I am in Washington for a little bit and putting First Reading on break - subject to events - while I think about how to reconfigure it once the Legislature is no longer in session.

Writing First Reading for the last seven months has been a great experience. Texas has not disappointed. I’ve lived through my first regular session, a special session and now an extra special session, and been witness to passions and tumult unlike anything folks here had seen before.

I will be here for the changing of the guard in the governor’s office, wide open races for a host of statewide offices - including maybe even Democratic candidates - and the possibility of both Rick Perry and Ted Cruz running for president in 2016. It is political nirvana.

I’ve enjoyed writing with a freedom I’ve never had before.

Unfortunately, as First Readers know, I am prone to excess (writing too much), which has made First Reading unwieldy and, perhaps too much, too early, and, quite often, not nearly early enough.

It has also taken its toll on me.

Through the session I got by on three or fours of sleep a night, which was not desirable or sustainable, but, at least as long as so much of the readership was also sleep-deprived, was justifiable. But now that the world around me is getting more sleep, I think so should I, and I am trying to rethink and refocus First Reading - in scope, frequency and approach - for a post-session world.

I am open to suggestions at jtilove@statesman.com.

I apologize in advance for the fact that, early on, when I invited those who wanted a daily alert when I posted First Reading to email me, I quickly fell behind and never caught up. That was not good and I feel very bad about that.

I have since realized that there was a quick and easy fix for that. I daily tweeted when I posted First Reading, and I could have simply suggested that those who wanted the alert when I posted First Reading, follow me on Twitter. But, I still remain such a throwback, that even writing the words, “follow me on twitter,” makes me squirm, especially because, since I didn’t tweet that much, I thought it was really just an invitation to disappointment.

I was in a social media shame cycle from which I could not seem to extricate myself.

Anyway, with a fresh start on First Reading, I will attempt to do better.

Thank you for listening.

Gov. Rick Perry to Gromer Jeffers Jr. in the Dallas Morning News Jan. 30, 2013

“He said I wouldn’t run against him. He may have known all along he wasn’t going to run,” Abbott said. “We didn’t have any handshake deal or anything like that.”

Attorney General Greg Abbott to Jay Root in the the Texas Tribune. July 16, 2013.

Good morning Austin.

So, looking at the quotes above, who do you trust?

No, not Gromer Jeffers or Jay Root. That’s like choosing between Woodward and Bernstein, Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. (Speaking of whom, Monday night I was approached by a slightly drunk man on Sixth Street who said, “You look like a cross between Sam Adams and George Jefferson.” I occasionally get comments like that - because I have longish hair in back and a receding hairline in front, I have a vaguely “colonial” look - but, I wondered aloud, George Jefferson? The cranky black guy on The Jeffersons? “No,” my erstwhile admirer responded, like I was some kind of idiot. “The guy who invented electricity.” But I digress.)

Anyway, it is hard to square the two quotes above without coming to the conclusion that either our current governor, or his most likely successor, is a dissembler or a fantasist.

This is a disconcerting thought.

I guess it seems more likely that Abbott’s statement is more, strictly speaking, accurate. I mean, if he did make the promise that Perry said he “clearly” did, Abbott could have simply told Root, “I don’t want to discuss my private conversations with my good friend, Rick Perry.”

But, if what Abbott says is correct, why did Perry go public with an invented conversation? Well, maybe he was reading his gut, and he was just letting Abbott and the rest of Texas, know what he knew was in Abbott’s heart, and daring him to say otherwise. Perry, I think, was accurately communicating the notion, as Abbott put it, that, in the end, they would not be running against one another

But, if that is the case, it does leave one wondering whether there have been other occasions in which Perry, a once and perhaps future candidate for president, improvised on reality.

Perhaps, in this, he is simply being Reaganesque.

As noted many times - including in this piece by Gene Lyons at Salon:

Playing the president, Reagan essentially recapitulated the Robert Young role in “Father Knows Best” — firm but fair, and unfailingly optimistic. True, Reagan had a disconcerting habit of conflating film scripts with reality: talking feelingly, for example, of his experiences liberating Nazi death camps at the end of World War II, which never happened.

Captain Reagan of the First Motion Picture Unit served in California for the duration of the war. But he got away with exaggerating, biographer Edmund Morris believes, because he’d spent weeks editing raw film footage from Buchenwald. His emotional reaction was sincere.

A riddle wrapped in an engima wrapped in plain white wrapper

Or is there something about Perry (or Abbott, or Texas politics, or life) that I just simply don’t understand?

I turn here to Erica Grieder, as insightful and careful observer of Perry as there is and, lo and behold, in an excellent Texas Monthly piece, here is her conclusion:

“Despite the fact that Perry has been in public office continuously for nearly thirty years and is the state’s longest-serving governor, he has always been a bit puzzling. He was considered unremarkable—a nobody, really—when he was elected to the Texas House, in 1984, as a Democrat. Six years later, when he unseated incumbent Democrat Jim Hightower as agriculture commissioner after switching parties, he became the first Republican ever to win that office in Texas. But even then people saw Perry as a fluke. When he was elected lieutenant governor, in 1998, he seemed to be George W. Bush Junior. And when Perry became governor, in 2000—after W. left Austin to become president—it wasn’t too hard to dismiss him as an empty head of hair.

“Even if Texans wanted to dispute that impression, they would be hard-pressed to do so. Despite his years in office, Perry remains an oddly underdeveloped character. Anyone trying to make sense of him will struggle to find the reference points. He didn’t come up through the state’s Republican establishment. His political alliances are apparently mutable. He doesn’t talk much about his family history, beyond the passing reference to the dirt farm in Paint Creek, and has rarely made political arguments from personal experience. Nor does he talk about his life at present all that often. Most Texans wouldn’t recognize his wife, Anita, if they saw her in the grocery store. At times, Perry doesn’t even seem connected to physical reality. He is, at 63, older than he looks. There’s a persistent belief that his hair is unusually good, when in reality it’s nondescript, especially for a politician. The truth is, he likes to jog. He likes to shoot. He loves to be on the campaign trail. And that’s about it.”

Wow. Talk about stripping the bark off - Gov. Goodhair doesn’t even have exceptionally good hair? I don’t know. I think Grieder may have gone too far there.

ICON TO ICON

“On the final day of his Main Street Texas tour, gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott will visit El Paso and Austin on Thursday, July 18th.”

In El Paso, Abbott will appear with Randy Watson, president and CEO OF Justin’s Boots, at the Tony Lama Factory.

In Austin, he will appear with Colt McCoy, former quarterback at The University of Texas at Austin, at Scholz Garten at 5 p.m.

WHO DO YOU TRUST? ROUND TWO

This morning at 9:30, Gov. Perry, joined by lawmakers and other invited guests, will sign House Bill 2 - “pro-life legislation to protect the unborn and women’s health in Texas,” in a ceremony in the Capitol Extension Auditorium.

It was only a few short weeks ago that those who will gather with the governor to celebrate the enactment of the abortion legislation, were despairing - and even at each other’s throats - in the wake of the filibuster by Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, with a crucial assist from her Democratic colleagues and a packed gallery, that succeeded in derailing a timely vote on the legislation, forcing a second special session.

At the time, it seemed a new low in the political fortunes of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who, it appeared, lost control of the proceedings, and had handed a rival in his own party the dagger with which to do him in - E tu, Patrick?

In short order, Sen. Dan Patrick was announcing his candidacy to replace Dewhurst, saying this at his announcement press conference:

“It was pretty obvious to the world that was watching - and the world was watching, it was an incredible event Tuesday night - that what happened Tuesday night was a lack of leadership. The Senate floor was out of control. The gallery was out of control. There seemed not to be a plan. There seemed not be a backup plan. There seemed not to be a contingency plan, and that should never have happened. Tuesday night was a loss for those of us who believe in the sanctity of life. It was important legislation. There were so many ways that should have been avoided. Becuase of that lack of leadership we not only lost important legislation, we have also elevated a rallying point of the other party.”

Well, three weeks to the day after Patrick’s announcement - with much subsequent drama and tumult in between - Perry is signing that legislation, and Lt. Gov. Dewhurst is effectively constructing a new narrative of his leadership, buttressed by the loyalty of many of the leaders of the “right-to-life” movement.

Earlier this week it was the release of a very slick campaign video - “David Dewhurst: Defender of the Pre-Born.”

Now, this morning, right after the signing ceremony, it will a press release and video, in which Texas right to life leaders lavish praise on Dewhurst for getting the job done.

Here are some excerpts from the release:

• “Members of Texas Right to Life were genuinely saddened to see the woundedness of the abortion crowd manifest in such angry words and raucous action when the mob descended on the capitol on June 25th,” said Elizabeth Graham of the Texas Right to Life PAC. “However, these protestors only succeeded in delaying the passage of House Bill 2, the prolife omnibus bill. The mob showed their cards, and Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst became steeled in his resolve to shepherd this lifesaving measure to passage. Dewhurst did just that on July 13th, and Texas Right to Life PAC considers this a great victory for our state and for the unborn—a victory that would not have happened without him. Texas Right to Life PAC proudly endorses David Dewhurst for Lt. Governor.”

• “When it comes to advocating for pro-life legislation, elected officials across the country could take a lesson from David Dewhurst,” said Joe Pojman, PhD, Executive Director for the Texas Alliance for Life PAC. “Throughout his tenure, he has helped organizations like ours navigate the shoal waters of the legislative process to get effective bills passed into law. We support his candidacy because we’re confident he’ll continue standing tall for the sanctity of life.”

• “I’ve been in this fight for a while and I remember the days before David Dewhurst took office when the Senate would barely touch pro-life legislation,” said Kyleen Wright of the Texans for Life Coalition. “Since he’s been in office, he’s done the heavy lifting to pass bills that strengthen the role of parents in the lives of their minor children including the Parental Notification and Parental Consent laws. I believe re-electing David Dewhurst is the best thing we can do to protect future generations of Texans.”

Earlier, Wright had been sharply critical of Patrick:

“Texas is on the verge of passing some of the most effective pro-life legislation in our history. How disappointing that a sitting senator choose this moment to attack Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst, the leader who has helped forge the strongest, most unified approach to this issue we have ever seen. Senator Patrick should at least put aside his political campaign long enough to help us get this bill across the finish line.”

Paul Burka proclaimed Dewhurst a winner, and Patrick a loser, out of the abortion debate.

“David Dewhurst, who recovered from what was probably the worst day of his tenure as lieutenant governor by guiding the abortion bill to its final passage. This also changes the dynamics in the lieutenant governor’s race. He passed the bill, he gets the credit, and there’s nothing his rivals can do about it (see Dan Patrick below).”

Unborn v. Pre-born

One will notice that while Gov. Perry’s announcement refers to the “unborn,” Lt. Gov. Dewhurst uses the term, “pre-born.” No issue more clearly rides the terrain of political semantics - even here among allies.

I wondered about the use of “pre-born,” and found that it was used in The New York Times at least as far back as a story from Sept. 6, 1981, in which, “The political right is demanding that the Reagan Administration turn its attention from economic legislation to ”moral issues,” such as abortion and prayer in schools.

“Edward A. McAteer, president of the Religious Roundtable, which sponsored an anti-abortion rally in Dallas on Thursday, began a press briefing on the session by declaring: ”With Congressional passage of the President’s tax bill, the Administration has accomplished the foremost goal on its agenda. Now it is imperative that top priority be given to the moral issues facing our nation, particularly legislation to protect pre-born human lives.”

Along the way, I stumbled upon a very interesting opinion piece that same year in the Times by the novelist Walker Percy on the contested language of the abortion debate.

“Now I don’t know whether the human-life bill is good legislation or not. But as a novelist I can recognize meretricious use of language, disingenuousness, and a con job when I hear it.

“The current con, perpetrated by some jurists, some editorial writers, and some doctors is that since there is no agreement about the beginning of human life, it is therefore a private religious or philosophical decision and therefore the state and the courts can do nothing about it. This is a con. I will not presume to speculate who is conning whom and for what purpose. But I do submit that religion, philosophy, and private opinion have nothing to do with this issue. I further submit that it is a commonplace of modern biology, known to every high school student and no doubt to you the reader as well, that the life of every individual organism, human or not, begins when the chromosomes of the sperm fuse with the chromosomes of the ovum to form a new DNA complex that thenceforth directs the ontogenesis of the organism.

“Such vexed subjects as the soul, God, and the nature of man are not at issue. What we are talking about and what nobody I know would deny is the clear continuum that exists in the life of every individual from the moment of fertilization of a single cell.

“There is a wonderful irony here. It is this: The onset of individual life is not a dogma of the church but a fact of science. How much more convenient if we lived in the 13th century, when no one knew anything about microbiology and arguments about the onset of life were legitimate. Compared to a modern textbook of embryology, Thomas Aquinas sounds like an American Civil Liberties Union member. Nowadays it is not some misguided ecclesiastics who are trying to suppress an embarrassing scientific fact. It is the secular juridical-journalistic establishment.

“Please indulge the novelist if he thinks in novelistic terms. Picture the scene. A Galileo trial in reverse. The Supreme Court is cross-examining a high school biology teacher and admonishing him that of course it is only his personal opinion that the fertilized human ovum is an individual human life. He is enjoined not to teach his private beliefs at a public school. Like Galileo he caves in, submits, but in turning away is heard to murmur, “But it’s still alive!”

“To pro-abortionists: According to the opinion polls, it looks as if you may get your way. But you’re not going to have it both ways. You’re going to be told what you’re doing.”

Percy’s piece drew a strong reaction, as one might imagine, including this letter the Times published from the writer Gary Krist, author of, among other things, the short story collection, “The Garden State.”

Krist wrote:

“It was with a mixture of astonishment and regret that I read “A View of Abortion, With Something to Offend Everybody,” by Walker Percy, a novelist whom I greatly respect (Op-Ed June 8). What astonished me most was that in his account of the abortion issue Mr. Percy never once mentions the other important character in the abortion drama - the mother.

“He writes as if conception, gestation and birth take place on an abstract plane, totally divorced from the complexities and subtleties of human society.

“This kind of reductive description is perhaps typical of a scientist but certainly not of a novelist, whom we rightfully expect to be conversant with the ambiguities of moral dilemma. Surely a novelist of Mr. Percy’s prodigious talents must realize that the abortion issue is more than a simple question of biology.”

TRUEST BLUEST

Robert Draper has a fabulous cover story in Texas Monthly about Wendy Davis, the Castro twins, Battleground Texas, the state of Texas Democrats, etc. Read it.

My only other comment. On the question of whether Davis will or should run for governor, Draper is no wet blanket.

And who were the most generous contributors to Battleground Texas in the months of its infancy, according to the fundraising reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission Monday - indicating that they had raised $1.1 million since their February launch?

Well the most generous giver is a given - the Mostyn Law Firm. $250,000.

So who is next among non-Mostyn Americans? (and note, the descriptor, “not employed,” from the filing, carries a slightly different flavor than “unemployed.”)

• SEIU COPE - $100,000.

• Carrin Patman. Austin. Not employed. $55,000.

• Naomi Aberly. Boston. Not employed. $50,000.

• Lillie Robertson. Houston. Self-employed. $50,000.

• Kenneth Bagwell. Houston. Self-employed. $30,000.

• Ramon Martinez. President. Greater Houston Transportation Co. $25,000.

• Aimee Boone. Austin. Not employed. $25,000.

• Bonnie Mills. Austin. Self-employed. $25,000.

• Lee Fikes. Dallas. President, Bonanza Oil. $25,000.

• Amy Fikes. Dallas. Homemaker.. $20,000.

And tbe coolest donor:

$2,000 from Benjamin McKenzie Schenkkan. (From Wikipeida: ‘Known professionally as Benjamin McKenzie or Ben McKenzie, is an American actor and producer. He is known for playing Ryan Atwood in the television series The O.C. and for playing Ben Sherman in Southland.” He is a native of Austin, Texas.)

(p.s., the Planned Parenthood Action Fund gave BGTX $10,000.)

Pretty sure you can find $1.1m in Mostyn's couch cushions: http://t.co/qy6wsnV5QI

— EricaGrieder (@EricaGrieder) July 15, 2013

Out of respect for the National Pastime and Mariano Rivera, First Reading is observing its own All Star Break today.

It had been my intention to put First Reading on hiatus for a while, so I could return to Washington, D.C., to visit the family I left behind, and think about how to proceed with First Reading after the Legislature is out of session.

But, by light of day, it appears uncertain when that might be, with the possibility that Gov. Perry may yet add to the call.

So I may put the plan for an extended hiatus on hold for the moment. I do not know.

In the meantime, I am pleased to report that my work here has had one tangible positive result.

As a consequence of what I wrote about Mario Garza playing accordion across the (orange and blue) color lines at the Capitol, he was invited by Rollie Revering, secretary of the Central Texas Accordion Association, to come to their meeting tonight at 7 at Mexita’s, at IH35 and 12th Street, to talk about the accordion as an instrument of love, peace and understanding during the great abortion debate. Mario has happily accepted the invitation.

Rollie tells me the association is open to any interested party, “whether or not they play the accordion,” and that Joel Guzman will be the featured entertainment tonight, followed by a jam session.

Bob Mann on the death of Austin’s Bob Hardesty, in the Statesman.

“I’m going to go home, drink whiskey and do nothing for 48 hours but think in long, convoluted sentences.”

Bob Hardesty, on how he would spend a weekend off from writing speeches for LBJ who insisted on the rule of four : “four-letter words, four-word sentences, four-sentence paragraphs.” in Hardesty’s New York Times obituary.

Good morning Austin.

Today is Day Three of Attorney General Greg Abbott’s candidacy for governor. The primary is only eight months away, in March, with the general election another eight months after that.

Abbott launched his campaign in San Antonio on Sunday. He was in Houston and McAllen yesterday. Today he will visit the three communities he grew up in - Wichita Falls, Longview and Duncanville.

From Houston, the AP’s Paul Weber reports that, in an interview, Abbott put a little political daylight between himself and Gov. Perry.

Weber’s lede: “Republican gubernatorial hopeful Greg Abbott signaled his unease Monday with one of Gov. Rick Perry’s signature legacies — awarding businesses millions of taxpayer dollars in the name of job creation. It was the first sign that the state attorney general’s vision for Texas is not a carbon copy of his longtime GOP ally.”

Weber continues: “In an interview with The Associated Press, Abbott also said that Texas still needs a prosecutorial arm to investigate state corruption, a unit that saw its funding stripped by Perry last month after the district attorney that oversaw the Public Integrity Unit refused to resign after a drunken driving arrest.

“Both examples stood out as early ways Abbott is forging his own identity among GOP voters in his bid to succeed Perry, who is not seeking re-election in 2014 but has spent the last decade as the face of state’s Republican party.

“The state of Texas benefits from a public integrity unit that will ensure that we have a policeman, if you will, that all public officials do the right thing all the time,” Abbott told the AP.”

Weber reports that Abbott “appeared lukewarm toward one of Perry’s proudest achievements: Two job-creating programs, the Texas Enterprise Fund and Emerging Technology Fund, that have doled out hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to private companies since 2005.

“Perry trumpets the programs as engines that have made the roaring Texas economy the envy of the nation. But both conservatives and Democrats have blasted the programs, with far-right GOP groups dismissing the initiatives as corporate welfare.

“Abbott stopped short of saying he would phase out the funds if elected, but he made clear that his preferred method of job growth would be through business tax reforms. Abbott said that would give all companies — not just those picked for lucrative awards — a chance to thrive.

“He declined to assess the impact of Perry’s programs.”

“What I can say is that I don’t want to be involved in government picking between winners and losers,” he said. “I do want to be involved in having a tax structure that will be a natural magnet for businesses that are thinking about relocating here.

“If we can do that, you’re going to find even more businesses choosing to relocate to the state of Texas.”

“Abbott returned to Houston 29 years and one day after a freak accident paralyzed him from the waist down while jogging in one of the city’s neighborhoods. He was crushed by a 75-foot oak tree that splintered at the base and struck him in the back. Abbott sued and collected millions, and now has two steel rods in his back.”

Talking like Pauken

Interestingly, Abbott’s criticism of the Texas Enterprise and Emerging Technology funds and of government “picking winners and losers,” echoes similar criticisms by his only rival in the race for governor - former Workforce Commission Chairman Tom Pauken.

The new fundraising filings that were due Monday indicate that Abbott has raised 100 times more money than Pauken - nearly $23 million to Pauken’s $221,260.

Despite the disparity, Abbott’s comments about two of Perry’s pet projects may indicate that Pauken could play a more consequential role in shaping the debate than his meager resources may suggest, and the fact that there is so much time between now and March, and just the two of them, means that Pauken’s role could grow as the man who would vet Greg Abbott.

As “hopeless” underfunded candidates go, Pauken is very smart and very low on the crank factor.

Too Much Fun(ds)

Also, in announcing his small haul, Pauken issued a statement attempting to turn Abbott’s fundraising prowess against him:

“Today’s release of a political fundraising report show that my opponent has been extraordinarily busy during his three terms as attorney general raising a war chest from big law firms and special interests.

“Even before this report came out, Greg Abbott had raised more than $39 million since 2001, with $27 million coming from just 200 sources.

“This begs the question: Will Greg Abbott listen to the needs of everyday Texans or his big money donors?”

At Must Read Texas, Matt Mackowiak listens into Abbott’s interview on the conservative national podcast, “Coffee and Markets,” conducted by Texas’ Brad Jackson and The Transom’s Ben Domenech, with, in this case, Red State editor Erick Erickson joining in the questioning.

The three things that caught Mackowiak’s ear were Abbott’s critique about “picking winners and losers,” as described in the AP story, but also:

• 2 - “AG Abbott mentioned that he gave now-Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) his first big opportunity, appointing him to Solicitor General, the “top lawyer in my office,” and he also said Cruz was “a prodigy” and a very hard worker.”

• 3) “Asked about Battleground Texas, AG Abbott said his experience merging his family with his wife’s and their Hispanic heritage would help him lead the GOP to win Hispanic votes, and informed him with firsthand experience that GOP policies should appeal to Hispanics as he believes they share values with the GOP. He noted that his wife would be Texas’ first Latina First Lady.”

It was a theme Abbott struck in McAllen.

From Jacqueline Armendariz in the Monitor.

“Gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott called for unity between Republican candidates and Hispanics in McAllen on Monday, with the promise of being in South Texas much more.”

xxxx

“What I can tell you is by me being here on my first full day running for governor, I’m trying to show the people of the Valley my commitment to them,” Abbott said in an interview with the media, asking whether he thought the region has long been ignored by Austin. “In Austin, Texas, with me as governor, they will not be ignored. They will be a priority.”

“Abbot made a strong effort to woo Hispanics, remarking on his long marriage to wife Cecilia Abbott, a Latina, and stating Republican and Hispanic values are the same: family, faith and free enterprise.”

“Even though we came from different families and different backgrounds, the reason we succeeded is because our value system is the same,” Abbott said of his marriage. “Dos casas para una fundación (two homes for one foundation.) We will build upon that foundation in the future.”

Four-way race for lieutenant governor

Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, with $3 million in the bank, has the largest campaign treasury of the four Republican candidates for lieutenant governor, according to the latest fundraising statements, which were due Monday.

Thanks to a $650,000 personal loan to his campaign, Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, the latest entrant in the race, edged past Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in money in the bank — $2.1 million to $1.73 million — even though Dewhurst raised more than $1.2 million compared with about $100,000 for Patrick. The fourth candidate, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, raised $417,000, bringing his treasury to $1.3 million. Patterson said he hopes to raise $3 million in the next six months to remain competitive, and Dewhurst has a personal fortune that he can tap.

Also:

• Railroad Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman raised close to $700,000, pushing his campaign account to just over $1 million, while state Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, has $4 million in cash on hand.

• Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, who is expected to run for comptroller to succeed Susan Combs, who is retiring, raised $394,000 and had a little over $1 million to spend. State Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, has more than $1.8 million on hand for the race.

• George P. Bush, grandson and nephew of presidents, who is seeking his first elective office as land commissioner, raised a little over $2 million and has just over $2.6 million in the bank.

• Monday was also the first reporting period for Battleground Texas, an effort launched in late February by alumni of the Obama campaign, to lay the groundwork for a Democratic rebirth in Texas. The group reported raising more than $1.1 million from 3,537 donors, with 79 percent of the total donations raised in Texas. They raised another $27,000 at a fundraiser in Washington on Thursday.

• Meanwhile, Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who was catapulted into the national spotlight by her filibuster of abortion legislation at the end of the first special session of the Legislature, raised $933,470, bringing her campaign fund to just over $1 million. Her largest contributions included $50,000 from Annie’s List, which supports Democratic women candidates, and $100,000 from Fort Worth billionaire businessman Sid Bass.

Democratic strategist Harold Cook said dollars raised by both Battleground Texas and Davis were encouraging signs for a party that hasn’t won statewide office since 1994. He said Battleground Texas had clearly established itself as a credible force. “People tend to not give at this level to loser Democratic deals — they have to see a path to reach a goal,” Cook said. “There’s no question that it’s a great start for them.”

Jeff Rotkoff, a influential local Democratic operative, also said the Democratic fund-raising was a good start - like arriving at the base camp in a prospective climb of Mount Everest. It’s a necessary and significant accomplishment, but when you look up, you realize just how far you have to go.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

Gregg Abbott and Tom Pauken may not like the government picking economic “winners and losers,” but, at Texas Monthly, Paul “Best and Worst” Burka, picks the political “winners and losers” in the recent abortion showdown, though actually the list would be more accurately described as winners and loser, singular.

• Winner: Wendy Davis, who became a national figure by virtue of her filibuster and has the chance to reenergize the Democratic party in Texas. Of course, the word “reenergize” can mean a lot of different things. How she plays her hand now is very important to her political future.

• Winner: David Dewhurst, who recovered from what was probably the worst day of his tenure as lieutenant governor by guiding the abortion bill to its final passage. This also changes the dynamics in the lieutenant governor’s race. He passed the bill, he gets the credit, and there’s nothing his rivals can do about it (see Dan Patrick below).

• Winner: Rick Perry, whose presidential aspirations will be buttressed by the passage of the abortion bill and the national attention it brought to the battle in Texas.

• Winner: Democrats. Why? Because the more extreme they can paint Republicans, the better Democrats are positioned to talk about the Republicans’ so-called war against women.

• Loser: Dan Patrick, who was quick to criticize Dewhurst when the bill became ensnarled in the midnight chaos on the Senate floor back in June, only to discover that he had “spoken too soon.” Dewhurst has become a favorite of the pro-life groups, and there wasn’t much Patrick could do about his situation. On the day after the Davis filibuster, I was in the back hallway of the Senate when I saw Dewhurst lead the various pro-life groups into his office. Such is the advantage of incumbency. There is a big difference in clout between a state senator and a statewide elected official.

Urine and feces and tampons, oh my

From the Houston Chronicle.

“Texas Senate Administration chairman Kevin Eltife said Monday the Texas Department of Public Safety learned that some groups planned to heave projectiles into the Texas Senate gallery by monitoring online chatter in the days preceding Friday’s debate.

“Eltife said DPS set up a table to screen backpacks after monitoring the “blogosphere” and realized that a huge crowd would attend Friday’s debate. Law enforcement officers found mention on the Internet of some groups who planned to throw projectiles, including urine and paint, onto the Senate chamber from the gallery, he said.

“He stressed that DPS officials had told him that the aggressors were not part of the anti-abortion or abortion rights movements, but “third party groups” who wanted to make a statement. “They specifically said it was not Planned Parenthood…but some third party groups trying to stir things up,” said Eltife.

“DPS has been criticized for “confiscating” tampons, but Eltife said that action occurred after officers stopped a woman with a cache of “about 75? feminine hygiene products attempting to enter the Senate Gallery. News reporters on Friday could not find a trooper who could personally verify that jars of urine and feces were confiscated. A DPS press release claimed that 1 jar of urine, 18 jars of feces and three filled with paint were found by officers”.

But, from Shefali Luthra at the Texas Tribune: “State Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, sent a letter to DPS Director Steven McCraw seeking more details regarding the discovery of the jars.

“I am troubled that inaccurately distributed information may unfairly and unfavorably portray the thousands of citizens who legitimately and lawfully exercised their right of democratic participation — particularly since no evidence has been shown to substantiate the allegations related to these ‘suspicious jars,’” the letter reads.

TRANSPORTATION’S ROLLER COAST SUMMER CONTINUES

Here are two headlines from the Quorum Report:

July 15, 2013 6:18 PM HOUSE FALLS SHORT OF 100 VOTES ON ROAD FUNDING AMENDMENT

Preliminary vote on HJR 2 this evening musters 92 aye votes… backers of the road funding amendment will need to find 8 more votes on 3rd reading

And:

July 15, 2013 6:35 PM

HOUSE ADJOURNS UNTIL 2 P.M. THURSDAY

Will presumably use the extra time to find 100 ayes on HJR 2…

Ben Wear in the Statesman, explains:

“Two measures that would increase state highway spending got preliminary approval Monday from the Texas House. But numerous political and parliamentary hurdles remain for both, meaning the Texas Department of Transportation’s roller coaster summer of waiting for more money will continue for at least three more days and likely into next week.

“The House on a 92-32 bipartisan vote gave second reading approval to House Joint Resolution 2, a proposed constitutional amendment that would end the decades-long diversion of a quarter of the state’s 20-cents-a-gallon gas tax to public education. That would mean an additional $820 million next year for TxDOT, and a like amount for each of the next few years.

“But the measure, which would go before voters in November if it gets final approval from the House and somehow clears the Texas Senate, would also ensure that schools don’t lose state revenue. It would require that public education get an amount equal to a quarter of the gas tax’s yield from oil and gas taxes, dollars that otherwise would have gone into the state’s rainy day fund.

“TxDOT currently spends about $10 billion a year, so the extra funding would amount to an 8-percent increase. TxDOT Executive Director Phil Wilson said earlier this year that the agency needs an additional $4 billion a year to maintain the 80,000-mile road system and add capacity to control urban traffic congestion.

“However, despite the heavy majority for HJR 2 on Monday, its passage through the House remains in doubt. Constitutional amendments require 100 votes on either second or third reading. The House likely will take it up again on Thursday, bill sponsor state Rep. Joe Pickett said, and he will attempt to find those additional eight votes from among Monday’s opponents and the 25 who didn’t vote.

“Having 92 positive votes with (25) members absent means it’s alive,” Pickett said.”

UT impeachment inquiry will be “exhaustive”

From the Statesman’s Ralph K.M. Haurwitz:

“Members of a special House panel charged with deciding whether a University of Texas System regent should be impeached made it clear Monday that they plan an exhaustive inquiry that is expected to take months.

“The Select Committee on Transparency in State Agency Operations will hire a lawyer and an investigator, use its subpoena power and have a parliamentarian ensure that it follows proper procedures, said Rep. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, who co-chairs the panel. Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Canton, the panel’s other co-chair, emphasized its investigative role and said no particular outcome has been determined in advance.

“The committee has a wide-ranging charge from Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, to monitor appointees of Gov. Rick Perry but is expected to focus on UT Regent Wallace Hall Jr. He has drawn sharp criticism from some lawmakers for demanding voluminous records from UT-Austin and for leaving various lawsuits out of his application to become a regent, an omission he has since corrected.

“The inquiry involving Hall is part of a larger struggle over control of the Austin flagship. Hall and some of the other regents have clashed with university President Bill Powers on fundraising, graduation rates, faculty productivity and other matters. Last month, Perry vetoed legislation that would have scaled back some of the powers of public university governing boards.”

“Hall’s biggest critic in the Legislature has been Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, who is a powerful figure in the House by virtue of his chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee. Pitts filed a resolution last month that said Hall’s behavior “casts doubt on his fitness to hold public office.” Earlier, Pitts charged that some regents are engaged in a “witch hunt” intended to oust Powers”

Remembering Robert Hardesty

Bob Mann, a friend, writes movingly of Bob Hardesty at the Statesman.

“Being a pal of Bob Hardesty’s was no job for a slacker.

“Even casual chats over martinis carried an unstated insistence that even political banter should be accurate and precise and, hopefully, have a dose of drama. Hardesty could often be cutting in his own verbiage, but — rare for a political creature — he was more gentleman than partisan.

“It was indeed his rhetorical flair partnered with fairness that led Lyndon Johnson, and many others over decades, to seek the Hardesty touch. Ranting and demagoguery did not spew from Hardesty’s typing machines. We said our final goodbyes to Hardesty on Monday. His death ushers his rare political breed closer to extinction.

“Although Hardesty served men of significant ego, he’d take their self-serving baloney and run it through the meat grinders of accuracy, honesty and fairness before presenting his final product to his bosses, including LBJ.

“Even his most brilliant employers knew Hardesty was at least as smart as they were. That might be why LBJ never turned his notorious verbal wrath on Hardesty.’

“It was not only Hardesty’s words, but his candor that separated him from some of the herd that surrounds every strong political leader and why Hardesty was one of two staffers LBJ brought to Texas when he left the White House. The second was Tom Johnson, 12 years Hardesty’s junior but another rare political professional of high integrity and candor.

“Like Hardesty, Tom Johnson shot to the top when the LBJ era ended, and the two were as close in the private sector as they had been in the White House. Johnson became president of CNN, Hardesty a university president.

“There was resistance when Gov. Mark White named Hardesty in 1981 to head what was then Southwest Texas State University, where LBJ graduated in 1930. He wasn’t a “scholar” and had only a bachelor’s degree, critics said.

“But Hardesty’s administrative skill and intellect won over the faculty at the university. A handsome 6-footer with reddish blond hair who wore a suit as though it were finely tailored - even if it wasn’t — Hardesty was a magnet for faculty members and students when walking the campus with his big dog, “Orloff.”

“But eight years into Hardesty’s tenure, Republican Gov. Bill Clements, a cantankerous Dallas oil man, fired him. That triggered outrage.

“Angered by the attack on academic freedom and raw politicization of academic leadership, Hardesty sued, winning a settlement of more than $1 million.

“The Hardestys returned to Washington. He did some consulting and daily took his border collie Simon on strolls to a vacant lot favored by Simon, whom Hardesty dubbed “mayor” of the lot. When Simon died a few years ago, Hardesty flew his ashes back to D.C. and spread them over the lot.”

And here from Hardesty’s obituary in the New York Times.

‘In 1965, at the request of the White House, the Democratic National Committee supplied a list of 50 stellar political speeches of the previous few years; 40 had been written by Mr. Hardesty. When he was hired for Johnson’s staff, it was with the understanding that his primary job was to make the boss look good.

“According to Robert Schlesinger’s 2008 book, “White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters,” Johnson himself told Mr. Hardesty he was interested in speechwriters with “a passion for anonymity.”

“Johnson told his staff to write simply and to help him make news.”

“We intend to land the first man on the surface of the moon, and we intend to do it in this decade of the ’60s,” Mr. Hardesty wrote for a presidential speech in March 1966, reiterating a goal set by President John F. Kennedy. The problem was that the progress of the space program had slowed, and Mr. Hardesty was putting an optimistic spin on information he had received from NASA.

“He wrote the line thinking the president would surely check such a declaration before actually making it. When Johnson simply went ahead with the speech, NASA officials told Mr. Hardesty he had created mayhem in the space program, and Mr. Hardesty expected to be fired. Instead, Johnson congratulated him.”

“Now that’s what I call a news lead,” he said.

Here is a tribute to Hardesty from the LBJ Library, and here also from the LBJ Library, is an absolutely marvelous recollection of Johnson by Hardesty, including this:

“He was Presidential; he was partisan; he was hilarious; he was compassionate; he was outrageous; he was reflective. Above all, he was having fun with the Republican Party.

“He talked about those politicians who were always against everything new: “We used to have folks like that around the store in Johnson City,” he said. “We called them dispeptics. When they put the railroad through town for the first time, one old man stood there and looked at-’ it and said, ‘They’ll never get the damn thing started.’ The girl came up with a great wine bottle and hit it across the snoot of the locomotive and it started going out about 15 or 20 miles an hour. And they went up to him and said, ‘What do you think now, Uncle Ezra?’ And he said, ‘They’ll never get the damn thing stopped.’ ”

Date: 09/10/1968

Event: President Johnson traveling with White House Staff.

Location: Helicopter en route to Andrews Airforce Base for a trip to New Orleans, Louisiana.

Description: President Lyndon B. Johnson (far left) talks with members of his staff while on a helicopter en route to Louisiana from Andrews AFB.

L-R James (Jim) Jones, Robert (Bob) Hardesty, Harry Middleton.

Credit: LBJ Library Photo by Yoichi Okamoto

Attorney General Greg Abbott, after being introduced by his 16-year-old daughter, Audrey, at the campaign event in San Antonio where he announced his candidacy for governor.

Good morning Austin.

I would be tempted to say that I went to Gregg Abbott’s gubernatorial announcement in San Antonio yesterday and all I got was this lousy fan, but then, as is obvious, this fan is anything but lousy. It is a superb piece of campaign kitsch, and I am at a loss to explain why anyone would have let one drop to the ground where I found and rescued it after most everyone else had left.

I wondered about “fast cars.” Was the attorney general tempting drivers to exceed the speed limit? No, Matt Hirsch, communications director for the Abbott campaign helpfully explained. The slogan originated with an Abbott NASCAR sponsorship. I should have known that.

But it is hard to know where the freedom agenda begins and ends these days. Trey Ware, the conservative talk radio host from San Antonio who emceed the event and warmed up the crowd, included the right to a Big Gulp, which Gov. Rick Perry, during his recent trip to New York City, helped enshrine as one of the fundamental rights of a free people, and another reason to move to Texas.

And then there is the right to text while driving. Gov. Perry has said people ought not to do it, but it is not government’s role to impose its will here and he has successfully kept a texting ban from becoming law for two sessions now.

I do not know whether General Abbott weighed in on the legislation - and the fact-checking department is closed here in the pre-dawn hours - but two years ago there was this - Attorney General Abbott, DPS Director McCraw Warn Young Texans Not To Text and Drive - suggesting at least the possibility that he is a squish on the issue.

Then there was this very interesting piece from Peggy Fikac in the Houston Chronicle, in which Abbott - who right-to-life leaders in Texas consider at least Perry’s equal as a friend to their movement - and his wife, Cecilia, discussed the issue with what Fikac correctly characterized as a rare subtlety and nuance.

It begins: “The language of abortion is usually clear-cut. Then you talk to someone like Attorney General Greg Abbott.

“It’s clear that Abbott, aiming to be Texas’ next governor, opposes abortion. But when you ask the standard question - whether he would allow exceptions - he doesn’t give the standard answer.”

“If you’re really pro-life, you want to save every life, but that also includes the mother’s life,” he said in an interview at his in-laws’ San Antonio home, where a front room is decorated with crosses and icons of the Catholic faith he shares with his wife, Cecilia, and her family. “The life of the mother is just as precious as the life of the child.”

“Does that mean he’d allow an exception to his anti-abortion stand to save the mother’s life?”

“In a way, but you’re in a way kind of mischaracterizing the word. It’s not like an exception,” he said. “What both the medical community needs to do, and the pro-life community supports, is doing everything we can to protect the life of the mother.”

“Cecilia interjected “If you need to … do procedures to save that mother, that doesn’t mean aborting. It just might mean that that might be the result of it, a child’s life might be the result of it, but you don’t stop a child’s life.”

ALL OVER BUT THE VOTING?

Now, as Ken Herman noted in the Statesman, the 2014 gubernatorial campaign may have, for all practical purposes, begun and ended yesterday.

Herman writes:

“The 2014 Texas gubernatorial contest, at least the part you could see, pretty much began at 2:14 p.m. Sunday when Attorney General Greg Abbott, to the surprise of all who’ve been off the grid for a while, announced he’s in the race.

“And the 2014 battle to replace Gov. Rick Perry, who last week announced he’s not running, also pretty much ended Sunday at 2:14 p.m. Did you enjoy it?

“Right now, it looks like the best way to avoid having Republican Abbott as your next governor will be to move out of state.”

But, even if Abbott doesn’t bite at Tom Pauken’s suggestion that they engage in a series of Lincoln-Douglas debates, Pauken’s presence in the race guarantees there will at least be a gadfly in the race attempting to draw Abbott out on the issues. And, if his answers go beyond the tweets Abbott loves so much, to more complicated answers like those he gave Fikac, it could be interesting.

I asked Julie McCarty, head of the Northeast Tarrant Tea Party about her thinking on Abbott, and she sent me some of her Facebook postings on the subject, including this:

“Everyone is so excited, but nobody has any back up for why. I have no doubt that Abbott will win, but THIS is the time to put pressure on him to vow to do the right thing — not just be brainless cheerleaders who drool over him like he’s the captain of the football team. And get those promises in writing or on video so we can hold him to it later… “

END RUN?

In his coverage in the Texas Tribune, Jay Root suggests that, “some of the topics he mentioned in Sunday’s speech suggest that Abbott is running to the right of Perry. While there were no detailed policy initiatives unveiled, Abbott called for an economy with a “level playing field that gets government out of the business of picking between winners and losers, and by reducing taxes on employers.”

“Perry has been a fierce advocate of giving tax subsidies to companies that promise to bring jobs to Texas, but the conservative grassroots that make up Abbott’s bedrock supporters consider them to be corporate welfare. Abbott appeared to be making the point that the programs aren’t necessary.”

“Government is supposed to be on your side — not riding your backs,” Abbott said.

Abbott also proposed reining in state debt by “reducing the amount the state can borrow.”

KEEP COOL AND CARRY ON

Anyway, back to those fans, which were not just handsome but hugely useful yesterday at an event that was held in an open plaza at the La Villita Historic Arts Village under the merciless midday sun on a day in the very high 90s.

If I was a bit churlish in my opening today, it was because yesterday’s event was simply too darn hot. Now, it might be said that, as a recent arrival, I am just not Texas tough. But, I would suggest, that were it not for John Gorrie or Willis Carrier or whoever one credits as the father of air conditioning, there would be no Texas economic miracle, and 1,400 people would not be moving here each and every day, and the South would never have risen again.

That there were no casualties to heat exhaustion yesterday was the Abbott campaign’s great good fortune, but they were just lucky. As I squinted at my laptop amid the intense glare in a desperate search for my cursor - my nose fairly pressed against the screen and the salty sting of my own sweat in my eyes - I imagined in my fevered state that Abbott must harbor some deep animus to the press. Otherwise, why? But then, of course, I realized he was putting many hundreds of his closest friends and supporters through this, and that I, unlike them, at least had the benefit of a chair. Or at least I did until, at the end of the attorney general’s speech, I went to talk to a few folks in the crowd and returned to write my story to find that my chair had already been removed and packed away - the equivalent of turning the lights bright in a bar after last call.

Audrey Abbott’s introduction of her father was sweet - they clearly are the apples of each other’s eyes. But the first hour of the program, which included a Greg Abbott trivia contest, went on a bit long considering the heat, and included the strangest comment of the day, from Ware, who came across like a right-wing Bob Eubanks.

Yesterday was the 29th anniversary of the awful day that Abbott, jogging in Houston, was hit by a falling oak that left him a paraplegic. The story of his recovery and enormous success is inspirational. One of those who spoke yesterday was Fred Frost, Abbott’s friend who was jogging with him at the time of the accident. After he spoke, Ware picked up on the fact that Frost had said that Abbott had jogged “right” and been hit by the falling oak, while Frost jogged safely straight ahead. Well, Ware said, Abbott had made the right choice because, well, you get it, politically right is better than left, but it was a very odd comment that I blame on the heat.

Anyway, aside from the heat it was a good event, except there was no “aside from the heat.”

Here, from Matt Mackowiak at Must Read Texas, is a helpful accounting of some prominent shows and no-shows yesterday.

In attendance were Texas Railroad Commission chairman Barry Smitherman (R-TX), U.S. Reps. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Blake Farenthold (R-TX), former U.S. Rep. Quico Canseco (R-TX), former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza, State Sen. Brian Birdwell (R-Granbury) and State Reps. Harvey Hilderbran (R-Kerrville), Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth) and John Kuempel (R-Seguin), among others.

Conspicuously absent, in my opinion, were area legislators Speaker of the House Joe Straus (R-San Antonio), State Sen. Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels) and State Rep. Lyle Larson (R-San Antonio).

(Of course, as the Dallas Morning News’s Robert Garrett, wrote back in May, “Straus, R-San Antonio, lives by the Dan Reeves credo of never let ‘em see you sweat,” which might have been difficult had he showed yesterday.)

DE-PERRYIZATION?

Also conspicuously absent yesterday was any mention of Rick Perry, considering the degree to which, it seems, they remain ideological soul mates. I suppose that, after more than a dozen years of Perry, Abbott needs to establish some excitement that a new day is dawning, even if it is, in many ways, a continuation of the Perry agenda.

I don’t know whether there was any coordination between the Perry and Abbott camps, though the two camps have a lot of the same counselors. I thought when Perry said earlier this year that Abbott had promised not to run against him if he sought another term that the unspoken other half of that thought, was, “and you won’t have to because I’m not running again.”

But I do think that the timing of Perry’s announcement last Monday was deliberately intended to let Abbott have his announcement on the anniversary of his accident. It seemed to me that Perry, after delaying his announcement because of the first special session, and then the second one, seemed to hurry up his schedule to announce last week, to accommodate Abbott.

If Abbott didn’t mention Perry yesterday, neither did Perry mention Abbott in an appearance yesterday morning on CNN’s State of the Union because Candy Crowley, who asked him about the Zimmerman verdict (American justice is “color-blind), immigration (the American people won’t trust the government on reform until it shows it can secure the border, and why doesn’t anybody ask Texas and its governor what to do to address the issue?) and his own presidential ambitions (he’s focused on his job as governor), never brought up his would-be successor.

Perry was asked about the assertion by Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, that the abortion bill that Perry will be signing into law would lead to the closing of all but five facilities providing abortions in the state of Texas. Perry said that wasn’t true and history would prove her wrong. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst was criticized during the debate for tweeting, approvingly, a link in which Planned Parenthood made the same dire prediction, with critics suggesting that shutting down abortion providers - and not improving the quality of their services - were what the legislation was all about. I thought Perry might have added that, while he thinks Davis is wrong in her prediction, he wishes she was right and that there would be as few providers as possible in Texas of a service he considers murder.

Anyway, it seemed like yesterday marked in some way the end of the Perry era in Texas government, and it was passing strange that neither Perry nor Abbott publicly acknowledged the other.

CRUZ ON ABBOTT

Sen. Ted Cruz, who Abbott recruited to be the state’s solicitor general, counts Abbott as a mentor, and their relationship kept Abbott from taking sides in the 2012 Senate race when others - like Perry - endorsed Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

Here is a statement Cruz released in advance of Abbott’s announcement:

“Greg Abbott is a man of courage and integrity, a principled conservative and a true patriot. For over a decade, he has been a dear friend and mentor. Over and over again, Abbott has led the fight for liberty and the Constitution, and I was deeply honored to stand side-by-side with him defending the State of Texas. Whether it was defending our religious freedoms, or protecting U.S. sovereignty from the United Nations, or pushing back on egregious federal overreach by the EPA, Greg Abbott has not hesitated to stand for principle and fight for Texas.”

ADVANCED ABBOTT TRIVIA

Not to horn in on Trey Ware’s territory, but I have some contribution to make to the literature of Greg Abbott trivia, a contribution that owes much to having the great honor of meeting for the first time yesterday Dave Carney, Perry’s former top political honcho, who, wearing a sensible broad-brimmed hat, was on hand to observe and offer advice, and had already been looking into some of the questions I was posing.

WOULD CECILIA ABBOTT, THE GRANDDAUGHTER OF MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS, BE THE FIRST LATINA FIRST LADY OF TEXAS?

I thought this would be a tough one to sort out, but Carney said this one is a definite “yes.”

WOULD GREG ABBOTT, A CONVERT TO CATHOLICISM, BE THE FIRST CATHOLIC GOVERNOR OF TEXAS?

A more complicated answer, according to Carney, and, following our conversation, Matt Hirsch provided the campaign’s latest research on this question.

• Governor Frank Lubbock (elected 1861) was married to Adele Barron, a Creole woman of French ancestry. We found two sources — Lubbock’s own memoirs and a master’s thesis written about Lubbock (“Francis Richard Lubbock, Thesis,” Master’s Thesis by Raymond Paul Flusche, Texas Tech University, 1947) — indicating that Lubbock was baptized as a Catholic in order to marry Adele Barron. After five months of courtship, Adele consented to become Lubbock’s wife. At the time of their marriage, Lubbock was nineteen and Adele sixteen. She was from a Catholic family and requested Lubbock to be baptised in order that they might marry in her church. Though his early religious teachings had been those of the English Church, Lubbock consented and on February 5, 1835, they were married. “Francis Richard Lubbock, Thesis,” Master’s Thesis by Raymond Paul Flusche, Texas Tech University, 1947, page 4

• According to the Texas State Historical Association, Sam Houston converted to Catholicism prior to the Texas Revolution“as prescribed by Mexican law” (colonists to Mexican Texas were legally required to convert to Catholicism, though enforcement of this rule was lax). Leaving Diana and his life among the Indians, Houston crossed the Red River into Mexican Texas on December 2, 1832, and began another, perhaps the most important, phase of his career. His “true motives” for entering Texas have been the source of much speculation. Whether he did so simply as a land speculator, as an agent provocateur for American expansion intent on wresting Texas from Mexico, or as someone scheming to establish an independent nation, Houston saw Texas as his “land of promise.” For him, it represented a place for bold enterprise, rife with political and financial opportunity … He quickly became embroiled in the Anglo-Texans’ politics of rebellion. He served as a delegate from Nacogdoches at the Convention of 1833 in San Felipe, where he sided with the more radical faction under the leadership of William H. Wharton. He also pursued a law practice in Nacogdoches and filed for a divorce from Eliza, which was finally granted in 1837. As prescribed by Mexican law, he was baptized into the Catholic Church, under the name Samuel Pablo.

I asked SMU political scientist Cal Jillson his read on this.

“I would count Lubbock, with the caveat of Anglican until marriage, since he remained a practicing Catholic during the twenty years of his married life. I would not count Sam as his baptism was strictly tactical and it took his last wife fifteen years to get him to convert to Baptist, not because he was committed to Catholicism, but because he was skeptical of organized religion.’

WOULD ABBOTT BE THE FIRST GOVERNOR WHO WAS BORN IN WICHITA FALLS?

OK. This seems to me really pretty trivial. Texas is a big state so I assume that most communities haven’t produced a governor, but the campaign has looked into the question, so here is what they found.

Our searches of former governors’ biographies showed no indication that any Governor of Texas was born in Wichita Falls.

However, Governor James Burr Allred (served 1935-1938) was not born in Wichita Falls, but lived there for much of his adult life there and married a Wichita Falls native. Allred is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Wichita Falls. Allred was born in Bowie, about 50 miles southeast of Wichita Falls.

WILL WENDY DAVIS RUN FOR GOVERNOR?

OK. The trivia contest is over.

No idea. She sounded like a future candidate during her brief remarks on the south steps of the Capitol late Friday night after the Senate vote on the abortion bill.

The Tribune’s Jay Root writes that her campaign will report raking in nearly $1 million the last two weeks of June in its fundraising report today, very good, though Abbott broke the Texas record by amassing $4.78 million in the same two weeks.

A recent Public Policy Polling survey found that, for whatever reason, she runs stronger against Abbott than she would have against Perry - trailing by eight points instead of 14 points - and that she runs stronger against Abbott than the other Democrats tested.

I guess, but this doesn’t sound quite right to me. Perry-Davis would have been a juicier more exciting race and I think it would be harder for her to engage - or get a rise - out of Abbott than it would have been with Perry, and that a Perry-Davis race would have had a more fluid dynamic. I assume her circle of advisers is also looking at the possibility of a run for lieutenant governor, where a volatile Republican primary could leave a bloodied nominee and where the prospect of a Democratic lieutenant governor presiding over a Republican Senate has the potential to boggle and delight the political mind.

BATTLEGROUND TEXAS SCORES MORE THAN $1.1 MILLION IN CONTRIBUTIONS

According to Battleground Texas, it has raised more than $1.1 million since its launch on Feb. 26 from 3,537 donors, and 79% of the total donations were raised from Texans The median contribution was $25. Grassroots contributions online averaged $45.

ANNE McAFEE

Very sadly, we may have suffered the first actual casualty of the battle over abortion at the Capitol.

As Tim Eaton and Esther Robards-Forbes reported on Saturday, “Anne McAfee, a longtime Democratic activist who suffered a stroke during state Sen. Wendy Davis’ filibuster in an abortion debate June 25, died Saturday morning at her home in Austin. She was 82.

“Born Anne Elizabeth Castleberry on Oct. 15, 1930, McAfee was a lifelong Austinite and became interested in politics as a child, volunteering at age 13 on Minnie Fisher Cunningham’s 1944 gubernatorial campaign.

“In the following decades, McAfee worked on a variety of issues, such as advocating for the environment, protesting against nuclear atmospheric testing, protecting Barton Springs and pushing for voting rights, said Susan McAfee Raybuck, her daughter”

“She was very active in trying to make sure people of all races and colors could vote, even while the poll tax was in effect,” Raybuck said. “She was very opposed to anything that kept people from being able to exercise their right to vote.”

“She was also heavily involved in civil rights issues and was an anti-war activist.

“A longtime supporter of the Democratic Party in Texas and Travis County, McAfee held several offices within the Travis County Democratic Women and often consulted on political campaigns in Texas.

“She and her husband, Bill, ran Futura Press, a South Congress Avenue institution for decades, said David Butts, a Democratic consultant.”

“That was probably one of the biggest political print shops in town,” Butts said. “If you were running as a Democrat, you were going to get your stuff printed there.”

“In addition to printing fliers, McAfee was always ready to hand out advice to the candidates who came through the shop, he said.

“She was a hard-core liberal who was committed to what she believed, and she had her own mind,” Butts said. “She stood up for what she believed in, and you have to respect that.”

“She also was passionate about women’s issues, and that brought her to the Capitol on June 25 for Davis’ filibuster, Raybuck said. It was not immediately apparent that night to people around her that she had suffered a stroke, Raybuck said. But after bystanders realized she was ill, she was taken by ambulance to University Medical Center Brackenridge, where she underwent surgery.”

“After the procedure to remove a blood clot from her brain, McAfee was alert and talking, but she suffered a heart attack a few days later, Raybuck said.”

“She became unable to speak sometimes, but she used sign language to spell out, “I love you” and “How lucky I am,” Raybuck said.

“While she was in the hospital, she received hundreds of cards and letters from people who had been at the Capitol when she had the stroke. Raybuck said their favorite was one written on the back of a protest placard. It said, “You are a badass.”

“McAfee’s health continued to decline before she ultimately died. Friends and relatives were by her side.

“State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, said McAfee was a mainstay for years at local Democratic functions, where she did everything from organizing to fundraising to acting as the “director of traffic.”

“Activism was just as much a part of her as the color of her hair and her big smile,” Watson said. “It was just who she was.”

“McAfee was a friend and an adviser to most every elected official in Austin, said Watson, who served as mayor from 1997 to 2001.

“She became a mentor to a whole generation of folks,” he said.

“Congressman Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, a friend of McAfee’s for more than 40 years, said she was full of compassion, courage and commitment.

“If she could have chosen a moment to leave this world, it would have been as she was raising her voice for women’s rights and social justice,” Doggett said. “Her values are reflected in her wonderful family — a 60-plus-year marriage with active children and grandchildren, one of whom is a member of my congressional team. In our sadness, there is so much to celebrate about her life and enduring values.”

“McAfee, a mother of five children, was also the editor of the Austin Times, a small South Austin newspaper that was later sold, Raybuck said.”

A public memorial will be held for Anne McAfee from 2 to 6 p.m. July 20 at Green Pastures, her childhood home, at 811 W. Live Oak St. in Austin. The family asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to SafePlace and Planned Parenthood.

There is also this very good obituary from Amy Smith at the Austin Chronicle, as well as an earlier story, when it appeared McAfee was on the mend.

DOUBLE THREAT

When we last encountered Mario Garza, he was roaming the divided turf - orange v. blue - outside the Capitol with his accordion, a one-man peace-keeping force, playing and listening.

Happily, I encountered him again amid the mounting tensions Friday night, this time with his even more portable jarana - an itty bitty guitar from Veracruz, Mexico.

This is not a First Reading, or at any rate, not a real First Reading but rather an explanation of why I did not produce the real deal this morning.

With Gov. Rick Perry’s decision Monday not to seek re-election, Attorney General Greg Abbott is his heir apparent as governor. In light of that, I am writing something for the paper for the weekend about Abbott, but the demands of producing that kind of story are irreconcilable with the time and lack of sleep required to do a full-fledged First Reading.

But, after spending some time at the Capitol yesterday, and watching the final couple of hours of the debate on the abortion bill in the House - which ended with some extraordinarily personal and powerful speeches on both sides - it felt wrong to simply post a note that there would be no First Reading today, as if I didn’t understand the moment of the occasion, or had just decided to sleep in.

Instead, I thought I would offer this fuller explanation, and describe one scene from earlier in the day outside the Capitol, and leave it at that. On the debate and vote on the abortion bill - which will get final approval in the House this moring - Chuck LIndell has an excellent account in today’s Statesman.

COLOR WAR

This is Mario Garza, on the grass beyond the east steps of the Capitol yesterday morning. I was drawn to Garza because of the accordion slung around his neck, and, amid all the orange and blue shirts, his neutral colors.

He was engaged in conversation with an older man in blue, and when they finished I approached Garza and learned that he was, indeed, a neutral, a veritable Red Cross worker on the field of battle. For the last week was a kind of volunteer medic, strolling between the hostiles playing mellifluous riffs on his accordion to mellow the harsh and soothe the savage breasts. He wore a maroon shirt declaring his neutrality.

And, he said with a shy smile, “it’s a really good color for me.”

More than make some pleasant noise, Garza also listened to anyone he encountered.

“I’m here for the women, and to hear everyone’s point of view,” he said.

Nearby, in the killer sun, Planned Parenthood and Democratic lawmakers were having a rally in front of a gleaming orange bus that was emblazoned in giant white letters -“Stand with Texas Women.” A supportive crowd of orange shirts with signs like, “Stand Up for Women” and “Cheaters Never Win,” enveloped the scene, cheering on Cecile Richards - the daughter of the late Ann Richards and head of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America - and Sens. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, and Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who later in the day were going to kick off an eight-city bus tour in the big orange bus with an appearance before a large rally in Houston

Set a little bit back from this scene, Students for LIfe of America had set up a line with large signs where they were passing out information and doing interviews about Planned Parenthood’s role as the nation’s largest abortion provider. They had pink cards that looked like they were from Planned Parenthood but in fact were anti-Planned Parenthood.

Now I turn the story over to a press release I received later in the day from Students for Life.

It began: “A large group of Students for Life of America (SFLA) activists and local pro-life protesters successfully hijacked the kickoff rally of Planned Parenthood’s “Stand with Texas Women Bus Tour” on the south east side of the Texas State Capitol this morning.”

“When we heard Planned Parenthood was launching their bus tour in Austin, we knew the ‘Students #Stand4Life Bus Tour’ had to take action,”said National High School Coordinator Missy Martinez. “We had SFLA Missionaries for Life ready to go dressed in orange to pass out our pink Planned Parenthood Project cards along with the Planned Parenthood Project banner display next to the rally, to expose the true facts about Planned Parenthood’s billion-dollar abortion business”

And: “While Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards and State Senator Wendy Davis took the mic, a swarm of pro-lifers holding SFLA “I am the Pro-Life Generation” signs circled the lawn. The Students #Stand4Life Bus drove by and went head to head with the Planned Parenthood bus. By the end of the rally, blue shirts overwhelmed the orange presence.”

Well, I was there, and that wasn’t exactly how it went, but then again truth is the first casualty of war.

There were some orange shirts in the crowd incongruously holding signs that read “Courageously Abolishing Abortion,” and some blue shirts as well, but they mostly stayed on the periphery of the rally. When they got closer in, Planned Parenthood folks dispatched sign-holders to stand in front of them. A few of the Students for Life did attempt to distribute their pink cards amid the orange crowd but were sternly shooed away by a Planned Parenthood organizer.

I don’t think Cecile Richards or Wendy Davis or Kirk Watson realized their rally had been “hijacked,” because it hadn’t been.

After the rally dispersed and the orange shirts had left to go back into the Capitol, the Students for Life assembled for a group photo in front of the big orange bus, which was still parked alongside the Capitol and would not depart for Houston for a little while, as if they had captured it, a prize of war.

Well, I suppose after their 30-hour bus ride from Washington, D.C., I didn’t begrudge Students for Life their mock triumph.

Meanwhile, back to Garza.

He is from Brownsville, along the border. He has spent the last year living and working and playing music in Austin.

In fact, he said, he had just left his job a few days ago.

And where did he work?

“Planned Parenthood actually.”

He did clerical, reception and other secretarial work in, what he said, was a “very demanding” atmosphere. He otherwise offered no value judgment - and I didn’t press him for one - except to say he was looking for comparable work in a less pressurized environment.

And to play music. He handed me a card for a group he plays with - Son Armado - purveyors of fandangos and Son Jarocho, the regional folk music of Veracruz, Mexico. On the back of the card was a photo of a quijada, a donkey’s jawbone, which is played as a percussive instrument, like the spoons.

Almost as an afterthought, Garza said he was contemplating entering the seminary. He had, he said, found his conversations of the last few days, across color lines, compelling.

That’s it for today.

Brooke Rollins, president, Texas Public Policy Foundation.

“To his credit, Rick realized that he’s worn out his welcome,”

Democratic activist Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project to the Dallas Morning News’ Wayne Slater.

Good morning Austin.

A new day has dawned.

Rick Perry, by far the longest-serving governor in Texas history, announced yesterday that he would not seek re-election in 2014, walking away from a race he most likely would have won, from a life that he has grown to love and from what he described as “the greatest job in modern politics.”

They did not play The Byrd’s “Turn, Turn, Turn,” at his announcement at Holt Cat in San Antonio, but they might as well have.

He quoted from the Book of Ecclesiastes: “For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”

He quoted from the “book of Darrell Royal: “Dance with the one who brung ya.”

And then he said, “the time has come to pass on the mantle of leadership,” and ‘today I am announcing I will not seek re-election as governor of Texas.”

He did not indicate whether he plans to make another run for president, though most observers think that goes a long way to explaining why he will be surrendering the helm of the second largest state to enter a kind of sackcloth-and-ashes period - a supplicant for dispensation from the state of disgrace his last presidential left him in outside the confines of his beloved Texas.

“He’s got to prove to the grassroots and the donor community that he’s up to the task,” said Ray Sullivan, a former chief of staff and spokesman, who was on hand, as were many old Perry hands, for the event.

And said Sullivan, “My gut says he’s going to make another run.”

That seemed to be the collective gut yesterday.

Here is some of the coverage.

From Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak’s rundown at Must Read Texas:

By that time, he will have served as Governor 14 years. Eight graders in 2015 will have never known another Texas Governor. But they will when they enter 9th grade.

Did he punt on 2016? Not show any interest? Was it a let down?

On the surface, he did not announce a think tank or PAC, as was rumored. He did not start an exploratory effort or talk specifically about running for President.

But if you listened to what he said, and read between the lines, he made clear he is considering reentering national politics, on a timetable of his own choosing.

Gov. Perry to Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren last night in 8pm CT hour: “I’ll decide in the next year what my future path will be…I’ve not decided.” Here’s the full video of his appearance, which also included a discussion of Obamacare. Note that he wore a different tie than he had seven hours earlier in San Antonio. Yes, I’m ashamed that I noticed this.

I believe that’s true, that he has not decided yet about 2016.

But now he has the time to do the due diligence, in a way he could not when he was rushed into a late entry in 2011.

Ultimately, I suspect he will run for President in 2016.

From Ken Herman at the Statesman:

“The stagecraft for his Monday non-announcement about the 2016 presidential race was far different than his 2011 event at which he first expressed interest in the 2012 race. The latter came during q-and-a with reporters, and his answer surprised some Perry aides.

“I’m going to think about it,” he told us back then, “but I think about a lot of things.”

“He’s thinking about it again, probably never has stopped thinking about it.

“Last time, he entered as a front-runner. This time, as a result of last time, he might start as a second-tier candidate. And unlike recent Repubs who captured the nomination on their second attempt, Perry starts with the challenge of overcoming — not building on — what he did the first time.”

And - “Weighing against the notion of a nominee from the Perry-Santorum-Rubio wing of the party is the possibility that Republicans, in some states, could be viewed as having gone too far right. The current Texas abortion bill battle, with Perry as a leading voice for the bill, could be a litmus test of that.

“And there’s the feel, even among some in his own party, of a national softening on some issues — same-sex marriage, gay Boy Scouts — on which Perry remains a hard-liner. On immigration, however, it must be noted that Perry, with a border-state governor’s sensibilities, took some GOP heat in 2012 for backing in-state college tuition for children of illegal immigrants.”

From Wayne Slater in The Dallas Morning News:

“For Perry himself, Monday’s event seemed designed to pivot from Texas successes to a return to the national scene. His speech was replete with references to job-creation and the Texas economy. Those could serve as the foundation for a repackaged national message for 2016.

“A campaign video, played for hundreds of supporters and former staffers before Perry took the stage, depicted bright scenes of a booming Texas economy. A tag line touted Perry as “America’s greatest job creation governor.” Aides think Republican voters would forgive Perry’s disastrous performance last year and give him a second chance if he runs for president again”

From The New York Times story by John Schwartz and Jonathan Martin:

“In his speech on Monday, Mr. Perry was fluid and passionate, though a longtime observer of Texas politics noted that it did not say much. “It wasn’t even bait and switch; there was no bait,” said Paul Burka, senior executive editor of Texas Monthly magazine. “He just bragged about Texas, and bragged and bragged, and gave no information whatsoever, except what everybody already knew — that he wasn’t going to run again, though he never said so directly.”

“For Mr. Perry’s supporters, it was an event of powerful emotion and hope. Ray Sullivan, a former Perry staff member, called the announcement “typically big and bold,” adding, “I believe he will run for president again.”

“To run in 2016, Mr. Perry, 63, will have to return to Iowa. And officials there suggest the road will be uphill. “His poor showing in the debates gave me pause,” said Mark Lundberg, chairman of the Sioux County Republican Party in Iowa, adding, “If he gets his act together, he could be a viable candidate.”

“But, he said, Mr. Perry was “still not my No. 1 or 2 choice at this point.”

“Mr. Perry would at least have a chance at a second hearing, said Lisa Van Riper, president of South Carolina Citizens for Life. After the embarrassments of the primaries last year, “He just went back home and pulled his boots back up,” she said. “He’s proven he’s got a lot of mettle.”

From the Dan Balz story in the Washington Post.

“Mark McKinnon, who once worked as a Democratic strategist here and later served as Bush’s chief media adviser in two presidential campaigns, called Perry’s announcement the end of an era in Texas politics — one that he said has been far more partisan than it was under Bush.”

“The question now is will the next era be even more strident, or will the party soften and become more diverse and tolerant?” McKinnon wrote in an e-mail message after Perry’s announcement. “Texas is a two-party state, but as yet, the Democrats aren’t one of them. The real battle at least for the next political cycle will be over the direction of the Republican Party, not so much the ascension of the Democrats.”

And this from Scott Conroy at Real Clear Politics

“If he does throw his hat in the ring once again, there will be no shortage of factors working against him, not the least of which is a fresh crop of viable Republican candidates who could collectively make the nation’s longest-serving governor seem like old news. But one thing the brash former Air Force pilot would possess is something he lacked the last time around: time.

Some highlights from Conroy’s piece:

• “As he once again eyes the nation’s highest office, however, Perry and his political team are determined not to make that mistake twice. With the 2016 Iowa caucuses 2½ years away, the Texas governor is putting in the kind of early legwork that he neglected the last time around. “He’s been pretty focused on trying to take a look at ’16 and putting together some sort of plan to get out and about in the country,” (Dave) Carney said, “not just to raise money but to rehabilitate his relationships with people, build new ones, and put an organization in place to assess whether or not he has a shot to be competitive.”

• “Bob Haus, who ran Perry’s 2012 campaign in the Hawkeye State, said that with the benefit of added time to prepare, the candidate might be able to better promote Texas’ continued economic success as an unrivaled job credential.“He’s got an even better story to tell now than he did in 2012, and he’ll have a lot more time to tell it,” Haus said. “And yes, that time will allow him to prove himself on the stage again. We saw during the later debates what his focused preparation yielded: strong answers and succinct policy.”

• “South Carolina GOP consultant Walter Whetsell, who helmed Perry’s short-lived primary campaign in the Palmetto State, predicted that the governor’s nuanced views on immigration reform will be seen as prescient by 2016 — if the bill that recently passed the Senate is ultimately signed into law.“He was just a cycle ahead of himself on the issue of immigration,” Whetsell said. “Running for president is a two-year learning curve. Now he’s got the perspective of what it takes to run.”

• “The YouTube clips of his “oops” moment would likely remain a lasting obstacle for the candidate to surmount, but politicians have overcome worse setbacks. Perry is poised to weigh in with increasing frequency in the coming months on major issues before the country, part of an effort to bolster his policy chops while serving out the remainder of his third full term. That term ends in January 2015 when the governor’s mansion will have a new occupant for the first time since 2000. With a day job no longer holding him down at that point, he will have plenty of free time to gear up for a second presidential campaign in earnest.”

And, from Jay Root in the Texas Tribune:

“Jim Henson, a Tribune pollster and head of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, said Perry has already made a first impression, and what voters saw was a gaffe-prone, shoot-from-the-hip Texan. Now the first order of business is dialing that back.”

“The first task is not to establish an image, it’s to reset one,” Henson said. “That presents difficult, if not insurmountable problems.”

Here is Rice political scientist Mark Jones’s take on the day.

The first is that Greg Abbott for all intents and purposes became the next governor of the state of Texas today.

The second is that we saw a preview of what the principal messages of a Perry 2016 presidential candidacy would be.

Third, while I don’t think the governor at present has a realistic hope of winning the 2016 GOP nomination, Perry is a gifted retail politician, a skill that is especially important to garnering support in the early caucus and primary states like Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. Thus being able to devote himself entirely to the campaign and spend considerable time in those states in 201 would be an asset. And, I think that even in the extremely likely chance he failed to capture the 2016 nomination, Perry could nevertheless obtain political redemption by running a solid campaign, demonstrating to the American people that the Rick Perry they saw in 2012 was not Rick Perry at his best.

One of the most intriguing story-lines of the coming next couple of years will be how Perry’s prospective comeback effort will bump up against upstart ambitions of the phenom known as Ted Cruz, who right now is a way more popular choice among Texas Republicans as their standard-bearer in 2016, and as silver-tongued as Perry is sometimes tongue-tied.

Here’s University of North Texas political scientist Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha on Perry v. Cruz.

Perry would need to spend his time wisely in working to remedy that “oops” moment. He’d also have to work to protect some aspects of his record, perhaps on immigration. Cruz’s primary advantage is that he does not have a record that can be attacked. (He was very successful attacking a rather conservative Dewhurst because, when you govern, you have to compromise.) But I think Cruz cannot win the Republican nomination without being able to demonstrate that he can also govern. I mean, that’s what presidents (and governors do).

In short, Cruz may have an early edge in the polls because he has excited some Republicans. But he is also a relatively unknown, meaning that he may not be as well-liked as people learn more about him. Perry has work to do in overcoming the oops moment, but he has the credentials that show that he can be a successful chief executive. It’s hard to argue with that if it is one versus the other.

As Brooke Rollins noted in the quote at the top, Perry has served longer as governor of Texas than FDR did as president. But, unlike FDR, Perry is alive to hear the encomiums being heaped on him (by some) on his “passing.”

Not so long ago there were signs of a rupture between Perry and his close allies at TPPF, who seemed to be the source for a Wall Street Journal editorial suggesting that Perry was going the way of Jerry Brown on budget matters, an analysis that Perry discounted as all wet and based on a lack of understanding of the Texas budget process.

But you wouldn’t know that form Rollins’ blog, yesterday.

When I arrived at the Texas Public Policy Foundation on January 1st, 2003, I was coming from the best job I’d ever had: policy director for Governor Rick Perry. Still a young lawyer with a penchant for liberty and policy, I felt deeply privileged to have served with a leader in the fight for freedom, and a true Texas patriot. Since then, being President and CEO of this Foundation has moved into first place as the best job I’ve ever had — but my time with the Governor will always have a special place in my heart.

  What an extraordinary man. 
  What an exceptional leader. 
  What an unquestionable champion of our Lone Star State.

Today, Rick Perry announced that he will not run for reelection next year — and that he will therefore surrender the Governorship of the greatest state in the nation to his successor in January 2015. I don’t have to tell you that this is an epochal change, and the end of an era.

And - This Rick Perry generation of Texans is, simply put, the most exceptional and extraordinary generation of Texans since our Revolution.

  They are young. 
  They are entrepreneurial. 
  They are immigrants -- from abroad, and from other states. 
  They are uniquely prosperous. 
  They are unprecedentedly diverse.

This is the achievement of Governor Perry: he took the helm of a state that was just one of many, albeit bigger than most, and he made it into a world-class powerhouse of good jobs, entrepreneurial flourishing, and individual achievement. When he walks away from office in just eighteen months, he’ll have a legacy so simple and yet so profound: he let liberty prove its case — and it did. That’s all any American could ask for. That’s all any Texan could care about.

Empower Texans Michael Quinn Sullivan, another longtime ally who had been frustrated over the budget, issued a shorter testament to Perry’s legacy.

“For more than a decade, Gov. Perry has brought a strong, conservative vision to Texas’ legislative affairs by consistently championing limited government, fiscal responsibility and sensible regulatory reform. As he closes out this chapter in his life of public service, the governor can do so knowing that under his watch the Lone Star State has outshined others in job creation and economic prosperity. On behalf of everyone at TFR, I wish he and Anita the very best as they consider new opportunities to serve our state and nation.”

ON THE OTHER HAND

Perry and his people may have kept his decision very close to the vest, but Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, and the folks at his One Texas PAC, which works to mobilize Latino voters, must have had a sixth sense about things, because they were alL ready with a YouTube video offering their very different assessment of Perry’s tenure.

And this from Battleground Texas’ Executive Director, Jenn Brown:

“After twelve years of failed policies and divisive rhetoric, it’s welcome news that Governor Perry announced he will not run for re-election. It’s time for a new era in the Lone Star state - Texans deserve a leader who will stand up and fight for their values.

“Under Governor Perry’s administration, Texas is first in the nation in the percentage of people who are uninsured. Yet rather than address this growing problem, Governor Perry failed to take action to expand healthcare access to more than a million Texans. At the same time, Republican leaders have gutted billions of dollars in funding for public schools even as the state falls farther and farther behind in education standards. In the last few weeks alone, Perry refused to sign a pay equity bill that would address the wage discrimination women face everyday, and left the state with insufficient transportation funding.

“One thing is clear: the Governor’s first priority is not the wellbeing of Texans and his policies do not reflect the values of the Lone Star state. Governor Perry’s recent decision to call a second special legislative session - attempting to overturn the work done by Senator Wendy Davis and the thousands of Texas voices supporting her filibuster of a law restricting access to women’s healthcare options - shined a national spotlight on the extremist tactics the Republican Party in Texas.”

OF ANECDOTES AND INFAMY

One small suggestion with regard to the promotional video played by the Perry folks before his announcement yesterday.

It includes an excerpt from the governor’s State of the State address, in which he was supposed to say “that freedom is the best antidote to poverty.”

Except, as I recalled from when he said it the first time, he clearly says “anecdote” instead of “antidote.”

Around the same time, in a speech to the TPPF orientation of legislators, Perry, in an Alamo reference, said, “I’m not saying you members of the Legislature are going to ride into sure death … but I will suggest to you that you can ride into infamy with the decisions that you will make, the courage that you will exhibit in the thoughtful way that you deal with the Texas budget.”

it seemed that the governor was confusing infamy with glory.

In any case, I find these malapropisms and verbal miscues endearing, but if I were working for Perry, I would edit out “anecdote” before taking that on the road.

ENTER ABBOTT

More from Matt Mackowiak:

I believe AG Abbott will announce his gubernatorial campaign on Sunday at a previously announced “Meet and Greet” in San Antonio. Sunday’s event is the launch of an ambitious 10-city, 5-day tour that will take him to San Antonio, Houston, McAllen, Longview, Duncanville, Wichita Falls, Lubbock, Midland, El Paso and Austin. How were those cities selected? Well, he’s lived at one time in AT LEAST six of them, seven if you include Duncanville to be part of Dallas.

For a Sunday announcement, the timing is perfect.

1) The special session is likely to be over.

3) Sunday is the 19th anniversary of the day that Abbott, at age 26, became instantly paralyzed in a freak accident.

To my memory, AG Abbott has sparingly referenced his paralysis in the past. However, he’s talked about it more openly in recent weeks, even joking about it. Developing, in fact owning, your own personal narrative, is mightily important and he is wasting no time. His recent campaign video, “Perseverance,” showed him talking openly about it as he recounted the day’s events and how he recovered.

Here’s the Statesman’s Tim Eaton on Abbott as the heir apparent.

One interesting side note.

Last night, Jason Whitely, a senior reporter with WFAA in Dallas/Fort Worth, while covering the anti-abortion rally at the Capitol tweeted that “Greg Abbott said he’s here “standing for life” even though he’s in wheelchair.”

He was merely quoting Abbott in the attorney general’s self-depcrecating way, but some took it as a sarcastic dig by Whitely, and he heard from them.

But Abbott quickly rode to the rescue with his own tweet.;

“Hey Friends, it was me who said “I may be in a wheelchair, but I #Stand4Life. @JasonWhitely was just quoting me.”

PAUKEN TALKIN

Meanwhile, Tom Pauken, the only announced candidate for governor, will hold a press conference this morning at 9 in the Speaker’s Conference Room.

Yesterday, after Perry’s announcement, Pauken issued a statement saying, “My opponent most likely will be Greg Abbott. He represents an Austin that has grown stale with insiders inheriting promotions whose primary allegiance is to those who write the big checks. Every day Texans feel they don’t have a voice anymore and that the insiders are running the show.”

ABORTION BILL MOVES TO THE HOUSE FLOOR

Last evening’s large anti-abortion rally, and the large abortion rights counter-demonstration that eventually took over the space on the south side of the Capitol, came amid 16 hours of sometimes wrenching and occasionally amusing testimony on the legislation before a Senate committee that, as the Statesman’s Chuck Lindell reported, ended at “1:41 a.m. with more than 3,800 registering a position on SB1.”

Here is Lindell from a little earlier in the night.

“While (former Arkansas Gov. Mike) Huckabee, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Attorney General Greg Abbott spoke to a crowd that the Associated Press estimated at 2,000, opponents of the legislation gathered nearby for a march down Congress Avenue to Austin City Hall.

“Accompanied by honking supporters and carrying signs reading “Keep your theology off my biology” and “Keep your laws off my body,” the marchers stretched across three lanes and more than two blocks.

“The Texas House is scheduled to vote Tuesday on an identical measure, House Bill 2, which would prohibit abortions at 20 weeks postfertilization, require all abortion clinics to undergo extensive renovations to certify as ambulatory surgical centers and heighten regulations on abortion-inducing drugs and abortion doctors.

“Approval is expected. The Republican-led House approved an identical measure last month, during the first special session, on a 95-34 vote after easily fighting off 13 proposed Democratic amendments.

“The House convenes at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

“Monday’s public hearing began with state Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, placing two small pairs of shoes on the dais to represent the victims of abortion “who will never fill these shoes.”

“Wearing blue, many of those who spoke in favor of the bill listed religious and moral reasons for opposing abortion or recounted emotional and physical problems after undergoing the procedure.

“Many opponents, dressed in orange, argued that the measure was an improper government intrusion that would force most Texas abortion clinics to close, pushing women to seek illegal, unsafe abortions.

“Both sides debated the medical basis for the abortion ban at 20 weeks, which is based on disputed medical findings that a fetus can feel pain at that age.

“Nelson rotated witnesses who were for and against the bill, placing opponents side by side at the witness table. Instead of clashes, the situation produced several quiet moments — witnesses passing tissues or water to a crying opponent — that belied the strong emotions on display.

“At one point, a woman in blue — who had tearfully recounted a years-ago abortion — held the hand of an orange-clad woman who was speaking about an earlier rape that didn’t result in a pregnancy but inspired her to fight to defend abortion rights.”

“This is the most beautiful thing I have seen all day long,” an emotional Nelson told the women as she reached for a tissue. “I’ve never cried at a hearing.”

Demonstration and Counter-Demonstration

Blaine Von Dohlen, in blue, is a 12-year-old from San Antonio, who has six brothers and two sisters, and drove to Austin early Monday with her father, Patrick Von Dohlen, who is one of the founders the San Antonio Family Association.

Von Dohlen said she was there to support her father, and because, she said, “babies are life. Why would we kill babies? God made them.”

Her father said he planned in his two minutes of allotted testimony before the committee to note that the U.S. government does more to protect a bald eagle’s eggs than a human fetus.

As the anti-abortion rally was drawing to a close, a slight, ferocious woman by the name of Julie Ann Nitsch strode through the crowd to the south steps, raised her sign, “We Will Not Yield,” and began chanting, at first alone, and then as hundreds and hundreds of orange-clad abortion rights advocates surged forward to join her, “Whose Choice? Our Choice.” That chant, and others, continued for another 40 minutes or so, syncopated against the taped Christian music emanating from the remnants of the anti-abortion rally.

Nitsch, of Austin, who had been on the scene since just after dawn, had testified earlier in the day against the abortion legislation. She said if it simply banned voluntary late-term abortions, that would be one thing, but it was really an assault on women’s health that would do nothing to curb abortions, but only make them riskier.

She said she learned her chanting skills as a high school cheerleader growing up in Dallas.

And yes, that is Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, a staunch abortion opponent, looking on.

Gov. Rick Perry on Fox News Sunday

Good morning Austin.

At or around 1 o’clock this afternoon, Central Standard Time, all - or at least something - will be revealed. Last week, Gov. Perry sent an email inviting supporters to come hear him disclose his “exciting future plans” at an undisclosed location in San Antonio.

Well, the hour is nigh. The location is Holt Cat, America’s largest Caterpillar equipment dealership, and a symbol of Texas’ economic prowess.

This means that there are precious few hours left to guess wrongly about the governor’s plans, so time is of the essence.

The first rule of Perry-watching, I am told, is prepare to be surprised. That said - and here is my Zen thought for the day - I will be very surprised if I’m very surprised.

I think the governor will announce that he is not seeking re-election as governor, but then will do something, create something, join something, that will enable him to advance the goal of running for president without outright declaring that he is running for president.

When a rumor last week circulated that it might involve affiliating with a San Antonio think tank, I tweeted a tentative title: The Center for Why Texas is Great and Why We Should Elect a President Who Could Make America as Great as Texas and Who, Contrary to Your First Impression is So Smart He’s at a Think Tank,” which Christopher Hooks helpfully acronymized as CFWTXiGWWSEaPWCMAaGaTXaWCtYFIiSSHaaTT.

Also possible is something on the order of a super PAC, as laid out by Kathy Kiely at the Sunlight Foundation.

Readers of this blog may recall that last year, the Federal Election Commission okayed a request from Perry to transfer some of the money he raised for his unsuccessful campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination into a super PAC. Since then, RickPerry.org hasn’t done much but refund more than $194,000 in contributions — presumably the money that the FEC ruled he couldn’t use because it had been earmarked for a general election campaign that never happened. But that still leaves plenty to launch a super PAC: As of March 31, the date of the committee’s most recent filing, Perry had just under $395,000 in cash on hand.

Then there’s Make Us Great Again, the super PAC that backed Perry during the presidential campaign. It has nearly $213,000 in the bank. Conveniently, both Perry’s campaign committee and the super PAC get legal advice from the same Georgetown firm: Foley & Lardner.

Launching a super PAC could be a logical next step for Perry, who has been the Lone Star State’s chief executive ever since George W. Bush left the post in 2000 to become the nation’s 43rd president. And if it did not burnish his reputation as a vote-getter, Perry’s oops-plagued presidential campaign confirmed his record as a successful fundraiser. Consider the data on Influence Explorer: Perry was in the race less than five months, but managed to amass a warchest of more than $19 million. As a state officeholder, he’s raked in more than $117 million.

If the governor, currently in the midst of trying to muscle one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation through his legislature, wants another shot at the nation’s top job, as he hinted in a TV appearance Sunday, what better way to win the kinds of friends he’ll need than to start putting that money-raising prowess to work for potential key supporters? We’re talking office-holders in key early primary and caucus states.

Moreover, a super PAC gives Perry the option to raise money the way he’s used to doing it in Texas — without any limits. And it gives him an advantage on another up-and-coming Texas conservative, Sen. Ted Cruz. The freshman Republican recently founded his own leadership PAC, the vehicle that members of Congress use to help themselves by helping colleagues. But leadership PACs, unlike super PACs, must abide by federal limits on donations and contributions.

I am basing my judgment - which is essentially the conventional wisdom at this point - that he will pass on re-election in favor of looking forward to another national run, based on a forensic analysis of a single word and a single image.

The word is “exciting.”

Running for a fourth term as governor might be welcome news for many of the governor’s faithful, but I’m not sure anyone would describe it as “exciting.”

Beginning a new life as a craft brewer, or moving to Mexico to write a novel, would be exciting - and surprising - but the governor shows no signs of being tired of politics, or unconvinced that he still has a greater destiny.

He could announce that he’s running for re-election and pondering a race for president - but he has talked in recent weeks about how early a presidential candidacy must launch, suggesting that he has no intention of trying to do both.

The single image is of Gov. Perry celebrating the Fourth of July in Round Top, a tiny picture-perfect town 65 miles from Austin, 81 miles from Houston and merely 43 miles from Aggieland, where he served as the Independence Day parade marshall back in 2010. In January, he bought 10.3 acres there and, I figure, perhaps among his exciting plans is building a home that can double as the Western White House in a Perry administration. I think the very fact he is sinking roots in Round Top suggests he is already thinking about life beyond the Governor’s Mansion.

The precise timing of today’s announcement remains bit of a mystery.

At the recent National Right to Life Convention in Dallas, the governor said the pressing business of state in the second special session would delay his announcement of his ambitions. I tweeted that that meant his announcement would be delayed until after the special session ended, which was my surmise of what he was saying. Well that was wrong, but I doubled down by standing by the tweet in First Reading. I would now like to un-stand by that tweet, though I confess I remain a bit confused by the logic of the governor’s timing.

On Fox News Sunday the governor was interviewed with the Capitol as his backdrop. As I wrote in today’s paper:

“The work that needs to be done is right in this building behind us … to make sure innocent lives are protected in Texas,” said Perry, who predicted the Legislature would move swiftly to enact the new restrictions on abortion, legislation that was derailed at the end of the first special session when Davis’ filibuster was augmented by a loud display of support from the gallery, behavior that Perry once again Sunday described as “mob rule.”

The abortion bill will be the subject of a hearing before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Monday morning, and a 7 p.m. rally on the south steps of the Capitol by supporters of the legislation, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Abbott and Dewhurst.

“We’re going to pass some restrictions on abortion in Texas so Texas is a place where we defend life. That’s the focus,” said Perry. “Politics will take care of itself.”

Asked by John Roberts on Fox News Sunday why, if that is the case, he is taking time away from the Capitol to go to San Antonio to announce his political plans, Perry said, “people can multitask rather well,” and he noted that San Antonio is only 75 miles away.

But his multitasking does not appear to include speaking at the pro-life rally, which I would have thought would be made-to-order for the governor to show how his leadership was being brought to bear on an issue dear to an important Republican primary constituency

All I can figure is that the delays were starting to consequentially screw up the schedules of the other candidates, beginning with Attorney General Greg Abbott, and as a courtesy to all of them, he decided to go public with his plans. Also, he might have wanted to avoid announcing he was not running for governor after the fundraising reporting deadline of July 15, which will show Abbott’s campaign account swelling from $18 million to who knows how much. In that event, some people might read a quick Perry decisions not to run again as a retreat from a race he couldn’t win, though I don’t think that’s at all the case.

Regardless - and it’s a small matter in the grand scheme of things - it seems to me that he’s stepping on his own story a bit with the timing of today’s announcement.

The Wet Blanket

I haven’t written First Reading for a few days, and in the last installment I wrote that, “amidst the euphoria” among Democrats about Wendy Davis as a potential gubernatorial candidate, “comes Paul “Wet Blanket” Burka, at Texas Monthly, who is having none of it and rains all over the Dems’ Wendy Davis parade.”

Well, on July 3, Paul Burka posted a response at Texas Monthly under the headline, The Wet Blanket, in which he elaborated on his assertion that, “Democrats would be wise to lower expectations for what comes next for her and her party.”

Burka continues:

“This is no knock at Davis. She won her last race, for reelection in her state Senate district, by 7,000 votes, beating a conservative doctor who was funded by the biggest bully in Texas politics: Texans for Lawsuit Reform. But the jump from being one of 31 senators to statewide office is the biggest (and most expensive) hurdle in Texas politics. I went on to say, “All of the problems Democrats have had in Texas over the past decade and a half still haunt them.” My question would be this: Do Democrats really want to risk the future of the hottest property they have had since Ann Richards in a quixotic race against a well-funded Republican who is almost certain to win the race, barring some kind of Claytie Williams collapse?

“Yesterday Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, released the results of a statewide poll and showed that Perry would defeat Davis by 14 points. That is loss of landslide proportions. The danger, for Democrats, is that they can’t fund a two-front war, one for governor, the other for legislative seats. This is the case for lowering expectations. Don’t let the euphoria overtake the reality.

“I”m a big fan of Wendy Davis’s. I think she’s had a remarkable ride. She has put a face on the Democratic party, something it hasn’t had since Richards lost her reelection race to Bush. Davis has the potential to be a crossover candidate, someone who can bring Anglo women back to the Democratic party. But it would be a huge misjudgment to waste her potential on a race that cannot be won at this moment in Texas politics.”

Along very much the same lines, the Guardian’s Harry J. Enten wrote his own cautionary piece. It begins:

“There seems to be an inherent human belief that, given sufficient audience, anyone can convince a majority of almost any position. It’s the reason you have any number of pundits claiming that President Obama needs only to talk more and more kindly to the American people and the Republican-controlled House in order to get his agenda passed.

“The truth is that Obama could probably have George Washington pop out of a time machine in the Rose Garden to tell the press why he believes in the Obama agenda, and the opposition still wouldn’t budge.

“Yet, the “green lantern” theory, or Aaron Sorkin syndrome, was on full display with the Wendy Davis filibuster in Texas.”

Enten’s piece ends:

“Texas is a strongly conservative Republican state and will remain one for the foreseeable future. Davis’ feat of talking for 11 hours got great press, but it’s not going to create a new Texas.”

OK. Here are my thoughts on all this.

• I realize now I was working out latent father issues with my description of Paul Burka as a “wet blanket,” which is code for “wise elder.” My late father, who I dearly loved and respected, was always tamping down my wild enthusiasms with hard reason. He was always right and I was always wrong, and I resented it.

• I kind of liked the idea of a “wet blanket burka,” the perfect outerwear for a Texas summer if the perpetually moist burka could, like the water at Barton Spring, be maintained at a refreshing 68 degrees. Patent pending.

• I don’t know if I suffer from Aaron Sorkin syndrome. I loved “Moneyball,” and “The Social Network,” but I was indifferent to “The West Wing,” and thought “The News Room,” was self-righteous liberal tripe and unbearable to watch (except that I kind of like watching things I can’t stand watching.).

• My main point was not that Davis stood much of a chance of winning, but that moments like she just had - when politics penetrates into the popular culture and creates a lasting impression with a share of the population well beyond regular voters - are very few and far between. Consider this from the PPP survey: “By a 45/40 margin voters say they support her filibuster last week, and by a narrow 44/43 margin they don’t think Perry should call another special session. Voters oppose Senate Bill 5 by an 8 point margin, 28/20, although the 52% with no opinion is a reality check on how closely most people follow state politics.” In other words, people who had no opinion on the abortion bill, who don’t really follow politics, knew how they felt about the filibuster (and no doubt the accompanying controversy about her supportive “mob”), and, remarkably, by a small margin they were on her side. Remember the Alamo.

• Battleground Texas and other groups are breaking their backs to register voters and create the so-called “infrastructure” that will turn them out to vote when the right time comes. But, when the newly registered Democrat asks excitedly, “so when do I get to cast a vote for a Democratic candidate,” they are told that, well, you see, you don’t happen to live in a district that is among the relatively few Democrats are strategically targeting. “And what about governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and all those other statewide offices?” Not this time. “But what about that Wendy Davis?” Not in 2014. We’re saving her for a day when her great moment of triumph will appear under, “This Day in History.”

• Are Texans so unforgiving that losing a race for governor means you cannot run again, perhaps strengthened by what you’ve built in your losing effort? All the greats - Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, both Presidents Bush - lost important races and came back. Assuming she ran a strong race, she could lose and emerge as the face and voice of a Texas Democratic Party on the ascent. She would no longer be in the Senate, but after ending the 2011 session with a flashy filibuster and the 2013 special session with an even flashier filibuster, she is running into “how can you top that” territory under the dome.

• Yes, the PPP survey shows her running 14 points behind Perry. But then there’s this: “Abbott still does better than Perry in match ups against all of the Democrats except for Davis. He only leads her 48/40, compared to Perry’s 14 point lead. But against Castro (48/34), White (48/36), and Parker (50/31) Abbott’s leads exceed Perry’s.”

• Davis doesn’t have to run for governor to run for statewide office. If she ran for attorney general she would probably start out far better known than any potential rival. And, as Perry has helpfully noted, because her mother did not abort her, she had the opportunity to go to Harvard Law School. Lieutenant governor might be an even riper and more logical target. PPP found that “David Dewhurst, is not a very popular figure in Texas with only 22% of voters rating him favorably to 40% with a negative opinion.” If Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, who wants to scrap the Senate two-thirds rule altogether, were the nominee, Davis could portray him as a radical threat to the body’s long-standing traditions. And Wendy Davis presiding over the Senate in 2015 would be about as big a victory for Democrats as winning the governorship.

• And then there’s this from the PPP survey: “When it comes to general election match ups for President in the state Hillary Clinton leads Perry 48/44.” OK. I’m not taking that at face value, but still, how in the blood-red reddest of crimson red states, can Hillary Clinton be beating Rick Perry in a 2016 matchup?

Also from the PPP survey:

• Cornyn “John Cornyn’s been in the US Senate for more than 10 years now, but he still hasn’t made much of an impact on Texas voters. Our newest poll finds that only 36% approve of him to 33% who disapprove and 31% who don’t have an opinion either way. That still doesn’t make Cornyn terribly vulnerable for reelection in his GOP heavy state. He leads four Democrats we tested against him by margins ranging from 7 to 13 points: he’s up 47/40 on Bill White, 48/40 on Wendy Davis, 49/36 on Annise Parker, and 50/37 on Julian Castro.”

• Support for VRA: “By a 54/21 margin Texas voters say that they support the Voting Rights Act, including 45/23 even with Republicans. Only 29% of voters say that they favor the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn parts of the VRA last week, with 45% opposed.”

• Background checks: “It’s a sign of how universal the support for expanded background checks for gun purchases is that even in Texas 72% of voters favor it with only 22% opposed. There’s strong bipartisan support with majorities of Democrats (89/8), independents (68/30), and Republicans (58/31) all overwhelmingly in favor of them.”

• ETC. “Rangers fans vastly outnumber Astros fans in the state, 44/19. Despite the recent controversy about Paula Deen she’s actually the most popular person we asked about in our entire poll with a +25 net favorability rating- 46% of voters see her positively to 21% with a negative opinion. 78% of voters in the state think that you should not mess with Texas, to only 9% that think you should. And regardless of what the New Yorker may think, just 8% of Texans think Bert and Ernie are gay, while 41% believe they are not.”

Q - Is Paula Deen a Democrat?

A Lively Political Press In A State Where Everything’s Bigger An interesting report from NPR’s ELISE HU.

Rally notes

Texas Republican Party Chairman Steve Munisteri sent out an email encouraging folks to attend tonight’s anti-abortion rally and provide the nation with “a picture that illustrates how pro-life Texans engage in activity to petition our government - with dignity and respect.”

The email included a couple of photos of children from last week’s abortion rights rally, holding signs “that would make a sailor blush,” like, “Stay out of my mommy’s vagina,” and “If I wanted the government in my womb, I would f* a Senator.”

Yikes.

Meanwhile, Mother Jones tweeted that, “If pro-choice activists want to stop Texas from regulating clinics maybe they should call them "fertilizer plants.”

Speaking of which, one may recall the caustic cartoons that suggested Gov. Perry’s culpability for the West explosion because of the state’s low regulation environment.

Now, Wendy Davis is getting a taste of how cutting a cartoon can be, in this case courtesy Jeff Darcy, of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland

Writes Darcy:

“19 firefighters who died with their boots on putting out Arizona wildfire are heroes.

“Not a Texas state Senator, wearing pink sneakers ,filibustering for the right to put out the life light of a fetus, by sucking the unborn’s brains out in a late-term-abortion procedure.

“State Sen. Wendy Davis isn’t a Women’s rights hero, she’s a late-term-abortion rights advocate who likes pink running shoes, period.

“The far left blabbers on MSNBC, framed Davis simply as a champion of Women’s rights. Maybe even they recognized that goes down better then introducing her as the champion of late-term-abortions up to 28 weeks.

“They and the rest of her fans, focused on her pink running shoes. Understandably a much cuter image than a 24 week old fetus, dismembered and burned.”

Music notes

Over the Fourth of July break I saw the terrific Jimmy LaFave at Threadgill’s, the revelatory gospel of the McMercy Family Band - who really did make me feel that that old time religion was good enough for me - at The White Horse, and the sensational Har Mar Superstar - a paunchy white guy from Minneapolis who sings R & B to pre-recorded music and a live drummer - at The North Door, a very cool venue I had never been to before. Austin has its pleasures.

Sen. Wendy Davis, appearing on the south steps before a rally of more than 5,000

“We ask you to remove the hurt, the animosity, the pain and the negativity from our hearts and from this chamber, Remind us that we are truly a family and restore this Senate to the body that we all love so much.”

Senate Secretary Patsy Spaw delivering the opening prayer of the special session

“Senate rules prohibit applause, outbursts and demonstrations in the gallery. Persons in violation of Senate rules of decorum will lose gallery privileges.”

Printed reminder handed to spectators entering the Senate gallery yesterday

Good morning Austin.

Well that went reasonably well.

Democrats and abortion rights advocates had a huge rally on the south side of the Capitol celebrating their dramatic success in thwarting, in the tumultuous events of last Tuesday, Republican desires to enact legislation on the last day of the first special session that would have the effect of severely restricting access to abortion in Texas.

Meanwhile, inside the Capitol, the second special session of the Legislature - necessitated by the Democrats’ stunning success of lat week - got about the business of laying the groundwork to enact the legislation that the throng outside so objects to.

Said Gov. Perry, who gets to call the special sessions and decide their agendas, “The Texas Legislature is poised to finish its history-making work this year by passing legislation to protect the unborn and women’s health, invest in our transportation infrastructure and ensure our justice system is fair but firm.”

it was not a day like any other day.

As the Statesman’s Chuck Lindell put it:

“In a Capitol crackling with energy from passionate crowds on both sides of the abortion debate, the second special session of the Texas Legislature kicked off Monday with a brief but tense Senate session that began with a prayer for healing.

“Chanting, singing protesters, conspicuous law officers and dueling news conferences ruled the day.

“But the real work begins Tuesday, when a House committee holds a 3:30 p.m.-to-midnight public hearing on heightened abortion regulations, setting up a possible conflict from abortion rights advocates and abortion opponents who have promised to pack the hearing with hundreds of people willing to testify.

“A similar hearing in the previous special session drew loud protests when testimony was cut off at 3:40 a.m. with several hundred witnesses, most of them against the abortion legislation, still waiting to testify.”

“I hope the folks will come up there and be prepared to address the issue within their three minutes and make room for the next witness,” said State Affairs Committee Chairman Byron Cook, R-Corsicana. “We’re going to try to accommodate as many as we can.”

“The new session also brings new bill numbers.

“The sweeping abortion regulations previously contained in Senate Bill 5 are now known as House Bill 2 and its companion, Senate Bill 1. The legislation would end most abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy, require extensive and expensive renovations at abortion clinics, require doctors to receive admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of a clinic, and tighten regulations on drug-induced abortions.”

From outside the Capitol, the Statesman’s Andrea Ball reported:

“The first day of the legislative special session was marked by chanting, shouting, singing, praying, crucifixes, wire hangers, posters, flags, music, free ice cream and a whole lot of abortion talk.

“Buoyed by last week’s spontaneous defeat of legislation that would have banned most abortions after 20 weeks, about 5,000 abortion rights supporters converged Monday on the Capitol to celebrate their victory and dig in for the next round. Their message to Republicans: we won before, and we’ll win again.

“You were at the crux of a turning point in Texas history,” said state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who had staged a nearly 13-hour filibuster on the bill.

“Last week, with the bill’s passage close at hand, the Senate gallery was mostly packed with people against the legislation, onlookers who derailed the proceedings by screaming and disrupting them as time ran out.

“As the new session begins, abortion opponents say they won’t let that happen again. Using social media to rally their own troops, they’ve launched a campaign to help pass the bill.

“Abortion opponents will rally at the Capitol at 2 p.m. Tuesday to pack the House State Affairs Committee hearing room and sign up to speak in favor of the bill. They are trying to secure private parking at area churches and businesses, then bus people to the Capitol grounds, according to Texas Right to Life. Abortion rights supporters also plan to pack the hearing.”

The House and Senate are adjourned now for the Fourth of July holiday until next Tuesday.

Yippee!

I was at the rally. I was the doofus in the jacket and tie (I thought I might end up in the House or Senate chamber later in the day) sitting on the grass with my lap top. It was warm. Siri suffered heat stroke and was out of commission for a while.

I talked to folks at the rally, and the three basic themes were as follows:

1. The right to an abortion needs to be defended.

2. Rick Perry is an embarrassment.

3. Wendy Davis should run for governor.

Here are some people I talked to.

(The woman, above, with the “Texas Spring” sign is Jenny Swinton of Austin, who said he was there as a matter of human and civil rights, and “for my grandma.)

Laura Cisneros of Austin was inspired by Davis’ filibuster and the moment when she said, “I do not yield,” to a Republican senator who wanted to question her during the filibuster, perhaps in draw her into a violation that would enable them to shut her down. That was exactly it, “Texas women do not yield.”

“I got a wild hair last Tuesday to make a bunch of freakin’ T-shirts,” and that she did, selling the100 shirts she had made to folks arriving early for the rally. They read “Texas women do not yield,” on the front, and “Run Wendy Run,” on the back.

Eric Metze of Lubbock and his eight-year-old cousin, Alwynne Metze, of Austin, were there carrying their vintage blue and white “Ann Richards: Governor” signs that Metze said his father had stashed long ago in a closet and pulled out for what he thought was an appropriate occasion.

“She’d be here,” he said. And, indeed, her daughter, Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, spoke yesterday and was in the thick of the action last Tuesday.

Tenley Parr came from Florence, where she works as a caregiver/cook for folks suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia. She was working and couldn’t be there last Tuesday but wasn’t going to miss this. She carried a sign that said “Rick Perry Hates Women.”

Does she really believe that?

“Yes. He doesn’t have any respect or love for women. He wants them to do the same work for less pay, not let them go to their doctors and make them step back 100 years. He’s evil. He is straight out evil. I think he should be run out of the state of Texas on a rail, tarred and feathered.”

She said she may come back today to watch the anti-abortion rally, in case her side needs her.

Isabelle Salazar, a 29-year-old journalism teacher in AISD, had a sign that said, “I am your worst fear. Latina, educated and registered to vote school teacher.”

Salazar said Perry’s been governor since she was in high school, when she shook his hand when she received some kind of award. She hopes Davis runs for governor - though she would understand if she chose not to - because replacing Perry would allow Texas to move into the 21century, or, in the words of friend Jane Saunders, a professor of education at Texas State, “put a toe into the 21st Century.”

They were joined by Emily Smith, who teaches 5th grade language arts in AISD and is in graduate school, and who had a sign indicating that her grandfather, a Methodist chaplain in Irving who had become “pro-choice” after counseling women who had been traumatized both by having abortions and being denied abortions. She was in Irving and watched the filibuster with him and he agreed that the folks in the balcony were justified in roaring their disapproval of what was going on.

“He thought they were speaking up for their rights.” She said that while he is a Republican - or “what a Republican used to be” - he has never liked Perry.

Salazar said she teaches her students to be “critical thinkers,” and to look at both sides of an issue, and understands where the anti-abortion folks are coming from. The difference, she said, is, “I would never want to impose my vision on anybody else.”

Ashley Mims came from Houston with her 11-month-old son, Felix, who was cradled in a harness. She is a “birth worker,” an apprentice midwife - a “doula” - and felt obligated to be there - her first political demonstration - to be part of the “feminine energy - women supporting other women. There is nothing as sacred as sisterhood.”

She is not very political, and is a bit intimidated by politics, but “I need to be here for women in Texas,” and if Davis ran would vote for her and try to give her a little help.

Martha Cottingham came from Kingwood and joined her sister, Liz Maxfield of Austin, and their grown daughters. Cottingham’s simple sign - black magic marker scrawled on white oak tag - read: 1973 - Roe v. Wade. 2013 - WTF.

“They are not pro-life, they are pro-birth,” said Maxfield. “They’re not for prenatal care, AFDC, special needs, public education.”

Cottingham said she had not given up hope that the Republican effort to press forward with the omnibus abortion bill - having failed in the regular session and the first special session - might fail again.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

It’s no secret that that national media, and particularly those outlets most favorably disposed toward Democratic and liberal causes, has fallen fast and hard for Wendy Davis in the last seven days.

Here, for example, is John Nichols in the Nation:

“When the Democratic Party picks safe and predictable candidates in red states like Texas, it gets a safe and predictable result: defeat.

“Wendy Davis is not safe and predictable. She’s energetic and engaged, Harvard-Law-School smart and broadly experienced at the local and state levels of government.

“Rick Perry knows that adds up to a serious challenge. That’s why he is on the attack. That’s also why Davis could well turn out to be the most viable Texas Democratic gubernatorial prospect since Ann Richards won the job back in 1990.”

But then, amidst the euphoria, comes Paul “Wet Blanket” Burka, at Texas Monthly, who is having none of it and rains all over the Dems’ Wendy Davis parade.

“Now that Davis is a star in the making, Democrats would be wise to lower expectations for what comes next for her and her party. All of the problems Democrats have had in Texas over the past decade and a half still haunt them: their failure to win a single statewide race; their precipitous decline in numbers in the state House of Representatives (most notably their disaster in the 2010 elections). The Democratic brand in Texas is badly damaged, and it will take years to repair. A big blow to Democrats was the passage of major tort reform legislation in 2003, which had the effect of making it difficult for plaintiff’s lawyers, the backbone of the party’s fundraising base, to prosper in their profession. If Davis were to make a run for higher office in the election cycle that begins in 2014, Democrats would have to raise something like $50 million to fund the race. They can’t do it. To put it another way, they can’t fund both a major statewide race and improve the number of seats they hold in the Legislature. Their bench is thin; it mostly consists of U.S. House members Marc Veasey, Pete Gallego, and Joaquin Castro and San Antonio mayor Julian Castro.

Egads.

I beg to differ.

What Democrats have been handed in the last week with Davis is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. I don’t have the slightest idea how much money she can raise in Texas, but if she cannot raise national Democratic money no one can.

First, as a candidate she’s got it going on. The only comparably swift and stunning national debut in my memory is that of Sarah Palin in 2004, and she is already, after less than a week on the national scene, to MSNBC what Palin was to FOX. They would beat the drum for Davis every day from now until November 2014. It might be based on unrealistic, wishing-it-were-so expectations, but it still will provide her with a national platform.

And, as the tweets of support during her filibuster attest, she is already a heroine in the Washington/New York/Hollywood triangle. That might prove a rhetorical vulnerability in a campaign, but it means real fundraising power.

It is not a question of how well-grounded the expectations of national media and donors are. The point is they will pour money into Texas on a wing and prayer, and, in what they have seen of her on the national scene in her first week, she has acquitted herself well. No wilting.

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas broached the idea of a Draft Wendy Davis campaign within hours of the end of her filibuster.

“Earlier today I asked whether you guys were interested in launching a Draft Wendy Davis campaign, and 1.5K 2.3K Facebook shares, hundreds of comments, and thousands of votes, the answer is an unmitigated “HELL YES!” Is it any wonder? We’re all sick of the neanderthals running Texas (well, when we’re not laughing at them), and have long awaited the day the pendulum would swing back in our direction. Demographics are slated to accomplish that by 2024. Hillary Clinton would accelerate that timeline to 2016. But we don’t want to wait, and state Sen. Wendy Davis is giving us reason to accelerate that timeline another two years—to next year!

“At a time when everything coming out of Texas is suck, Davis has brought back some of that good ol’ progressive fire for which Texas used to be known.”

Further enhancing her national standing is that this is seen as a mano-a-mano battle with Rick Perry, the man those who love Davis already love to hate. If donors figure they can hurt Perry by helping Davis, it’s an absolute twofer.

But, in this respect, as Texas Tribune’s Jay Root notes in a terrific piece in the New York Times, what’s good for Davis may also be good for Perry, at least for now.

Writing under the headline, “For Perry, Setback in Texas May Propel Him Nationally,” Root quotes Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

“The only way to get a second look is to become a champion of the conservative values that the base considers more important than anything else. They’re looking for someone who is not going to tiptoe through the tulips. And Rick Perry seems to enjoy crushing tulips.”

And: “What Mr. Perry did next was more predictable, at least for those who know him: he threw gas on the fire by offering personal criticism of Ms. Davis, a single mother who rose from humble beginnings in a trailer park to graduate from Harvard Law School with honors.”

“The anger against Mr. Perry among liberal activists was on display at a rally that drew as many as 5,000 people to the Texas Capitol on Monday. They wanted their voices heard on the first day of a special session, called by the governor, to complete work on the abortion restrictions and a few other matters.

“People waved or displayed placards, banners and posters reading, “Proud of Texas, Ashamed of Perry.” About 400 people put messages on wire coat hangers, which organizers planned to deliver to Mr. Perry’s office. One message read: “Hands off my ovaries!!!” Another: “You’re being replaced, bro.”

“This energy has given new hope for Democrats who have not won a statewide office since 1994. But Mr. Perry stands to benefit from the liberal outrage as well.”

Now, back to Burka. He suggests that Democrats can’t afford to run statewide in 2014, but should concentrate on legislative races. But that means most Texans wouldn’t have direct experience with a Democratic campaign in 2014 because most districts aren’t competitive.

I thought about this when I talked the other day to Jeff Rotkoff, a Democratic consultant, who said last week’s filibuster would “leave a profound legacy, whether it’s the more immediate gratification of a Davis run for governor, or the longer term impact on a 15-year-old who tagged along with his or her mother Tuesday to the Capitol and experienced the life-changing exhilaration of the moment.”

I grew up being active in politics from a very young age. It was a family inheritance. (I suppose you could say my interest in politics began at conception, but in the current context, that’s probably not a good idea). I volunteered in campaigns from the time I was in elementary school. Most of the campaigns I worked on were for losing candidates. It was my expectation they would lose, but I was New York Mets fan, so that was OK. But occasionally, under seemingly unlikely circumstances, a particularly passionate or talented to lucky candidate would win.

But the idea that a self-respecting party would not compete for governor or any other statewide office would have been unthinkable, an abdication that risks losing a generation of new voters.

Democratic Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said last week that, “Everyone is waiting to see what Wendy will do. If Wendy chooses to run for governor, the line to run with her will be long.”

The argument against her running is that the Democrats would likely lose her Senate seat and she might lose for governor, wasting a better, future opportunity.

It shouldn’t all be on Davis. But, if she doesn’t run for governor or senator or lieutenant governor, someone should.

If Democrats, after this last week, don’t field candidates for statewide office in 2014, the message they will send to that 15-year-old Rotkoff referred to is that politics is all about careerism and little more, and they will have squandered a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

Elizabeth Graham, director of Texas Right to Life, in an e-mail.

“I don’t think we’ll move anybody” to vote differently. “But we should give them a kick in the ass anyway.”

Rise Up Texas organizer Lisa Fithian on today’s noon rally on the south steps of the Capitol to oppose enactment of abortion legislation in the special session and hear from Sen. Wendy Davis.

‘There’s no time for a lesson in civics, my boy. In the 5th century B.C., the citizens of Athens, having suffered grievously under a tyrant, managed to depose and banish him. However, when he returned after some years, with an army of mercenaries, those same citizens not only opened the gates to him, but stood by while he executed members of the Legal Government.”

Judge Percy Mettrick. “High Noon”

Walking by the Alamo tonight with a real sense that another battle for control of Texas may have begun. pic.twitter.com/RMuPSK7s7q

— Michael Li (@mcpli) July 1, 2013

Good Morning Austin.

At least I hope it’s a good morning.

The next couple of days promise to be, as Thomas Paine put it, “the times that try men’s souls.” And women’s.

“The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

The difficulty we face in the next couple of days is that we have two side amassing at the Capitol each absolutely convinced of the righteousness of their cause, and with opposite visions of the tyranny they seek to conquer. It is possible that in these few days before July 4, the Texas Capitol will bear witness to participatory democracy in all its triumphant glory, and Independence Day 2013 will shimmer with a special exhilaration.

It is also possible that the next few days will be all fireworks, and a dispiriting mess.

Marty Toohey of the Statesman nicely sets the stage.

“At trestle tables with pints of beer, on the sun-drenched lawn of the state Capitol, and in other spots around Austin, activists took a final deep breath Sunday before the Legislature plunges into a special session headlined by part two of a rancorous abortion debate.

“There is no firm count on the number of people who will pack the halls to express their thoughts and feelings about a proposal that would place new restrictions on abortion clinics. But one Facebook group listed more than 5,700 opponents of the legislation having pledged by Sunday evening to come to the Capitol and other estimates put the number above 7,000.

“And that’s not counting supporters of the legislation who say they will be out in force Tuesday, when the bill could come up for a hearing.”

More:

“Elizabeth Graham, director of Texas Right to Life, said all the major groups will have members at the Capitol. But, she said, they do not intend to make the kind of ruckus that drowned out the Senate’s voice vote and led Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to call the protesters an “unruly mob.”

“A majority of pro-life Texans keep electing a majority of pro-life legislators. We want to make sure the turnout is representative of the state as a whole and that our legislators know we support them,” Graham said. “There will just be a very positive, very encouraging group.”

“The “unruly” characterization has rankled with many of those in the gallery during the filibuster.”

“We were the most polite, most ruly mob there ever was,” said Anna Rubin, the online communications manager of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas. “We were following every rule until the Senate leadership decided to stop following them.”

And, from the Statesman’s Mike Ward:

“With prosecutors reviewing whether the last vote on a controversial abortion bill might have involved document tampering, and with thousands of protesters heading to Austin to have their say on the next vote, the Texas Legislature is scheduled to convene again in special session Monday.”

“Abortion rights activists were scheduled to rally at noon Monday on the south steps of the Capitol, followed Tuesday by anti-abortion supporters, in what state officials could make the session one of the largest, most contentious ever. Once again, abortion rights forces plan to wear orange T-shirts and abortion opponents will wear baby blue shirts.

“While Texas Department of Public Safety officials were officially silent on their plans, legislative leaders in both chambers said security has been increased to ensure there are no disruptions in legislative hearings or in the House and Senate chambers during debate.”

• “The decision to force yet another special session on legislation to virtually ban abortion is an affront to the thousands of Texans who turned out in droves to oppose these efforts at every turn,” Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said Sunday. “Governor (Rick) Perry and his allies lost this fight in regular session, and even after they tried to shut down the democratic process, he and his allies lost again in front of the entire country last week. A fuse has been lit in Austin, and there is growing opposition across the state to these attacks that endanger women’s health and safety. People all across Texas are rising up to demand their voices be heard.”

• Anti-abortion groups were just as adamant, with one group urging supporters from across Texas to “bring your family, friends, and your entire church!” See the quote from Graham at the top.

Meanwhile, State Senator Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, will speak at a press conference this morning at 11:30 in the Lt. Governor’s press room. “She will be joined by women who have been physically and emotionally harmed by abortion. Allan Parker of the Justice Foundation will also speak and present written testimony from over 900 Texas women who have had abortions.”

Countdown to the #StandWithTXWomen Rally - Monday at high noon - South Steps of the Capitol - our voices will be heard! Join us.. #txlege

— Grace Garcia (@gracegarcia) July 1, 2013

#stand4life http://t.co/HO9QlFm9JH

— Rick Perry (@GovernorPerry) July 1, 2013

MT “@ChadHastyRadio: On Monday, @GovernorPerry will join me at 9:05am to discuss the 2nd Special Session. #txlege” #stand4life

— Team Rick Perry (@TeamRickPerry) June 29, 2013

People are going to be so let down when they realize the chambers are just going to refer bills tomorrow. #txlege

— SecretTxLege (@SecretTxLege) July 1, 2013

Note. No vote tomorrow either in House or Senate on any call item. Bills to committee and a semblance of a schedule. #txlege

— Poncho Nevarez (@poncho_nevarez) July 1, 2013

Spot on, @scottbraddock . Senate: Invocation, introduction of Dr of the Day, referral of bills to committee, adjourn.

— Steven Polunsky (@StevenPolunsky) July 1, 2013

CA branch of Tx protest MT @tootwistedtv: Live in LA? Protest in support of Texas abortion rights: pic.twitter.com/9rTumv7wCh #sb9 #hb2 #txlege

— Jim Henson (@jamesrhenson) July 1, 2013

QUORUM ON QUORUM

Quorum Report reporting there may not be a House quorum tomorrow due to vacation commitments. #txledge

— Joe Deshotel (@RepJoeDeshotel) July 1, 2013

WENDY, WENDY, WENDY

It is hard to believe, but it is not yet a week since Sen. Wendy Davis’ filibuster-heard-‘round-the-world.

On Sunday, she appeared on the three most renowned Sunday talk shows and in a video released by Matt Angle’s Lone Star Project.

“In interviews with the Sunday talks shows, and in a new video posted by the Lone Star Project, state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, described the abortion legislation she filibustered against as an act of “big government intrusion” and “bullying politics.” And she said the throng that descended on the Capitol last Tuesday to support her filibuster was not a “mob,” as Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst have described it, but democracy in action.”

“They said these people were part of a mob; they even had one women in her 70s arrested, for heaven’s sake,” said Davis in the short video put out by a political action committee that backs Democratic candidates. “Well that was no mob. That was moms and dads and grandmas and little girls, everyday people who truly love Texas and want to this state to get back on track. That moment when people chose to stand and give voice to their values sums up what I love most about our country and our beautiful state.”

“Governor Perry,” she concluded, “that was not a lack of decorum. That was not discord. That was democracy.”

And: “In the only criticism aimed at Davis during her three network appearances, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, a roundtable panelist on “This Week,” said that while she admired Davis’ spirit, energy and commitment, “it seems to me — and I think it seems to many Americans — that what she is speaking for and standing for is something we would recognize as infanticide, late-term abortion, the taking of a little child’s life. That is really, really serious. And so part of me thinks, fabulous young woman, and a part me thinks, oh my goodness, we’re celebrating something that even in Europe they call a matter of brutality and barbarism.”

Oh my goodness, indeed. Kind of like saying of Hitler - love that zeal, but, ooh, that genocide.

RIDDLE ME THIS

And yes, Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, went there with the Hitler analogy in a Facebook post that the Texas Freedom Network captured before she took it down.

“This is a tough fight - the Gallery is full of orange shirts - very few blue - orange are the ones I call Pro-death. I am Pro-life - so they must be Pro-death. A human is a human prior to birth just as it is human after it is born. We have killed 50 million babies after Roe v Wade. Hitler killed 6 million people.”

WE WON’T BE RIGHT BACK WITH THE SECOND HALF ….

Before we leave Davis’s trifecta of appearances there is this:

@tootwistedtv Interesting. To be fair: Davis segment was in second half-hour of Face the Nation, which KEYE doesn't regularly air.

— Jim Henson (@jamesrhenson) June 30, 2013

I have previously lived in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.

Occasionally, the host of a public affairs show will say, “we’ll ba back with more (blank) except for those affiliates that leave us now.” I’ve heretofore always been in one of those places that got to see the second half of the show, but I always wondered, where are those places that don’t air the second half, and what do they air instead?

Well, now I know the answer. “Austin and Joel Osteen”

II was trying to watch DavIs on all three appearances, toggling back and forth between NBC, ABC and CBS. I heard “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer on KEYE-TV say he’d be back with Wendy Davis. I like Schieffer. He has that twinkle, he’s a bona fide native of Austin, and I figured of the three Davis’ interviews, his would be the best

But when I switched back to KEYE after watching another of the Davis interviews, Schieffer was nowhere to be seen and in his stead, there was Joel Osteen just finishing the joke he likes to open with to put his congregation at ease. I missed the very beginning, but I surmise from the punchline that a 60-year-old man is talking to God (or some other all-powerful being) and saying things are good but they’d be evern better if he had a wife who was 30 years younger than he is. And, poof, God (or the all-powerful being) turned the man 90.

Pretty good.

But no Wendy Davis.

Anyway, here are all the Wendy Davis videos, courtesy the Texas Tribune>

Prime placement on the @nytimes home page = major like pic.twitter.com/BZBp9lCePv

— Evan Smith (@evanasmith) July 1, 2013

PERRY DOUBLES DOWN

“@TexGov: Join @GovernorPerry w/ @WilliamJBennet on "Morning in America" 7:30am CT. #Stand4Life http://t.co/GIit7W74he” #txlege

— ★ StaceinTexas ★™ (@StaceinTexas) July 1, 2013

The Statesman’s Gardner Selby reports that on the show, “Asked about his mention last week of Davis’ circumstance, Perry said he meant it as a compliment. “The child of an unwed mom, she herself had a child … out of wedlock.”

Well, that went beyond what he said last week, when he told the National Right to Life Convention, “She was the daughter of a single mother. She was a teenaged mother herself.”

As Selby wrote in PolitiFact Texas last week, both Davis and her mother were married when they gave birth, but were later divorced.

WHITHER WENDY

From the AP’s Chris Tomlinson’s story on whether or not she will run for governor. (She’s still deciding.)

“Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa, who took over the Texas Democratic Party in 2011, insists the party is ready.”

“Women have not always voted for the Democrats, and now they’ll see that we are fighting for them and they will vote for us,” he told the AP. “People in Texas are taking a look at the ugly face of the Republican Party and taking a better look at the Democratic Party.”

“But whether they can win in 2014 may depend on whether Davis runs for governor and the party can recruit other Democrats to run as a group for the other six seats. “Everyone is waiting to see what Wendy will do,” Hinojosa said. “If Wendy chooses to run for governor, the line to run with her will be long.”

And, from Dave Montgomery in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

“Texas Republican Party Chairman Steve Munisteri said he, too, eagerly hopes that Davis will run for governor. He predicts that Davis would be defeated and would lose her Senate seat since she can’t run for both offices in 2014.”

“From my point of view, I would be ecstatic because we’ll pick up her Senate seat and she’ll get a loss,” Munisteri said. “Just because people in New York and Washington say, ‘We have a star,’ they don’t vote down here.”

In January we found Wendy Davis trailing Rick Perry just 47-41 despite- at that time- pretty low name recognition: http://t.co/oDCbWl3zew

— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) June 26, 2013

Kinky Friedman says @WendyDavisTexas is "the Joan of Arc of Texas Democrats," compares to Cruz: "He beat the Austin big money. So can she."

— Bud Kennedy (@BudKennedy) June 29, 2013

U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey pushing to score Texas Sen. Wendy Davis a speaking role at 2016 Democratic National Convention http://t.co/0Kq8J9mki0

— Gromer M. Jeffers (@gromerjeffers) June 28, 2013

PATRICK v. DEWHURST

This week we begin a 2nd special session at your expense. It's time for new leadership. Join #PatricksPatriots http://t.co/bXXX12W3sj

— Dan Patrick (@DanPatrick) July 1, 2013

Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst says he's not worried about Houston Sen. Dan Patrick's challenge to his re-election http://t.co/21JE1EeE8O

— Gromer M. Jeffers (@gromerjeffers) June 29, 2013

Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst says he's not discouraged. http://t.co/Y2x07VJFoU

— Gromer M. Jeffers (@gromerjeffers) June 29, 2013

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst on passing the anti-abortion bill killed by Sen. Wendy Davis' filibuster: "No human being can talk for two weeks."

— Gromer M. Jeffers (@gromerjeffers) June 29, 2013

@elliottjgriffin @DanPatrick Completely unethical for Texas stations to carry the show.

— Bud Kennedy (@BudKennedy) June 30, 2013

DEWHURST v. CAPITOL PRESS CORPS (or not)

UPDATED: Lt Gov David Dewhurst decides against arresting Texas media

DANG

From the Dallas Morning News: Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said Saturday that there was no reason to go after reporters for helping to incite opponents of a controversial anti-abortion bill.

“There was so much agitation about what happened on Tuesday night. I had my staff go back and look at the video and I’m pleased, I’m pleased that, although I’ve been told by many different people that they thought they had seen different members of the press who were trying to incite the crowd, the staff told me they couldn’t see anyone,” Dewhurst said. “That’s what I know about of the Texas press corps, who I respect.”

“Original story Lt. Gov David Dewhurst says his office is reviewing video of the Senate filibuster and protest that doomed an abortion bill to see if the media should be arrested. Dewhurst told a conservative web site that he suspects reporters were complicit in inciting a riot. He offered no evidence, but said his staff is looking over the tapes of the final, chaotic night last Tuesday”.

Here’s the original Dewhurst interview with HOT AIR

And from Becca Aaronson’s report at the Texas Tribune.

“After hearing several reports of members of the media encouraging the crowd, Gov. Dewhurst said he would look into the matter,” said Travis Considine, a spokesman for Dewhurst. “He’s had his staff review the tapes, and he is thankful to learn that the media conducted themselves in a manner consistent with the decorum of the Senate chamber.”

Considine added, “Lt. Gov. Dewhurst has a deep and abiding respect for the Texas press corps.”

Phew.

The only remaining question.

What riot?

xxxxxxxxx

Dear people in politics, don't put your arms up like that. Rarely does it end well. http://t.co/cro0LjRjHX

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) July 1, 2013

? Regular way of casting no votes in Tx Senate MT @EWErickson: Dear people in politics, don't put your arms up like that… #txlege

— Jim Henson (@jamesrhenson) July 1, 2013

Well folks, glad I got more than 4 consecutive hours of sleep this weekend. Chaos begins again tomorrow. #txlege #hb2 #sb5

— Emily Ramshaw (@eramshaw) July 1, 2013