The Gubernatorial Debate: Analysis

There was only one clear winner in tonight’s gubernatorial debate: Democrat Chris Bell.

While Carole Strayhorn dodged questions or simply failed to know the answers to them, as Kinky Friedman tried to convince the electorate he wasn’t racist, and as Rick Perry tried in vain to appear as though his administration has made real accomplishments for Texas, only Bell offered answers that had both the sound and content of someone who should be Texas’ next governor.

A General Failure To Know The Answers

A particularly interesting segment of the debate involved candidates being asked questions to which they were to only provide brief, 15-second answers. In that portion, Strayhorn flubbed her responses twice. She not only failed to know who the recently elected president of Mexico is, but she also failed to give a correct answer to how many weeks Texans can receive unemployment benefits.

Her response to the question regarding the President of Mexico and gave a response that simply noted that the new president had been elected in a “very close election.” Her response to the question on unemployment was “not long enough.”

The irony of the latter is particularly significant, given that Strayhorn’s signature appears on the unemployment checks that Texas’ unemployed citizens receive.

As for Friedman, he as asked the price of tuition for a semester at the University of Texas at Austin and was unable to answer that question, stating simply, “too much.” The actual price was about $8,100.

Perry similarly failed this particular test, offering a range of interest rates several points off when asked what the current interest rate was for a 30-year morgtage. He justified his answer, which was lower than the actual rate, by saying, “Well, I was looking for a bargain.”
Also, when Perry was asked what the electric bill was for a month where he lived, he, rather than answering the question as it was intended (which intended his personal, non-state home), offered that the bill at the governor’s mansion was about $5,000 to $6,000 and then defended the cost by noting the house was large and a museum.

The best answer in this segment came from Bell, who was asked what the term limit for Texas governor was. His reply was:

“None, and that’s why should be horrified, because Perry says he’ll run for another one if he’s re-elected.”

Also, candidates went one-on-one with journalists for three-minute segments. Perry, Strayhorn and Friedman were put on the defensive by their encounters, while Bell just answered the questions.

Friedman, in particular, tried very hard to dodge questions about whether or not he would appoint someone who had acknowledge they had used illegal drugs to state positions. In the first question, the journalist used the example of the Texas Education Agency, and Friedman, obviously intending to say he would not name a marijuana user to the Texas Education Agency, got flustered and said he would not name any such person to any agency, which kind of puts Willie Nelson on the outs.

During Rick Perry’s Q&A, he fumbled badly in responding to questions about the Trans Texas Corridor. When reminded that, in 2002, he campaigned as supporting families and property rights, and asked what he would say to those families now that foriegn companies and his campaign contributors were taking their land, he had this to say:

PERRY: No one but me has more ties to the rural land than me….Here’s what people don’t understand about corridor concept. Over next 50 years, we are going to see roads being built… our population is expected to double by 2040

[...]

When I first laid this out, governor [Dolph] Briscoe came to me at a Christmas party and said, ‘when I laid out the farm-to-market road concept, the farmers were against it but now they understand how valuable it is for their communities……we had 650,000 new jobs in this state last three years.

When asked about the three central figures with the TTC development giving him money and asked if he saw it as a conflict, his response was:

PERRY: Not at all, because that’s a totally transparent process. That was a competitive bid process that everyone in the state had the chance to do and all of those records are now public and there is no one that has said anything except thios was an upfront deal.

Evidently, however, Perry failed to remember that those records are not public, and that the Texas Department of Transporation has sued to keep them that way, and that the bid proces wasn’t anywhere as near as transparent as he said it was.

Likewise, Strayhorn fumbled during her three-minute one-on-one, failing to answer questions about her switch from a Democrat to a Republican to an Independent. When asked if voters could trust her after those flip-flops, here’s how she responded:
I appreciate that question. I have the same core values that I’ve always had. I will put Texas first not special interests. I don’t care if you are Democrat, Republican or Independent, it doesn’t matter, but under this governor, the state has become so politically fractured that we can’t get anything done.

When asked to clarify whether or not it appeared she changed her positions every time she “stuck [her] finger in the air” and the wind changed, she replied:

No, because those who have known me for decades know I’m an agent for change.

She then pimped her teacher’s group endorsements (though teachers have failed to be a powerful force in the Texas electorate at any time since the House Bill 72 era), and talked about the only thing she’s ever been an agent of change for, which was the deregulation of trucking when she was a member of the Texas Railroad Commission.

When questioned about specific remarks concerning the education of illegal immigrants, over which she’s changed her position on at least twice over the years, Strayhorn replied that “It’s not a change [in position] at all.”

[I expect a full transcript to be coming my way shortly, so I'm going to call this a post...]

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