The Contrarian

Kay Bailey Hutchison wrapped up a press conference with reporters in Dallas a few minutes ago in which she announced that she would soon announce that she’s running for governor.

That wasn’t a major shocker.

After all, I watched streaming video of the event on a web site emblazoned with the slogan “Kay for Governor.”

(By the way, if you’re curious, she said she’ll make a formal announcement in August.)

Hutchison also announced that she had raised $6.7 million for her campaign in the first six months of 2009. That will be the day’s headline news. Her total eclipses Rick Perry’s $4.2 million haul.

The senator said she has more than $12 million in her campaign account, which would give her a $3 million edge over Perry.

Both candidates claim widespread support. Hutchison said she received donations from 231 of Texas’ 254 counties and that 98 percent of her contributions came from Texas.

The campaign finance reports won’t be posted for another few days — the filing deadline is July 15. So, at this point, we have to take the candidate’s word for it.

When the reports are made public, we’ll have a more detailed examination of who’s backing these two GOP heavies.

Hutchison disputed the results of recent polls showing Perry with a double-digit lead. She claimed her campaign’s internal polling had her out front. “I know I’m ahead,” she said.

So just to be clear: She’s not in the race yet, but she’s winning.

So the governor pulled a bit of a surprise this morning when he named Gail Lowe chair of the State Board of Education.

There had been rumors that Perry would name the controversial Cynthia Dunbar as chair. I contended earlier this week that Dunbar would be a less-dangerous choice for opponents of the Christian Right than someone like Barbara Cargill.

Lowe publishes the community newspaper in Lampasas, and once served as a trustee of the Lampasas school board. She’s a reliable social conservative, but has been far less visible during her tenure on the State Board than most of her right-wing colleagues (read: Dunbar, McLeroy, Leo, Mercer, Bradley). You can find Lowe’s bio here.

Perry’s passing over of Dunbar might indicate he wants a little less controversy out of the State Board next year (as he’s running for reelection).

My impression of Lowe — from watching hours of State Board proceedings last year (an experience from which I’m still recovering) — is that she’s not the savviest operator in the group. She’ll likely be a quieter public presence as chair than McLeroy.

The open question is whether she’ll be more effective at passing a socially conservative agenda.

This afternoon a press release popped into my inbox from John Cornyn entitled, “Health Care Reform Alert.”

The email from the junior U.S. senator reads like a lucid, well-informed critique of the current Democratic health care reform bill being considered in Washington. Cornyn doesn’t resort to claiming that your doctor will soon be a government bureaucrat transferred from the DMV.

He’s being much subtler in his rhetoric. Still, it contains some serous distortions.

Cornyn writes that “The health care reform proposals currently being offered by Congressional Democrats will not substantially lower costs or fix the problems in our health care system. Instead, their plan would shift costs to the taxpayers.”

That sentence contains two big myths.

1. Cornyn is referring to the so-called “public option” currently in the health care reform bill. It would create a government-run health care plan to compete with the private sector. The public option would likely  lower costs. That’s the whole point. The insurance industry is desperate to defeat the public option– or severely water it down — because the plan is so low cost that insurers know they can’t compete with it.

2. Cornyn also dredges up the myth that a public option would shift health care costs to taxpayers.

Well, who does Cornyn think is paying for health care now?

It’s true that, under the current reform bill, the government would pay for a lot more of the health care in this country. And taxpayers fund the government. So, in the simplest analysis, taxpayers would pay more.

But taxpayers don’t exist in a vacuum. Taxpayers are Americans, and Americans are paying, on average, the highest per capita costs for health care in the Western world.

We pay  for current government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Many taxpayers also have to pay for their own health care plans. Underinsured taxpayers end up shelling out for high co-pays or paying for procedures out of their own pocket. And when one of the 40 million Americans without health insurance becomes ill and ends up in an emergency room at a public hospital, you know who pays for that in the end? The taxpayers. 

It’s possible that some taxpayers (read: rich folks) whose insurance is paid for by their employers would have to pay a little more under a public option — at least at the outset.

But those costs could eventually come down. If the number of uninsured Americans drops, the costs to the system will drop as well.  The Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that in 2004, uninsured Americans cost the U.S. health care system $41 billion. Local governments paid 85 percent of that cost.

That’s $35 billion paid for by — wait for it — the taxpayers.

There are certainly valid reasons to oppose the public option, particularly if you believe — as Cornyn does — in limited government. But the argument that a public plan won’t lower costs and would fleece taxpayers is misleading.

Quorum Report has posted the first interview with Gail Lowe, the new chair of the State Board of Education.

QR asked Lowe about her appointment of Christian Right activist David Barton to a panel of experts reviewing social studies curriculum.

Barton questions the inclusion of Cesar Chavez in the “Heroes of History” section of the social studies curriculum.

That caused a stir this week.

For her part, Lowe told QR the whole thing was taken out of context. “I have not read the (expert panel) recommendations exhaustively yet, but I’m sure he had made some excellent suggestions that we can use to formulate good social studies standards,” she said.

Maybe she should read Barton’s submission a little closer.

We’ll even help her out, so there’s no confusion about what Barton wrote.

Here’s the entire section from Barton’s social studies critique in which he discusses the “Heroes of History” and who should be included. You know, so everyone can see the context:

Heroes of HistoryIt often appears that the names included in individual TEKS do not necessarily represent what is described in a particular TEKS; instead it seems that a list of names to be covered in a history text was compiled and then those names were scattered throughout the document without specific regard to the specific content of that TEK. In other cases, the selection made was not a particularly strong representative.For example:In Grade 5 (b)(1)(B), Anne Hutchinson, although an historic figure was not “a significant colonial leader.”In Grade 5 (b)(5)(B), Colin Powell is a weak choice for a group representing those “who have made contributions to society in the areas of civil rights, women’s rights, military actions, and politics,” but Harry Truman desegregate the military and called for civil rights planks in the Democrat Platform, end WW II, and serve as an effective president, thus including him in three of the categories off that TEKS rather than just the one category for Powell.In Grade 5 (b)(19)(C), Cesar Chavez may be a choice representing diversity but he certainly lacks the stature, impact, and overall contributions of so many others; and his open affiliation with Saul Alinsky’s movements certainly makes dubious that he is a praiseworthy to be heralded to students as someone “who modeled active participation in the democratic process.”In Grade 5 (b)(24)(A), there are certainly many more notable scientists than Carl Sagan – such as Wernher von Braun, Matthew Maury, Joseph Henry, Maria Mitchell, David Rittenhouse, etc.

For most of this decade, Kay Bailey Hutchison has been the most popular politician in Texas. The conventional wisdom in Austin posited that if and when she ever challenged Rick Perry in a GOP primary, she would wipe the floor with him.

Now? Not so much.

Another poll is out today showing Perry with a double-digit lead on the senior U.S. Senator from Texas — the second such finding this month. This time it’s a 12-point edge.

Harvey has some details. Burka, who until recently was promoting Hutchison as the favorite, seems despondent. He writes that Kay is running the “worst campaign imaginable.”

I’ve always doubted that Hutchison would trounce Perry. And for one simple reason: When was the last time she won a competitive election?

Campaigning is different than governing. The ability to create, manage and maintain a well-organized and lean campaign operation in the middle of a tough election is a rare, practiced skill. Many politicians, even the most popular and experienced, will falter in their first hotly contested race. The examples are numerous, from the national level (Bob Dole and Hillary Clinton) to the state level (Rick Noriega).

Hutchison’s recent reelection efforts have been relaxing affairs. In 2006, she barely had to campaign to double-up her Democratic opponent, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, who was so lacking in funds that she took to creating Web-only ads that featured the candidate conversing with a sock puppet. (BTW, I’ve been trying to track down those sock-puppet ads. If anyone has a link where I can find them, please, please send it to me.)

We know Perry will run a lean, mean race. He knows who his voters are and how to excite them. It’s his best skill.

Can Hutchison do that? The early returns don’t look promising for her.

For his part, Burka clings to Kay’s still-stratospheric favorability ratings (65 percent favorable; 17 percent unfavorable). But that seems like fool’s gold to me. Hutchison’s favorability numbers will come crashing down once Perry’s campaign gets rolling and the race gets nastier.

Hutchison will have to improve as a campaigner as she goes. There’s still time to turn herself from a comfortably sitting senator into a disciplined candidate with a well-run organization that can turn out her type of voters. It’s a tough transition to make — and one that Hillary Clinton couldn’t pull off, at least not in time to save her campaign. If Hutchison can do it, she has a chance.

But right now she appears cautious and disorganized, and Perry is taking her to school.