Only in America

On my way to work this morning, I happened to notice a bumper sticker on the car next to me.  And what did said bumper sticker say?

"My dad can eat more than your dad."

Now there's something to which I, as a dad, should aspire!  I only wonder if the next bumper sticker in this series might read "my dad has had more coronary bypasses than your dad".

(Oh, and whatever restaurant was being advertised by this gem was unreadable, making this sticker doubly useless.)

Running Scared

Apparently the projected Republican landslide is affecting the campaign strategies of several Democratic incumbents from around the greater Austin area.  Some of these strategies are pretty much par for the course for some of these incumbents, but for others, they're quite new.

An example of the same-old-same-old strategies in use is District 47 incumbent Valinda Bolton, who has gone negative on Paul Workman, as she does to every challenger.  Her latest ad isn't up on YouTube yet (and it came out most likely too late to get the PolitiFact treatment it so richly deserves), but it appears to say that Paul Workman wants to impose a massive sales tax on everyone.  Haven't we heard this scare story before?

Oh, but Ms. Bolton's story takes the FairTax idea (which no one is actually proposing but some people like) to a new level:  Mr. Workman wants large corporations to escape paying property taxes!  Yeah, that is how a FairTax works.  And guess who else would no longer be paying thousands a year in property taxes:  you, Ms. Homeowner, and you, Mr. Renter.  (Again, see here if you believe renters aren't affected by property taxes.)

At this point, this author expects little else from Valinda Bolton, so let's move on.

Here's something no one would have expected to see two years ago:  Lloyd Doggett has a serious opponent in TX-25!  How serious is this race for Mr. Doggett?  Well, in over ten years in Austin, I have never seen a Doggett television commercial until this year.

The first Doggett commercial seemed a bit like Patrick Rose's first ad as well in that it presents Mr. Doggett as a friend of business:



(Incidentally, this video is unlisted for some reason...I wonder why.)

A couple of things jumped out for me:  first, "I said no to these big bank bailouts."  Well, yes, Mr. Doggett did vote against TARP.  That, at least, was good.  What wasn't so great were his votes later for things like the Porkulus bill and lots of other giveaways of our money.

And this leads to the second thing that I noticed:  "I can actually run a small business. I can create jobs because of Lloyd Doggett."  This was a statement by Michael Kuhn of ImagineSolar, which describes itself as "a world-class solar intelligence company and provider of solar training".  Well, that sounds good, right?

Well, things are not exactly as they appear.  Someone named Facetwitch, who sometimes blogs at RedState, did the digging on this one, and look at this press release they found:

AUSTIN – Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis today announced nearly $100 million in green jobs training grants, as authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). The Austin Electrical Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee (AEJATC), in partnership with Workforce Solutions–Capital Area and ImagineSolar, received $4,842,424 as one of 25 projects selected nationally – and one of only three in the State of Texas.

For those who've forgotten, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was the original stimulus, or Porkulus, which Mr. Doggett voted to support.  That does rather answer why Mr. Kuhn was so eager to appear in a commercial for Mr. Doggett.  (As Facetwitch points out, there is nothing illegal about any of this, but disclosure would have been nice.)


But apparently things are still not going as well as Mr. Doggett would like in this campaign, and so, again for the first time that I can remember, he has gone negative on his opponent, Dr. Donna Campbell.  See for yourself:



Now I think I understand why his campaign ads are unlisted:  to make them difficult to find for bloggers who want to embed them on their sites.

This ad completely misrepresents the opinion of Dr. Campbell about education funding.  Yeah, let's cut those darned schools off entirely!  Come on.  There is a world of difference between cutting the federal government out of the middle of school funding (thus eliminating a lot of bureaucracy) and not funding schools at all, but Mr. Doggett hopes that you don't notice it.

And while we're discussing silly attack tactics, how about Patrick Rose lookalike Mark Strama in District 50?  Of all the things to say about his opponent, Patrick McGuinness, Mr. Strama says he blogs under "a fake name" (as if this is a very shady thing to do...insert your favorite insinuation about me here).  From there, Mr. Strama pulls items from his blog (The Travis Monitor) way out of context in an attempt to paint him as wild-eyed and hyperpartisan.  Mr. McGuiness, of course, had a very easy response, which I like to call "context":

My opponents [sic] is painting a false picture of where I stand on the basis of a few snippets, but the internet has the best memory and you can be the judge of where I really stand and what I really said. I have put links below of the items he went to.

It's worth a full read.

This season has seen lots of Democrats wondering if their seats are still safe and turning out lots of attack ads, lots of scare tactics...basically, a lot of junk.  Is it any wonder that I am ready for Christmas commercials after a season full of stuff like this?

Update:  Thanks for the link, Dr. Donna!

HD-45: A Rose by any other name is still a Democrat

If you've watched local Austin commercial television in the past three weeks, you probably couldn't help but see one of several commercials from current Texas state representative Patrick Rose, who is running for reelection in District 45. What you might not have noticed from his ads is that Rep. Rose is a Democrat.  The reason for this confusion is fairly obvious to those of you who have actually watched the campaign ads this season (and for those who have, I feel for you):  he presents himself as more of a conservative than his opponent, Jason Isaac.

Let's take a look at Rep. Rose's conservative bona fides for a moment.  The first ad of the season that I saw from Mr. Rose shows that he is against taxes.  That sounds good, right?



Now, wait a minute:  why did Mr. Rose start his ad by raising the specter of "raising the sales tax on hard-working families, seniors, and small businesses"?  No one's proposing this right now, are they?  Of course no one is, but Mr. Rose would have you believe that Jason Isaac is such a tax fetishist.  See for yourself:



Now, is it just me, or does this ad come close to having every stupid political-commercial cliche in the book?  Let's see...you take a grainy black-and-white video of your opponent, include an ominous sounding announcer telling you why your opponent is the spawn of Satan, and use rejected music from a very special episode of The Facts of Life, and voila!  Instant victory, right?

Well, not so fast, Mr. Rose.  Things aren't quite so black-and-white.  (SWIDT?)  Jason Isaac is not proposing in any way to raise the sales tax to 14.5%.  (He's also not the spawn of Satan, and that music sounded more like it belonged in an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger.)  Mr. Isaac's website puts Rep. Rose's out-of-context claim back into the context in which it belongs:

ISAAC FULL QUOTE: Jason Isaac believes that a consumption-based model is one possible solution, but there are limitations.  “If you just eliminated property taxes and if you wanted to make it a pure consumption-based tax, you increased the sales tax to 14.5% and you’ve got a wash.  It balances out.  You could eliminate all your property taxes, but everything you buy, you pay 14.5% tax on.  My thought process is if you get above 9.5% and you’re going to start driving people to the black market, out of state, they’re going to order everything off Amazon.com and I think you wind up losing state revenue.” (Texas Sons of Liberty Riders Radio Show, 8/17/2010)

Mr. Rose:  where, amidst the quasi-ominous/Western music and deep-voiced announcer statements about Mr. Isaac would I find the part about the replacement of the property tax, which is paid by everyone, whether they know it or not?  (Seriously, you who think you don't pay property taxes because you're renting, do you really think your landlord is eating those costs?  Of course not:  those costs are passed right on to you in the form of higher rent.)

But Snowed, I hear you cry, didn't Jason Isaac also distort a claim about Patrick Rose?  Well, according to the fact-checkers at KVUE, yes, he did.  To wit:

"(Rose) backed the largest tax increase in Texas history,” claims an Isaac ad.

The Isaac campaign is referring to House Bill 3 in the 79th legislative session.

It re-worked the state's franchise tax, a tax paid by businesses, and Rose did vote for it.

According to state estimates, that business tax collected about $3 billion in new tax revenue. That is about $1.2 billion less, than the tax bill passed in 1987, when the legislature crafted a tax package which yielded $4.2 billion in new revenue. To find a larger single tax increase you need only look to that 1987 tax increase signed into law 23 years ago by then-governor Bill Clements.

Somehow, stating that 3 billion is less than 4.2 billion (when both are admittedly rather large tax increases) doesn't seem to be as bad as taking a statement completely out of context and basing an entire negative campaign on it.  (It doesn't excuse Mr. Isaac's misstatement, though.)

So, where are we at this point in HD-45?  Well, both candidates have been called on the carpet for false claims.   A more recent Patrick Rose ad even cites KVUE as it saying Jason Isaac is lying about him.  (Paging one deep-voiced announcer...)  Of course, that ad goes right on to repeating the same claim about Jason Isaac and his eeeeevil intent to raise your sales taxes through the roof...yes, the same claim debunked by KVUE in the same article Rep. Rose cites.  (Rep. Rose's recent ads do not seem to be up on YouTube yet.  I wonder why.)

But the truth here is that both candidates are trying to position themselves as being the anti-tax, pro-business candidate.  Based on the traditional behavior of the two major parties, that would mean both are trying to appear to be Republicans.  The problem is that one of them isn't one.

Patrick Rose, no number of Jason-Isaac-is-evil commercials will change the fact that you are a Democrat.  Perhaps one of your ads should admit that.

Palin's opponents get bizarre

By now, those who follow Sarah Palin in the news have heard about the current Emily's List campaign specifically against the former governor, but for the benefit of those who haven't, or those who don't know what Emily's List is (and I envy those folks), I'll give a quick summary:

Sarah Palin, you may have heard, issued a video praising what she calls "Mama Grizzlies":



Seems pretty innocuous, doesn't it?

Well, Emily's List, which is a political action committee dedicated to raising money for, and electing, pro-choice women to public office, apparently decided that it did not like Sarah Palin or her politics or her Mama Grizzlies video.  (Some have speculated* that Sarah Palin is disliked partially because she did not exercise her own right to choose in the way people like Emily's List would have liked because she chose to carry Trig to term and give birth to him despite his Down Syndrome.)

And so, they came up with what has to be one of the worst political ads I've seen in a long time.  Watch, and laugh:



Wow.  I know you're just in awe from seeing a bunch (I counted four total during the one and only time I will ever watch this video...they couldn't find more people willing to put on that ridiculous costume?) of women dressed, as Tammy Bruce correctly puts it, like Ewoks.  Boy, if that doesn't put Sarah Palin in her place (and where is that, anyway?  Why is it that the libs are the ones saying Sarah Palin should be at home taking care of her kids?  Which, it's my understanding, she does anyway, on top of everything else she does, which, thankfully, doesn't include making videos of people wearing dorky outfits.), I don't know what will.

And, since I'm late to this party, I missed making this point as well:  Ace of Spades has already pointed out that these people, in addition to looking nothing like Mama Grizzlies, do, unfortunately, look like Furries.  (If you don't know what that means, be grateful.)

And, lest one think that all I am doing with this video is making fun of it (though I certainly am doing that), there are a couple of salient points worth making about what is being said in the ad.  Unfortunately, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air made them before I could.  For example, Mr. Morrissey points out:

Palin and her “Mama Grizzlies” don’t hold the ridiculous positions that these masquerading moms claim, as anyone with an ounce of sense and the ability to read can quickly determine for themselves. Republicans wanted to pay for an extension of unemployment benefits through previously allocated funds rather than incur more debt on grizzly cubs, or the cubs of the cubs and then their cubs as well, as Democrats ended up demanding.

As far as eliminating “health care,” as Emily’s List’s fuzzy logic claims, one would have to believe that “health care” was nonexistent in the US before Barack Obama took office.

You know, I thought it was Sarah Palin who was supposed to be the ignorant person whom no one was to take seriously.  And yet, the narrative (and yes, the costumes) of this video shows me that, for the moment, Emily's List is not worth taking seriously.  At all.

*Yeah, I know this exact language always gets flagged in Wikipedia with "(who?)", but I truly don't care in this case.

How NOT to attract customers to your restaurant on Sundays

On Sunday morning, as we usually do, we, the Snowed family, had had a great morning at our church and were walking back to the car.  And what do we find on our windshield but a flyer advertising specials at a nearby restaurant.

Okay, I'm sorry, but I find placing flyers on windshields of cars in church parking lots to be incredibly tacky.  (I don't really care for it the rest of the week, either, but I find this worse.)  Mrs. Snowed came right out and said this made her much less likely to visit this restaurant in the future, and I tend to agree with her.  To me, finding a flyer on my windshield after church is about the same as getting obtrusive sales calls at home during dinner.

But maybe I'm wrong.  Has placing junk advertising on people's windshields while they are at church become an acceptable technique?  Am I being overly sensitive?  Or do you believe this is annoying, if not invasive?

How NOT to attract customers with your junk fax

As a public service to junk fax spammers, I present the following list of things you shouldn't do if you want to attract customers, based on the incredibly dumb fax I pulled off the machine this morning.

Things Not To Do:

1.  Send junk faxes in the first place.

Well, that seems rather obvious, doesn't it?  I mean, it is possible, if you're clueless enough to put your contact information on your fax, for the recipient to sue you (this site shows how).  But let's assume that you've already decided to send your junk fax and deal with the consequences, of which you are sure there will be none.


2a.  Don't put your contact information on the fax except for a toll-free number, or
2b.  Be located somewhere other than the United States.

This just screams out "I am not to be trusted!" for US customers.  Heck, why not just include a solicitation for me to help you get my long-lost relative's money out of Nigeria?  (Aside:  our company actually did just receive a similar fax.  Apparently e-mail is too advanced for some people...)  Let's face it, there are not a lot of things that most companies need for which they need to contact foreign entities.  And that is particularly true for the service offered in today's offending fax (more on that later).

3.  Use misleading information/make your customer think they'll be getting something for nothing.

What, do some companies just not read their faxes before responding with "Golly gee, that sounds like a great idea!" or something?  Today's offender, yellowpage-texas.com (no link--it's not worth it), is offering, of course, the wonderful opportunity to have our company listed on their website.  And even better:  their offer includes free submission to Google!  Um, yeah, the real Yellow Pages (and AT&T's online site, yellowpages.com) already list us, thanks.  And, actually, so does Google.  And it has for years.

Oh, and I didn't mention:  this wonderful submission to this other non-AT&T-or-any-other-reputable-company-that-I-know-of site costs only $89 per month (!!) for two years.  That's rather hidden in the small print.  So, if someone responded to this and thought it was free, they'd be on the hook for $2,136.

Now, if those three items weren't enough, this last one's way over the top:

4.  Use a blatantly insulting gesture as your logo.

Seriously, what were you thinking?  This company decided it would be great to flip AT&T's traditional Yellow Pages logo (and isn't it still trademarked?) upside-down and assume no one would notice.  Well, first of all, if the two fingers are pointing up, it no longer means that you are letting your fingers do the walking (remember that?  I'm old), but also, in some countries, it is a very insulting gesture. 

The UK, as anyone who has watched Are You Being Served? knows, is one of the countries in which this gesture is seen as an insult.  And where is yellowpage-texas.com's parent company based?  You guessed it:  Manchester, UK.  I'm quite sure that the owners knew what they were doing:  they were basically flipping the bird to prospective clients and assuming no one would notice.

So, there you have it, junk fax senders.  Happy spamming!

By far the dumbest spam I've received this week

Yeah, the Secretary of Homeland Security is not only going to e-mail me, but she's going to get: 1) her area code wrong; 2) her name wrong; and 3) her grammar wrong. Whatever:

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Washington, D.C. 20528

Tel: 1-206-xxx-xxxx or 206-xxx-xxxx

Fax: 1-206-xxx-xxxx or 206-xxx-xxxx

Attn: Beneficiary,

My name Mrs. Janet Napolitano I was sworn in on January 21, 2009 as the third Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to joining the Obama Administration, I was mid-way through her second term as governor of the state of Arizona. While governor, I became the first woman to chair the National Governors Association, where I was instrumental in creating the Public Safety Task Force and the Homeland Security Advisors Council. I also chaired the Western Governors Association. i previously served as the Attorney General of Arizona and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona. I want you to please get back to me and contact Mr. Paul Smith for the release of your ATM CARD. Send me Email: - [real address with "Napolitano" misspelled snipped] or call me on: - Tel: 1-206-xxx-xxxx or 206-xxx-xxxx

It gets worse from there. Apparently I need to contact the "Federal Ministry of Finance" (which, I believe, is right down the hall from the "Department of Stupid Made-Up Names") about my "ATM CARD", which I have to pay $550 to use.

HD-47: Commercials in Review

Valinda Bolton and Donna Keel have released their first television ads of the season, and as a public service, both are presented right here for your convenience.

Valinda Bolton (D, incumbent):



Donna Keel (R):



A constant among Rep. Bolton's ads appears to be the placing of blame for everything on Republicans. This time, she blames the Republicans for cutting CHIP. Let's see...CHIP's funding wasn't cut in the last legislature, it was increased to allow 127,000 more children to be enrolled. Would someone please remind me which party was in control of both the Legislature and the Governor's Office? Ah, yes, the evil Republicans. How dare they do this to...oh, wait, this was good for CHIP. Never mind...

Both candidates mention education. Good so far. Telling, though, is the manner in which they mention it. Ms. Keel wants more education funding to go directly to the classrooms, whereas Ms. Bolton just wants more education funding, period. Given that there are some districts in Central Texas which spend less than 45% of their revenue in the classroom, I would venture that something more than the amount of funding for education needs to change to improve schools.

One more thing: Ms. Bolton discussed acting like a grown-up. Unfortunately, she wasn't thinking that way when she assisted in delaying the consideration of all bills during the last legislative session (out of an apparent desire to embarrass Tom Craddick), thus destroying any semblance of efficiency and causing a time crunch at the end of the session. (To be sure, Mr. Craddick didn't help things either, but a vote seemingly designed entirely to embarrass someone is rather childish.)

My call on the two commercials: Both mention general policy desires. But Valinda Bolton's continued playing of the blame game makes for an inferior ad, in my opinion. Winner: Donna Keel.

The Return of Ignite Consulting

Now that the run-off has arrived (early voting is already in progress and, I would imagine, will draw out at least one or two hundred voters!), the election calls have returned. So far, Cid Galindo's campaign has called twice, both times with a live caller. Laura Morrison's campaign has robocalled once, with a recorded message calling Mr. Galindo a liar regarding his comments on her stance on a proposed home energy efficiency ordinance (because, you know, Ms. Morrison's campaign has certainly not engaged in any lying themselves).

But more interesting, in my opinion, is from where the call originated. A quick glance at my caller ID records shows that it came from 800-441-0704. Hmmm, that number sounds familiar...

I guess this means Ignite Consulting's application for robocalling in Texas was approved. Regardless, I find it interesting that a firm owned by Jennifer Kim's campaign manager, Elliot McFadden (not to mention a firm which has knowingly violated PUC regulations), is who Ms. Morrison wants to represent her.

Oh, by the way, I know I'm getting hits from people looking up that 800 number. That application to which I linked above shows the office numbers of Ignite Consulting. Just FYI.

It's Come to This (Part 3)

Wow, the robocall story went a lot further than I thought it would...let's see, the Burnt Orange Report picked up the story, followed a day later by News 8 Austin, at which point Jennifer Kim finally admitted her campaign was behind the calls. Then, the floodgates opened, and everyone was dumping on Ms. Kim, from Randi Shade to the police and fire organizations, and it became the first question in KXAN's debate.

Did all that make any difference? According to KVUE, the early voting and the election-day voting went pretty much the same way (though, to be fair, early voting was still in progress when the robocall story broke). So, maybe a didn't make much difference in the voting. However, according to the Chronicle, it also appears that Ignite Consulting (owned by Kim consultant Elliott McFadden) never had a permit for robocalling and didn't even apply for one until after the "Lisa" call went out. So, if nothing else, that should serve as a warning to someone.

It can also serve as a warning to you: the application (available through the KVUE link above) also absolutely confirms the use of the phone number 800-441-0704 as its method of communication. (Cue all my readers, who currently number well into the single digits, to block that number from calling them.)

But forget all that: Lisa has been found! As it turns out, Lisa is a friend of a friend. Apparently she was concerned that she might face some of the fallout from the call. Thankfully, Ignite is the party possibly facing some serious penalties, not her. But I hear she'll be a little more careful accepting her scripts in the future.

Oh, and congratulations to Ms. Shade on winning the Place 3 seat, and best wishes in the coming three years.

It's Come to This (Part 2)

Wells Dunbar wants confirmation of the "greasy" anti-Shade robocall? I've got confirmation.

(Oh, and nice term. "Greasy" describes this perfectly.)



UPDATE: My final wrap-up may be found here.

It's Come to This: Cowardly Anonymous Phone Calls

Anyone following the Austin Place 3 race might be interested in this gem of a voicemail I received today, which I will transcribe in its entirety:

"Why is Randi Shade trying to break the bank? Hi, this is your neighbor Lisa, calling to let you know City Council candidate Randi Shade has made budget promises that could mean cuts in city services and higher taxes for you. In seeking the endorsement of police and firefighters, Shade agreed to increase funding for management positions without having seen a budget, which is now in the red. With the highest-paid public safety workers in the state, can we afford Randi Shade's promises? It's not different, and it's not Austin."

Notwithstanding that 1) I don't have a neighbor Lisa; and 2) one councilmember can't do anything alone (and thus the crux of the call is rendered sadly inert), I suppose "different" and "Austin" are truly exemplified by anonymous attack ads, right, Jennifer Kim?

UPDATE: As most everyone in Austin knows by now, this story developed further.

Laura Morrison's Fear-Mongering Ad

In case you're an Austin resident who hasn't had to sit through Laura Morrison's one and only commercial at least twice on every newscast, you can now find it here.

Now that you've seen it, did you notice that this ad is flat-out lying? Oh, yeah, they're gonna build three 700-foot towers where the Green Water Treatment Plant is right now. (Specifically, per the aforementioned commercial, apparently they're gonna build three 360 Condominiums buildings on the site, but they're going to lop the top off of them. And apparently at least one of them is going to lean slightly. Seriously, learn Photoshop...) Unless plans for that site have changed quite a bit from my understanding, nothing on that scale is planned.

So, why would Ms. Morrison want you, the informed Austin voter, to think that this will happen if she isn't elected to Place 4? Because she wants you scared, that's why. Ooh, the scary developers are going to ruin our city unless I am elected! Whatever.

Oh, by the way, don't expect to see any negative comments about the ad on YouTube. Mine has been awaiting approval for at least ten hours now, and I'm not expecting to see it show up until probably, oh, say, May 11.

Why was I missing Christmas commercials???

'Twas the month before Christmas
And all ads were the same
They showed unrealistic situations
And they were all really lame

I never thought I'd miss Christmas commercials...

But I'd rather have Christmas ads instead of the onslaught of political junk now polluting my television. (During the morning news, it seems to get worse as a half-hour is neared, as if the candidates think people will leave on the half-hours. Strange...)

Here are the highlights and lowlights I've seen around Austin:

1. Far and away the worst: Mina Brees. Her ad is lame, with or without her son in it. That is, the son who told his mother to remove his image from her ad. (See the report for yourself, courtesy the Statesman.) Wow, your family's in sports! Big deal. It still doesn't mean you're a good choice for a judicial role.

(By the way, her son's doing pretty well this year.)

And yes, I know, the State Bar voted Ms. Brees more qualified than David Puryear. The question is, how much credence should one give to a bunch of trial lawyers?

2. Kinky Friedman: I finally saw an ad for Mr. Friedman this morning. Was he holding them back until now, or is this a last-ditch effort to get out of fourth?

3. Valinda Bolton and Bill Welch: Both have now gone negative in at least one ad. But Mr. Welch's ad rings much truer than Ms. Bolton's. First of all, Ms. Bolton's first ad places the blame for education in Texas solely on the Republicans. Let's see...who ran this state for 150 years? And by the way, where were the Democrats during some of these sessions of the Legislature to which she refers? Oh, yes: in another state. Nice try.

Anyway, Mr. Welch pointed out that Ms. Bolton moved into this district solely to run for the Legislature. Ms. Bolton just released an ad trying to tie Bill Welch to, among other things, Rick Perry's toll road advocates and Tom Delay. It's 30-seconds full of half-truths and false implications. For example, Mr. Welch is on record strongly opposing the tolling of already-paid-for roads. Nice try.

One more thing, before I forget again: Ms. Bolton claimed in her first ad that nothing had been done about education. The other day, this ad ran on either KEYE or KVUE immediately before Mark Strama (HD-50) came on and talked about what he helped accomplish for...get ready...education! Get your talking points straight, people.

4. And why does everyone have to use black-and-white, slow-motion videos of their opponents when they want to make them look bad? It's a massive turnoff, at least for me. (Then again, at this point all the ads are annoying me.)

Bring on Santa already!

19 days of commercials to go...

The sequence of ads during KVUE's 5:55 am break this morning:

1. Carole Keeton Strayhorn: Rick Perry shafts education
2. Greg Abbott: I've collected a lot of child support money
3. Chris Bell: Rick Perry shafts children's insurance
(And by the way, Mr. Bell: Making a trite statement and having a couple of rows of sycophants applauding does not a great commercial make.)
4. Buick: We're ending our model year two months after everyone else did
5. Susan Combs: Putting students first
6. Rick Perry: Protecting our borders

I'm thinking of voting for Buick.