The real question is what did Rick Perry have to do in order to win his party’s 51%?  The result that may well count the most is the continued exodus of  voters out of the Republican Party who can no longer stand the political stench created by the Governor.

How do we know this?  Four days prior to election day, volunteers from Independent Texans including yours truly, were on the phone calling independent voters in House District 92.  These voters had backed Carole Keeton Strayhorn or Kinky Freidman as independents for Governor in 2006.  We asked them to kindly vote in the Republican primary for Debra Medina and to help reelect their Texas House representative Todd Smith.  On Saturday, I received a call from Smith’s opponent, Jeff Cason, who claimed he didn’t really know who Bob Perry was, though he had just taken $25,000 from him.  Ironically, on Monday a jury awarded a Mansfield couple $51 million in a case against Perry Homes.  Maybe now Cason knows who Bob Perry is.

Bob Perry’s connections to Rick Perry and the Governor’s appointees to the Texas Residential Construction Commission had been a big issue back in 2006 when  Smith asked then State Comptroller, Carole Strayhorn, to review the agency.  This investigation eventually led to the abolition of the agency by the Sunset Commission.

Mr. Cason seemed to think that, as an independent, I would be angered if I knew the “truth” about Smith’s failure to pass the Voter ID bill.  I might have caught him off guard when I said that from the vantage point of Texas independents the real failing of Voter ID was its dominance of the last session.  I further pointed out to Cason that about 4 million independent, non-aligned Texas voters have been disenfranchised for about 40 years.  We were much hotter to trot on real reforms like Redistricting Reform — taking the redistricting weapon out of the hands of both parties.

I wouldn’t, for one minute, claim we saved Todd Smith, though we were happy to help.  My point is the same as Will Lutz of the Lone Star Report.  There is a growing lack of decency and honesty in Texas politics.  Political honesty is a prerequisite for any true reform.  Cason’s temerity in sending out a mailing implying that Todd Smith was soft on sexual predation deserved a smack down – which HD 92 voters likely figured out for themselves.

I got a note from a member of the Texas media (one of the few who likes Rick Perry) who wrote to me, “Why don’t you just get over it”—referring to Perry’s penchant for privatized toll roads and the Trans-Texas Corridor.  Our grudge against Rick Perry goes way deeper than the resentment Texans naturally feel for the Governor’s attempt to grab 500,000 acres of prime, private farmland for the TTC.  It goes to the structural problems in our electoral system which breeds more and more polarization.  This creates opportunities for likes of Rick Perry despite the fact that they actually enjoy minority (no pun intended) support.  An example of my point is the defeat of Victor Carillo, Republican incumbent Railroad Commissioner.  It appears that Mr. Carrillo’s only “sin” was his Hispanic last name.

One out every two of those voting in the Republican primary voted for Debra Medina (18.6%) or Kay Bailey Hutchison (33.3%).  Kay’s concession speech came with less than 20% of the precincts having been counted.  It was clear that regular Republicans, out of weakness in the face of the Medina insurgency, needed to circle the wagons.  If we, at Independent Texans, have anything to say about it, the wagons will be re-routed somewhere else in November.  We can start with the political reform that gets to the heart of partisan power over the next two years – redistricting.

Prediction:  If Bill White figures out how to reach out to independents with real reform propositions on redistricting and more, he will beat Rick Perry.  If he doesn’t, Rick Perry will keep fueling the rise of independent politics in Texas and some day we will win.

Message to Texas Tea Partiers:  You have an important decision to make.  Are you really independent, or will you patch things up like Kay did with Rick Perry and Sarah Palin, who are out to use and then crush you?  It’s your choice.

Message to Bill White:  Pledge to move redistricting to a special session and have the Governor’s Call contain this simple message – legislators should not be allowed to draw their own district lines.  This is an example of what it means to be a small “i” independent (and, as you say, “inclusive”) Governor.

PS For to those wanting to be knowledgeable:  The new online Texas Tribune newspaper is providing excellent followup coverage of Texas races, including a nifty tool to search for where candidates are getting their contributions.

If you haven’t voted yet, tomorrow’s the big day.  Polls are open from 7 am to 7 pm.  If you don’t know where your poll is, call your County Clerk’s office or just google it at “polling place” (with your county).

If you haven’t yet decided who your candidate for Governor is, here’s why Independent Texans members endorsed Debra Medina in the Republican primary.*

Here’s one of the best reasons to Boot Perry, not that you need convincing.  Rick Perry is paying ordinary folks to get on the internet and use social networking tools (like Facebook and Twitter) to reach people in their networks to pull a fast one — again — on unsuspecting Texas voters.  Maybe these are the jobs Rick keeps touting that he’s “created.”

Fight fire with fire, y’all!

Get on Facebook, get on Twitter, or just get on the phone and spread the word about Perry by sending folks here BootPerry.org for the real dish.  I’m calling people today and tonight.  (Call me or hit reply if you want to help today or this evening.)

Also, if you live in Texas House Rep. Todd Smith’s district (Euless, Hurst and Bedford), please consider keeping this incumbent & read our post here as to why.

Independents are united on just a few things.  None of us are real fond of dirty tricks nor lies.  That’s why Rick and his fat-cat backer, homebuilder Bob Perry, need to feel the boot tomorrow.

We will never forget Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor!

Independently yours,

Linda Curtis, Independent Texans, 512-535-0989 office

*Remember, Texas has open primaries, which means you do not have to pre-register with a party to vote in their primary.  If you lean Democratic, it appears that the gubernatorial nomination is not competitive (Bill White is a strong favorite), therefore, why not vote in the Republican primary this year?  But do keep in mind that if you are with a “third-party” (Libertarian, Green, Constitution, etc.), you cannot sign their petition nor participate in a third-party convention and vote in either party primary.

*  There are contested Democratic judicial races in the Austin/Travis County area.  If you want to know who I am personally supporting just reply and ask.

Least we be filled with all kinds of nonsense from pundits about what this really means, here’s an independent view.  At least 18,721 Texans get it…Texas has an open primary system.  Moreover, just because these 18,721 Texans voted in the Democratic primary in 2008 doesn’t mean they were Democrats nor are they now Republicans.  These clever Texans shop the ballot — they’re independents!  And, they’re out to Boot Perry!

ALSO State Rep. Todd Smith (R-Euless), chair of the House Elections Committee has apparently invoked the ire of the Perry-Perry machinery.  (That’s Rick Perry and homebuilder Bob Perry who ARE related — they’re both crooks, as well as David Weekley and others in the real estate/homebuilder/toll road lobby.)  Smith’s opponent, a guy named Cason, has been running around the district talking dirty trash about Smith’s supposed stand on sex offenders.

According to Will Lutz of the Lone Star Report the attacks on Smith are happening because Smith had the audacity to question the Texas Residential Construction Commission. Remember how Rick put the TRCC under Bob Perry’s thumb to stop citizen complaints from getting anywhere? (Read about the Perrys’ dirty tricks on Smith here)

Are you sick yet?  We can use your help with phone calls the next three days!  Call us right away at 512-535-0989 if you can help.

Thanks so very much to all of you who have helped with money and time for the get-out-the-vote calls for Debra Medina!

And, of course, get out and vote on Tuesday if you haven’t yet done so and bring your fellow Texans with you.

My advice to Rick Perry is to keep running – down your toll roads.  The fact that Beck, Perry and now Kay (shame on you girl!) are attacking Medina makes me want to support her all the more.

You see, independents love a fair fight and we detest the party machines for their dirty tricks.  Although independents span the political spectrum, and therefore many of us don’t exactly fit into the Tea Party movement, we appreciate what is going on here.  Medina is standing up to the party hacks and saying that ordinary people have – quite simply – the right to think and say whatever they believe without being demonized.  The party hacks will never stand for that.  But you knew that already, right?

Beck’s attack on Medina should be taken as a signal and a warning to tea partiers that the Republican Party will do and spend whatever it takes to crash and burn your party.  There is a better place for you.  It’s called the independent movement.  But let me give you fair warning.  We are of the belief that nothing is going to change about policy in this country, unless we build a united movement (across the ideological divide) for political reform.

We tried to build a united front for reform back in the 1990’s when Perot-led independent movement came on like gangbusters.  But the Republican Party co-opted and then killed our agenda (deficit reduction, term limits and campaign finance reform).  The rest of the movement killed itself off arguing about which litmus test we would use to denote a “true reformer”.  Let’s not keep replaying this bad movie.

Here’s the Beck/Medina tape on YouTube for your own edification:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j2Ov6u9e38

Here’s Debra’s response:  http://www.medinafortexas.com/getPost?p=272

Details below.

Linda Curtis, Independent Texans http://IndyTexans.org

Debra Medina for Governor

Independent Texans’ members are well aware of Governor Rick Perry’s record which is why he received not one vote of support from our members.   Perry has become legendary for his abuses of power and the veto pen, his revolving door for lobbyists, and for poisoning the halls of the legislature with a redistricting gerrymander on steroids back in 2003.  For Texas independents Perry is the embodiment of what is so wrong in government today.  Rick Perry is such a problem for political independents that we have resorted to joking about it at BootPerry.org to make our point.

Kay Bailey Hutchison, who received about 30% support from our members, grasps our concerns about the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC), but has not yet fully made the connection between such policy monstrosities as the TTC and political reform.  Though the same might be said for Debra Medina, our endorsement of Mrs. Medina springs from the long-held desires of independent voters for citizen legislators.  Debra is an ordinary person (a nurse to be exact) who has held her own in this race with two titans in Texas politics.  She has demonstrated that she deserves our support.

What Independents Want – A United Front for Reform

Since 1992 when Ross Perot received the largest independent vote in US history, independent voters (now at 41% of the American electorate – Pew Research Center, May 2009) and our concerns, have grown.  We are even sicker today of the partisan gamesmanship that keeps voters fighting amongst ourselves while the big shots in both parties have put the economy and our very livelihoods on the edge of a cliff.

We never liked Bush bashing and we don’t like Obama bashing either.  We want the parties to either come together or get out of the way.  We – Americans of all persuasions — want to be part of the conversation about fixing our problems before it is too late.

Once every ten years we, as a country, have an opportunity to damp down the partisan game immediately following the census.  It is called redistricting. We can no longer afford to allow politicians to choose their own voters.  We must take the gerrymandering weapon out of the hands of both parties, through a non-partisan independent redistricting commission.  This is the single most important thing Texans need to bring any real policy solutions to the table.  Is there a gubernatorial candidate out there who will stand up for a Texas Redistricting Commission?  Rick Perry would never sign it.  Would Kay?  Debra Medina…our best hope. (Read more about political reform here.)

We independents used to think we had to have a leader to guide us.  There was Perot, Nader and Jesse Ventura, or more recently in Texas there was Carole and Kinky.  They made a contribution, but their political careers got the best of them and they too began talking about us in the third person or not at all.

President Barack Obama?  He spoke to us powerfully with his post-partisan message before election day, but since then hasn’t made an effort to reach out to us.  Instead, his political crew made a decision to build Organizing for America within the confines of the Democratic National Committee, even when his campaign ground game guru, Marshall Ganz (a brilliant political organizer) advised him not to.

It’s the same old story.  There is the rush to get elected.  They tell us, “Trust us, we will include you.”  Some of them even sincerely mean it.

Howard Fineman wrote in the latest edition of Newsweek about how the President can win back independents.  Fineman says for independents “it’s all about process.”  But then he goes on to quote budget hawk and moderate Democrat, Evan Bayh who says the President is, “to the left of the mainstream.”  Does Evan Bayh or Fineman have any clue that most Americans either do not know the difference between politically left and right or simply don’t give a rip? This out-dated paradigm makes no sense to most independent voters who hold a variety of views on issues.  For example, many Texas independents, though we are largely understood as conservatives, believe that the banks rule the world and they should be overthrown.  That is a left-wing idea supported by the right-wing John Birch Society!

So here is my advice as someone who has been out there for 30 years walking the walk of independent politics.  First, why don’t you just ask us?  We want to be part of the political conversation in our country.  We cannot be part of the conversation when our participation is choked off by unfair restrictions and regulations designed to limit competition to the two-parties like impossible petitioning requirements, government apparatus’ like the Federal Election Commission (3 Democrats and 3 Republicans) and Redistricting committees that have representatives from the two parties only.  We need open primaries in all 50 states (one of the few progressive features of Texas elections) and the right to petition to place issues on the ballot (initiative, referendum and recall) at all levels of Texas government – not just municipalities Texans are limited to currently.   Government should protect our rights to petition rather than participating in criminalizing such a fundamental right to organize in our country.*  And how ’bout those term limits?**

Texas politicians naturally do things bigger and badder than most.  That is why Texans desperately need the right to recall politicians at the state level.  If Texans had the right to recall state officials, Rick Perry would have had to “get on down the road” years ago for his outrageous manipulations of state laws and state agencies to carry out the largest land seizure in US history related to Trans-Texas Corridor.  Not long after the Governor pronounced the Corridor DOA (in large part because Republicans fled to the independent movement based on this issue), it became apparent the Governor was involved in covering up the fact that he allowed the execution of an innocent man (Todd Willingham).  Our legislature would never impeach Rick Perry based on these “high crimes and misdemeanors”, but you can bet that ordinary Texans would have pulled the political recall trigger if we could get our fingers on it.

We wish we could say these ideas are new.  Perot in 1996 said that the problems in government are vertical not horizontal.  In other words, the conflicts in America are increasingly between the few people at the top with the people at the bottom, who are the vast majority of Americans.  In other words, the left-center-right paradigm that keeps ordinary Americans fighting amongst each other rendering us vulnerable to the manipulations of the parties and their corporate backers, was DOA 14 years ago!

The Massachusetts upset will pale in comparison to what Texas independents can do in the Texas gubernatorial where we have the opportunity to ‘recall’ Governor Rick Perry.  Independent Texans, the state’s only voter association seeking recognition for approximately 4 million independent Texas voters, is urging Texas independents to vote in the open Republican primary, to send Rick Perry down his toll roads once and for all.  Watch for our endorsement shortly before early voting starts on February 16th.  We can shop the ballot in November between the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian nominees.  (Don’t forget to go to http://BootPerry.org/give-him-the-boot and give ol’ Rick a kick right now and donate to our just cause!)

The American people that politicians and pundits like to banter about so much are in one particular way woefully culpable in the political predicament in which we find ourselves.  We are like parents who don’t want to admit our role in raising irresponsible children.  We vote for our “children” (or ignore them by not voting) – politicians in both parties – and we complain about them endlessly.   Maybe American voters are ready for a new role in political life.  That would be a change for sure.  And that is one change that we, the people, can do for sure.

*  The right to petition is so fundamental, volumes could be written about the attempts to stymie petitioner’s rights.  Independents will never forget the Attorney General of Oklahoma’s recent attempts to criminalize petitioning by arresting Paul Jacob, a leader of the term limits and initiative movement and Susan Johnson, President of National Voter Outreach – one of the premier petitioning companies in the country.  The case was thrown out, but not without heavy burdens placed on Jacob and Johnson.  The right to petition is still not protected in public places like outside the Post Office!

**  So far, in the Governor’s race, Kay Bailey Hutchison is promising to help enact term limits on the Governor’s Office.  Let’s hope that includes all state officials, but we’ll take it if it’s only the Governor’s office.

Larry wisely decided not to use the bb gun he brought along to shoot the balloons when he was ready to come down.  He wound up being rescued when he came up on air controllers’ sites near the LA Airport.

Rick Perry is our very own Texas Lawn Chair Larry.  Though he is a big joke on Texas, his stunts, like bringing pigs to crash opponent Kay Bailey Hutchison’s press conference, just aren’t funny.  Hey Governor, bringing pigs to press conferences are what grassroots organizers like me do to entice media attention.  For god’s sake, you’re the flipping Governor!

Austin voters fought a $65 million tax subsidy of a luxury shopping mall in '08

I am advocating that independents carry out an “Anyone But Perry” strategy in the 2010 Governor’s race.  We should use the Texas open primary and vote in the Republican primary and then again, in the general election as a massive voting block of at least 1.3 million voters.  That is the number of voters who voted either for Carole Strayhorn or Kinky Friedman in 2006.

We’ve got two chances to cut Perry’s rope.  The first is to vote for one of Perry’s opponents in the March Republican primary: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison or Debra Medina, a Republican Party activist aligned with Ron Paul. Perhaps Medina can get enough steam going to split the conservative wing of the Republican Party.  Kay Bailey could unite some Republican conservatives with Republican moderates and win over enough independents to beat Perry in the primary. The second chance will be in the general election in November.  The Democrats may consider running a more viable candidate than the current menu (no offense Kinky and Hank) to take on one of the two titans, Kay Bailey Hutchison or Rick Perry.  I predict that if Perry is the Republican nominee, most independents (including many third party and Libertarian voters) will vote Democratic to help send Rick Perry 16,000 feet above the Dallas airport.

So many reasons to cut Perry’s rope, yet so little time.  My favorite is Perry’s dogged efforts to rob Texans of their land for a $700 billion project that nobody wants.  The Trans-Texas Corridor (or whatever name the Governor cooks up to confuse us) is a massive road, utility and rail trade corridor designed to import even more cheap mostly Chinese goods moving through non-unionized Mexican ports.

The Corridor and the Governor’s privatized toll road schemes are his Achilles heel because they spurred a grassroots cross-partisan citizens movement that is independent of the parties and the mess they’ve created.  How about those toll roads to nowhere, like the near infamous Grand Parkway (aka “Porkway”) and the expansion of 290E in Austin?  Thanks to the our slick Governor and the corrupt agency otherwise known as TxDOT, these two roads are slated to use stimulus funds to satisfy the Growth Lobby.

The Growth Lobby – the perpetual hogs at the government trough-consists of companies like CINTRA (the Spanish toll road consortium, whose lobbyists have worked inside the Governor’s office); homebuilders like Bob Perry (no relation) who have given Perry millions; Democrats like Austin area State Senator Kirk Watson (who is so smart he could have really been somebody), Chambers of Commerce, the Real Estate lobby, some road contractors, and a litany of related companies and lawyers.

The Growth Lobby helps ensure that Texas has highest property taxes in the nation, and is one of only five states without real estate sales disclosure.  Under this scenario large-scale commercial developments and raw land across Texas are undervalued by, on average, 40%.  The Growth Lobby is driving population growth to areas, like Austin, where they want to double the population in just 16 years.  Their plans for infrastructure, including roads and water are at best speculative.  (For details go to CostofGrowth.com).

Lawn Chair Larry gave us all a helluva lot more than Rick Perry — a great big laugh at our own silliness.  Let’s not be so silly as to re-elect Lawn Chair Perry. The only award Rick Perry deserves is the one actually bestowed on Lawn Chair Larry.  That was the Bonehead Club Award of Dallas.

Depraved indifference is what many of the state’s most conservative constituents, some of them still Republicans and many of them who have since “gone independent,” would have liked to see the Governor criminally charged with.

Texans of all political hues have learned to despise this Governor for conspiring with the big wigs at TxDOT, various road contractors and developers, and the Spanish toll road consortium, CINTRA, to take our land for the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC).  In fact, if Perry’s land takings for the TTC had gone forward fully (some of it is still planned) it would have resulted in the largest land seizure in the history of the United States—and created a massive scar across Texas.

You gotta hand it to Rick Perry.  He never ceases to one-up his own depravity.  That is why not many in Texas were ‘shocked’ as Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project put it, when Rick Perry decided to boldly in plain view cover up what we all who are following this latest scar on Texas, in our heart-of-hearts, know to be true.  An innocent man, Cameron Todd Willingham of Corsicana, was put to death in 2004 in Texas.  The evidence of his innocence was in Rick Perry’s hands before the execution with well enough time to delay if not stop it.  The Governor chose to ignore the truth.

The Governor has proven his own culpability and now everybody’s talking about it, from ABC’s Nightline to practically every newspaper in the state.  The Governor used (or more accurately, abused) his power to cancel a hearing on the sham science used in the arson investigation of the Willingham case.  This was to be presented last week before the Texas Forensic Science Commission.  Rick Perry fired his own appointed chair of the Commission and refused to re-appoint two others.  All three supported bringing out the facts in this hearing.  Perry’s new appointee quickly canceled the hearing.

A reporter today wrote that no Texans will care about Rick Perry’s depravity in this case, I gather because Texans love the death penalty.  What might be more detrimental to the Governor’s reelection chances, this reporter speculated, is his rudeness and tackiness towards Kay Bailey Hutchison who is a “lady.” Perhaps.  But I like to think that Texans do care about such things as innocence and guilt, not to mention the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Private property rights and the right to life are intertwined in the minds of most Texans I know.  Rick Perry is not anything like them.

Here’s all the evidence you need to understand what’s going on here:

This will show you that the Governor knew the truth about Willingham’s innocence before the execution:

http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/Willingham_foia.pdf?phpMyAdmin=52c4ab7ea46t7da4197

For a detailed description of the Willingham story in The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann

The Governor’s explanation of his actions are here in the Dallas Morning News: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/state/stories/091809dnmetperrycorsicana.19263f09c.html

This came out after the articles above hit – Perry’s own counsel had the arson “junk science” thrown out in his own case, but advised Perry to uphold it in the Willingham case.  Maybe Rick Perry should be in jail?:  http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/10/perrys-general-counsel-benefit.html

Check out the most recent update from CBS Jan 21 – Perry’s appointed cronies trying to put this off until after the March primary and out of site in S. Texas:  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/21/ap/national/main6125734.shtml