I intend to do a comprehensive roundup of why Ted Cruz won the Senate race, and why David Dewhurst lost, but it’s such a big subject I’m having trouble getting started. There’s entirely too much to talk about, and I’m still digesting all the ramifications.
So instead, here are a few other random observations from last night’s runoff:
According to this DSM story. The other material in that story should be familiar If you’ve been reading this blog.
On reason I’ve kept on this story is that once I uncovered the Ron Paul connection, it was obvious the MSM would run with Chi as a “Right Wing Extremist.” Which is already happening in the comments for various stories. But, as I showed, it’s not that simple. Chi is also on record as supporting organic food and opposing religion, corporations and genetically modified food, all of which are hardly typical Ron Paul positions. I wanted to get the facts out there before the MSM clouded the issue.
Yesterday I noticed a large number of search hits for Anson Chi Plano Bomber, and various combinations thereof. And today a little bird told me that Chi is indeed the hospitalized bombing suspect. So let me post a little bit more about him.
I’ve been following up on this story because I had initially guessed that the then-unknown bombing suspect might be part of Occupy Wall Street. When news outlets have revealed enough information to deduce that Anson Chi was the likely suspect, and it turned out he’s a Ron Paul supporter, then it seemed only fair to post that, since one of the guiding rules of blogging is to correct your own errors, even if it may temporarily hurt your “side.” The first side you should be on is the truth.
Now that I’ve been able to round up more information about Chi, my initial guess that he might be part of Occupy is, if not right, somewhat less wrong than it appeared at first. Indeed, he’s posted some pictures from various Occupy encampments around the world. While he’s not a fan of Obama or the IRS, he’s also not a fan of Christianity, genetically modified food or corporations. Chi seems one of those people both deeply interested in, and deeply disenchanted with, contemporary politics:
That, along with the other images in this post, are taken from Anson Chi’s Facebook page. If Chi is indeed the Plano bomber, he deserves to go to prison from a long time. But his web pages don’t give off the screaming capital letter fanaticism of some nuts; Chi actually comes across as a normal, intelligent, and ironic guy with issues about his own Asian heritage and a disenchantment with politics that, were it not for the bombing angle, would seem pretty normal.
So here are a few pieces of information on Anson Chi, gleaned from his various web pages (and some of which are NSFW).
IBM – Dallas, Texas 2005 – 2006
Web Middleware EngineerAmeriquest Mortgage Company – Orange, California 2005
System Engineer IIAtos Origin – Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan 2004 – 2005
System EngineerHeartland Payment Systems – Frisco, TX 2002 – 2003
UNIX System OperatorLoudcloud – Sunnyvale, CA 2001
NOC EngineerAlcatel – Plano, TX 2000 – 2001
UNIX System Administrator
The political section of that resume shows “Travis County District 149 Precinct Chairman” and “Ron Paul 2008 Grassroots Campaign – Austin, TX 2007-2008 Campaign Director.”
The thing that strikes me most about spending an hour wading through Chi’s Facebook page (which was last updated June 16) is how perfectly normal everything he put there was, except for the fact that, as far as I can tell, there’s no description of personal interactions at all (maybe they’re there but set to private so his only friends can see them). But Chi strikes me as someone believing in some ideas on the middle of the far left and the middle of the far right, but not as someone who would blow up a gas pipeline.
It would appear that the Plano bombing suspect is one Anson Chi, based on the following:
More details when I have them…
Added: More details Here. While Chi is not a fan of Obama or the IRS, he’s also not a fan of Christianity, genetically modified food or corporations, which makes him a very atypical Ron Paul supporter.
It’s been a few days since I went down to the south capitol steps to watch the Tea Party Express featuring Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Ron Paul. It’s a bit late for me to do a comprehensive write-up of the speeches there. I caught all of Rand Paul and Ted Cruz’s speech, but could only stay for about ten minutes of Ron Paul’s, because I had to get back home to write my review of the Avengers. The crowd was friendly, enthusiastic, and about 75% Ron Paul supporters, with the other 25% there either for Ted Cruz or various other candidates, including Richard Mack and the Libertarian candidate for the U.S. 25th congressional district Betsy Dewey, who was running around in one of those Firefly cunning hats and has the virtue of being quite cute.
Rather than a blow-by-blow description of what was said, or an attempt to construct a coherent Venn diagram depicting conservatives, Libertarians, Republicans, the Tea Party, and Ron Paul supporters, I’m going to just put up some pictures:
As usual, click to embiggen.
Just because I endorsed Ted Cruz doesn’t mean I’ve given up doing Texas Senate Race Updates, it’s just that I have other fish to fry this week.
Warren is playing an important role in our political discourse: she is the ghost of liberalism future. Warren’s alleged use of affirmative action, if true, would have to be the most egregious abuse of the system at the expense of minorities we’ve seen yet. Elizabeth Warren is, as a white woman, statistically speaking very much a member of this country’s majority. The only category in which she is a true minority is wealth: Elizabeth Warren is very, very rich… If Warren, a rich, white, Harvard professor, is a victim, everyone is.
Why does this matter? Because it reveals that the left thinks affirmative action is a joke, another cudgel with which to attack political opponents at the expense of minorities who might, thanks to liberalism’s insistence on keeping students in failed school districts, actually put the policy to some good use. And because if Elizabeth Warren is unable to advance coherent liberal policy arguments, then there may be none to advance.
Former Sheriff Richard Mack is launching a Republican primary challenge against Lamar Smith. He cites SOPA as his primary reason for running against Smith. (He has a website, but it’s currently 404.)
Mr. Mack seems to be a Ron Paul enthusiast, which is not my favorite flavor of conservatism, but even knowing nothing else about him, I would still regard him as a significant improvement over Lamar Smith at this point. His bio suggests he supports the Second Amendment, legalization of drugs, and the Tea Party, all of which I approve of. He has a personal website, and I sent him a query asking about his campaign. I’ll let you know more about when I hear back. As Matt Drudge is wont to say: Developing…
I’ve been busy hosting a family even this weekend, so I haven’t been able to do a post on Thursday’s debate. But I wanted to point out the results of the straw poll at Saddle Up Houston (which, with 3,321 voters, had a lot more attendees than I suspected).
Keep in mind all the usual caveats that apply to straw polls: They don’t tend to mean a lot when it comes to real voting.
Ron Paul: 54.4%
Rick Santorum: 15.6%
Rick Perry: 13.3%
Newt Gingrich: 11.9%
Mitt Romney: 4.2%
Jon Huntsman: 0.5%
Charles “Buddy” Roemer: 0.0% (Jeeze, how do you not manage to snag even .1% of the vote?)
That’s an excellent showing for Ron Paul, but Paul has consistently proven himself much more adept at winning straw polls than primaries. Caveats aside, it’s a bad showing for Rick Perry (if you can’t win a straw poll in your own state, where can you win it?) and Mitt Romney (the frontrunner should get more than 4.2% of the vote, even against two favorite sons).
Ted Cruz: 49.1%
Craig James: 12.9%
Glenn Addison: 12.0%
Tom Leppert: 9.1%
Lela Pittenger: 9.1%
David Dewhurst: 7.1%
Charles Holcomb: 0.3%
“Doc Joe” Agris: 0.3%
Curt Cleaver: 0.0%
Ben Gambini: 0.0%
That’s good news for Ted Cruz, Craig James and Glenn Addison, and bad news for David Dewhurst. And even though Tom Leppert outpointed Dewhurst, he can’t feel good at merely tying Lela Pittenger, who has neither campaigned as much as him, nor spent 1/1000th of what he has. (Also, Doc Agris can’t feel good about putting up such a paltry total in his own back yard.) Gambini getting 0% isn’t a surprise, since he’s been the invisible man. Cleaver getting 0% is a bit more surprising, since he’s had at least the semblance of a campaign.
But again, these results don’t mean much, as I seriously doubt we’re going to see Craig James battle Glenn Addison for a spot in the runoff against Cruz. They do highlight an enthusiasm gap between Cruz and Dewhurst, but just how much of that gap will translate into votes remains to be seen. I don’t think we’ll get a glimpse of how the race is shaping up in the minds of actual primary voters until we see polls from some of the established polling companies like Gallup, Zogby and Rasmussen.
Ace of Spades makes his case for Rick Perry here.
Since that piece came out December 19, it’s hardly cutting edge news. But I’ve been ruminating on it for a while to try and figure out if I have anything more to add. I think I do. And with the Iowa Caucuses looming, I probably should.
I haven’t covered much of the 2012 Presidential race, mainly because I’ve been focusing on the Texas Senate Race and everyone and their dog was blogging every twist in the POTUSA race.
OMG! Ron Paul is up 3 points!
Plus I don’t have cable, so I wouldn’t be able to watch the interminable numerous debates.
Finally, a baseball team the Astros can beat
Which is why I didn’t see Perry commit his brain freezes, of which there were many. (My theory is that he was still hopped up on goofballs from his back operation.)
Percocet makes me see tiny little Jim Hightowers, and I have to grab and crush each and every one of them
Having lived in Texas for the entirety of Rick Perry’s tenure as governor, I can attest that he is not a perfect candidate. There have been times (Gardasil, the Trans-Texas Corridor) when he’s strayed from conservative principles. And he’s not as polished as Mitt Romney or as articulate as Newt Gingrich.
But Perry isn’t running against the second coming of Ronald Reagan, or even Sarah Palin. Every other major Republican contender is not only at least as flawed, they’re considerably more so.
By process of elimination, that leaves Perry. As I said before, Perry isn’t perfect, but he has a record on holding the line on government spending and enabling job creation that puts Romney to shame. One again, let’s go to the charts that the indispensable Will Franklin of Willisms has provided on Texas job creation:
And the case for Perry over Romney (again thanks to WILLisms) is even more stark:
More on the Texas job success story here.
While I have criticized Perry’s campaign budget proposals for being too timid, Perry insisted on balancing the Texas budget without tax hikes. I assure you that California would love to have Texas’ budget. Indeed, adjusted for inflation, population growth, and federally-mandated spending, the Texas state budget has actually gone down under Perry. His guiding principle has been “don’t spend all the money,” and it’s one that Washington desperately needs.
One final, very big reason to support Perry: He can win. Perry’s never lost a race, because he’s a tough and tenacious campaigner who’s not afraid to hit his opponent\s hard. Everyone thought Kay Bailey Hutchison was going to cream Perry in the 2010 governor’s race, and he beat her like a rented mule.
Or maybe a rented donkey.
In the general election against Bill White, he ran an ad featuring a police widow talking about how her husband had been killed by a multi-arrested illegal alien while White was touting Houston as a “sanctuary city.”
Even professional MSM Perry hater Paul Burka says that Perry is a hard man. “He is the kind of politician who would rather be feared than loved.” Perry will have absolutely no fear of taking the fight to Obama and going negative early and often, and he won’t let political correctness cow him into treating Obama with kid gloves.
Will the media savage Rick Perry for his flubs? Of course they will. But, as Ace noted, they’ll always find a way to crucify any Republican candidate to make Obama look better. They’ll use the same “he’s an idiot” line of attack they used on Reagan and Bush43…and you so how far that got them.
If you’re still undecided on Perry, this video should at least give you a more rounded picture of him:
For those who think Perry is already out of the race, remember that at this point in 2004, the consensus was that Howard Dean was going to be the nominee. There’s a reason Americans actually get to vote, and they frequently prove the pundits wrong.
One final reason to vote for Perry: he’s a pretty good shot.
Still getting back up to speed after Christmas, so here are a few links that I’ve been squirreling away like nuts for winter:
Additional hat tips to Insta and Ace.
