the election back, he'd then be on the hook for the cost. And if he were to stick with the November 3 date, he'd be the guy who gave Democrats like Bill White and John Sharp two bites at the apple.

msmith@texastribune.org

Gov. Rick Perry's day is Tuesday, when (according to an email he sent this week to supporters), he'll announce for governor. In case you were wondering about his plans.

The governor's folks aren't talking openly about the official announcement, but they're planning an Internet broadcast that'll be streamed to your screen from wherever it is he plans to be talking.

The pitch, from his email: "If you're as tired as I am of Washington politicians running up the tab on hard-working Texans, there's something we can do about it. Join me for an online discussion Tuesday, September 29, at 11:30 a.m. CDT (10:30 in El Paso) as we 'Talk Texas'. Watch your personal video below to learn more. Thanks, God bless you, and may He continue to bless the great State of Texas."

Monday is K-Day. If Kay Bailey Hutchison quits before then, the election to replace her can be held on November 3. If she quits after that date, the replacement race will be held later.

How much later? That would be up to Gov. Rick Perry. If he does nothing, the special election for U.S. Senate would be held on the next uniform election date, in May. He can declare an emergency, though, and set the election on almost any Tuesday or Saturday, so long as it's at least 36 days after Hutchison's resignation date and not on the days the primary elections or their runoffs are held.

That assumes Hutchison will quit, as she's indicated, in the October-November time frame. She doesn't have to quit. Some of her advisors and supporters think she ought to stay in office. Quitting would let her concentrate on the race and get her out of whatever fights in Washington come later this year. But Perry has already tagged her as part of the federal government and she has said (in spite of that bit about October and November above) that she'd like to be there for votes on health care and maybe on cap and trade. Remaining in office also gives her political leverage she'd instantly lose as a former senator. If she stays, and loses in March, she'll still be the senior senator from Texas. Perry's not going anywhere, and he'll still be governor in April. If one's still gonna be here, win or lose, and the other one isn't, the political calculations for people who are currently on the fence are less risky: Choose the one who can hurt you later.

Hutchison and Perry both have reason to avoid a November 3 special election. That's the date of the Houston mayoral election, and current Mayor Bill White, who's running for Senate if Hutchison quits, would have an advantage over other candidates. His home county and the counties that border it produced 22 percent of the state's votes in last year's presidential election. That's roughly the same Houston media market where he's been on TV regularly since he was elected mayor in 2003. And if he were to run and lose a special election for Senate in November, he'd be able to dust himself off and try for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2010. The ads in the Senate race would form the foundation for a statewide race for Guv. That's not something either Republican wants.

Hutchison has an additional incentive: It wouldn't help her candidacy for governor much if her resignation from the Senate caused that position to flip from the Republicans to the Democrats. Several Republicans in the race could split those votes, which could be an advantage to White or to former Comptroller John Sharp. Republicans will tell you it's a Republican state and the seat ought to remain in the GOP column, but if you're Hutchison, why risk it?

—Morgan Smith of The Texas Tribune contributed to this story.

True facts from the Texas political world from just one week:

• Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, debuted on Dancing with the Stars, starting with a wiggling back to the camera and then lip-syncing "Wild Thing" and sliding across the dance floor on his knees...

• Gov. Rick Perry got caught on a video joking that Texas ducked the recession — on a day when a state agency announced unemployment is now at 8 percent...

• U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's campaign admitted a couple of days later that they were the ones who taped that speech — and the ones who put it on the Internet and in their press releases without his next line, when Perry acknowledged economic trouble but predicted Texas will lead other states in the recovery...

• Democratic gubernatorial candidate Hank Gilbert started a three-day tour of the state that included a stop in Austin where reporters outnumbered supporters and where the candidate got the names of two opponents wrong, referring to "Ted" Schieffer (it's "Tom") and to Kay Bailey "Hutchinson" (it's Hutchison)...

• Democratic Lite Guv candidate Marc Katz — who runs a popular deli in Austin — led local reporters from on a wild goose chase that ended with him at the Secretary of State's office to find out, with cameras rolling, that it's too early to file for office and that the SOS isn't where that's done, anyhow...

Themes: Democrats Tom Schieffer and Hank Gilbert and Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison are all talking about the state's high dropout rates in their bids for governor. A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics said the average freshman graduation rate in Texas in 2005-06 was 72.5 percent. Those are the students who started high school but, for one reason or another, didn't finish.

Attorney General hopeful Ted Cruz says he's got endorsements from the majority of the State Republican Executive Committee. He counts 33 on his side out of 62 (there are two in each state Senate district). Cruz is a contingent candidate who plans to run if current AG Greg Abbott leaves office. Abbott's been looking at a run for lieutenant governor. State Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, is also interested in the AG gig if Abbott leaves.

For your list: Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Van, says he'll seek a fifth term in the Texas House. That's HD-2.

Francisco "Quico" Canseco is in the running — again — for the U.S. House seat currently occupied by Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio. CD-23 is within striking distance for a Republican, by the numbers. It's got a Texas Weekly Index of 0.2, meaning that the average statewide Republican candidate beat the average statewide Democratic candidate by that margin in the last two election cycles. So, on paper, it's a draw. But Rodriguez won with 56 percent last year, and Canseco lost in the GOP primary.

Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, has a book out. It's "Getting Out of Grover's Tub." The title is a reference to a famous Grover Norquist line about shrinking government until it's small enough to drown in the bathtub. The book's got it's own website, here.