Stumper of the Week: Give Dewhurst a Chance

The nuttiest things said this week in Texas politics

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Every Friday from here till the end of this year’s campaign stumping season, we’re honoring the most outlandish, befuddling, illogical or just flat-out clueless statements of the week in Texas politics. Here are this week’s Honorable Mention Stumpers:

…And I can give ’em $18 billion reasons why

“My job as governor is to go remind people how lucky they are to be living in a state doing as well as Texas is doing.”

—Gov. Rick Perry, interviewed by Austin’s KXAN-TV

Hey, where can I get my vote of no confidence?

“It’s a vote of no confidence.”

—former Texas GOP spokesperson Bryan Preston, blogging about why the Democratic Governors Association is spending some $2 million to support Bill White. “The DGA is spending the money directly,” Preston elaborated. “They don’t want White to manage it so they’re buying the ads themselves.”  

Vote for us, dumbasses

“The worst aspect of these uninformed voters is their contribution to the decline of our conservative values. Many of these voters I am sure would never knowingly or willingly vote for abortion or same sex marriage. After all why would you have a life size display of Our Lady of Guadalupe the patroness of the unborn and then slide into the voting booth and vote for Bill White who is endorsed by Planned Parenthood? Because of their lack of knowledge and inability to connect the dots they continue to vote Democrat. We can not give up as these are the voters that may one day vote Republican.”

—Sonja Harris, founder of the group Conservatives in Action, blogging on Texas GOP Vote about a yard with an Our Lady of Guadalupe statue and a Bill White for Texas sign

Beware the Bent Tree mujahideen

sharron angle image

“We’re talking about a militant terrorist situation … Dearborn, Michigan, and Frankford, Texas are on American soil, and under Constitutional law. Not Sharia law. And I don’t know how that happened in the United States. It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States.”

—Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle of Nevada, suggesting that a town in Texas operates under Sharia Law. Frankford, Texas, has not existed since 1975, when Dallas annexed it. It’s now known as the Bent Tree neighborhood, one of the wealthiest in Big D.

Travel tip! 

“Have you ever tried to check into a hotel the night before opposed to doing it well in advance? You get a better value, if you spend in advance.”

—Bill White, Democratic candidate for governor, explaining why he already spent nearly $11 million and trails Gov. Perry significantly in cash-on-hand for the remainder of the campaign.

                 

Right: Who needs all those students cluttering up our campuses?

“I don’t think the federal government’s involvement in education has benefited the students of America. The education of our young people oughta be under the jurisdication and auspices of the state governments. The state of Texas has a great university system that has not been made any better by federal money involvement.”

—former Texas Congressman Dick Armey of the Tea Party group FreedomWorks, asked on CNN whether he’d like to cut all federal money for education. (Yes, he would.) In 2006-2007, 83 percent of Texas college students had federal student loans.  

                         

STUMPER OF THE WEEK

A Statesman‘s Statesman

“We don’t doubt the sincerity of his wish to be regarded as a statesman. Dewhurst is a work in progress, but he is diligently trying to get there.”

—The Austin American-Statesman, explaining its endorsement of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for a third term