George W. Bush: "Everything I learned, I learned here in Texas.''
Gubernatorial candidates scramble for votes in final hours
Nov. 6, 2006
By JULIE MASON and GARY SCHARRER
Houston Chronicle
Copyright 2006
The four major candidates for Texas governor made their final pitches to the voters today, with Gov. Rick Perry getting a personal boost from President Bush and independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn blitzing the state with Bush's former press secretary and the president's former Medicare chief.
Democrat Chris Bell campaigned in Amarillo, Dallas and Austin before returning to his home in Houston, where he will vote today ) and await election returns.
Independent Kinky Friedman rallied in Temple.
In his last event of the campaign season, Bush touched down in Dallas for a rally with Perry, telling an estimated 10,000 people at Reunion Arena that ``You elected us to get things done.''
``Let me put it to you this way,'' Bush told the cheering crowd. ``Everything I learned, I learned here in Texas.''
Joined by local Republican officials and statewide officeholders, including Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Bush said, ``When you get in there to vote for Rick, make sure you vote for Dewhurst as well.''
Strayhorn held airport news conferences in Harlingen, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas with her four sons, including Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, and Mark McClellan, who, until recently, was Bush's administrator of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services.
"A couple of his (Bush's) senior advisors think there's a better candidate for governor,'' Mark McClellan said.
Scott McClellan likened Strayhorn's style to the "uniter, not a divider'' theme that Bush used in his first presidential race.
``We think that spirit is what this campaign is all about - setting aside partisan politics and doing what's best for Texas,'' he said.
Also touring with Strayhorn were Brad McClellan, her campaign manager, and his twin brother, Dudley. Strayhorn's sons have campaigned with her throughout her political career, beginning in 1972 when she ran for the Austin school board.
At the various stops, the comptroller also was joined by Democratic and Republican officeholders to emphasize her cross-party message.
"We are going to prove the pundits wrong,'' she said of recent media-sponsored polls indicating she will finish third as Perry is reelected.
Bell and Friedman made similar comments about the voter surveys.
Bell urged Democrats who have been flirting with Strayhorn or Friedman to come home to their party.
He acknowledged the difficulty of a Democrat regaining the governor's office after 12 years, but he said there's also an advantage in running against ``one of the least popular governors in the history of Texas.''
"I'm the only one now in a position to take him out,'' he added.
In Dallas, where Bell was born, he campaigned with his father, Peter Bell, 83, a former Republican.
"If they (voters) just get to know him, he's a beautiful man,'' the elder Bell said of his son.
Friedman rallied about 100 voters in Temple at the office of Tejano star Little Joe Hernandez. He said he will be joined on election night by former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, the former wrestler who rode a wave of voter turnout to an upset victory as a Reform Party candidate in 1998.
"I think we're going to surge a lot stronger than the pollsters and the politicians and the pundits have predicted,'' said Friedman, for whom recent polls have predicted a fourth place finish with about 11 percent of the vote.
As Friedman was talking about the ``very strange coalition'' supporting him, about 20 uniformed students from Holy Trinity, an area Catholic school, showed up.
The candidate vying to be the first Jewish governor of Texas gave the students a history lesson about one of his heroes, Father Damien, a Belgian Catholic missionary who ministered to lepers in Hawaii during the late 1800s.
President Bush raised a record $194 million for Republican candidates this year, but his diminished popularity nationally has limited his value in tightly contested races.
Instead, the president has stuck to largely conservative areas where his handlers believed he could make a positive difference. In two other stops today, Bush addressed rallies in Arkansas and Florida.
Today, the president and first lady vote at their local polling place in Crawford before heading back to Washington, where they plan to watch the election results at the White House.
Slightly more than 1 million people voted early in person or by mail in the 15 most populous counties, a slight increase over the 2002 gubernatorial election.
The number of early voters increased in several suburban, Republican-dominated counties, including Fort Bend and Montgomery (outside Houston), Williamson (outside Austin) and Collin and Denton (in the Metroplex), while early voting in Travis and Hidalgo counties, two Democratic strongholds, was down.
Secretary of State Roger Williams has predicted that 36 percent of the state's 3 million-plus registered voters will cast ballots, the same percentage as voted in 2002.
Austin Bureau reporters Janet Elliott and Lisa Falkenberg contributed to this story.
julie.mason@chron.com
gscharrer@express-news.net
© 2006 Houston Chronicle: www.chron.com
Nov. 6, 2006
By JULIE MASON and GARY SCHARRER
Houston Chronicle
Copyright 2006
The four major candidates for Texas governor made their final pitches to the voters today, with Gov. Rick Perry getting a personal boost from President Bush and independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn blitzing the state with Bush's former press secretary and the president's former Medicare chief.
Democrat Chris Bell campaigned in Amarillo, Dallas and Austin before returning to his home in Houston, where he will vote today ) and await election returns.
Independent Kinky Friedman rallied in Temple.
In his last event of the campaign season, Bush touched down in Dallas for a rally with Perry, telling an estimated 10,000 people at Reunion Arena that ``You elected us to get things done.''
``Let me put it to you this way,'' Bush told the cheering crowd. ``Everything I learned, I learned here in Texas.''
Joined by local Republican officials and statewide officeholders, including Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Bush said, ``When you get in there to vote for Rick, make sure you vote for Dewhurst as well.''
Strayhorn held airport news conferences in Harlingen, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas with her four sons, including Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, and Mark McClellan, who, until recently, was Bush's administrator of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services.
"A couple of his (Bush's) senior advisors think there's a better candidate for governor,'' Mark McClellan said.
Scott McClellan likened Strayhorn's style to the "uniter, not a divider'' theme that Bush used in his first presidential race.
``We think that spirit is what this campaign is all about - setting aside partisan politics and doing what's best for Texas,'' he said.
Also touring with Strayhorn were Brad McClellan, her campaign manager, and his twin brother, Dudley. Strayhorn's sons have campaigned with her throughout her political career, beginning in 1972 when she ran for the Austin school board.
At the various stops, the comptroller also was joined by Democratic and Republican officeholders to emphasize her cross-party message.
"We are going to prove the pundits wrong,'' she said of recent media-sponsored polls indicating she will finish third as Perry is reelected.
Bell and Friedman made similar comments about the voter surveys.
Bell urged Democrats who have been flirting with Strayhorn or Friedman to come home to their party.
He acknowledged the difficulty of a Democrat regaining the governor's office after 12 years, but he said there's also an advantage in running against ``one of the least popular governors in the history of Texas.''
"I'm the only one now in a position to take him out,'' he added.
In Dallas, where Bell was born, he campaigned with his father, Peter Bell, 83, a former Republican.
"If they (voters) just get to know him, he's a beautiful man,'' the elder Bell said of his son.
Friedman rallied about 100 voters in Temple at the office of Tejano star Little Joe Hernandez. He said he will be joined on election night by former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, the former wrestler who rode a wave of voter turnout to an upset victory as a Reform Party candidate in 1998.
"I think we're going to surge a lot stronger than the pollsters and the politicians and the pundits have predicted,'' said Friedman, for whom recent polls have predicted a fourth place finish with about 11 percent of the vote.
As Friedman was talking about the ``very strange coalition'' supporting him, about 20 uniformed students from Holy Trinity, an area Catholic school, showed up.
The candidate vying to be the first Jewish governor of Texas gave the students a history lesson about one of his heroes, Father Damien, a Belgian Catholic missionary who ministered to lepers in Hawaii during the late 1800s.
President Bush raised a record $194 million for Republican candidates this year, but his diminished popularity nationally has limited his value in tightly contested races.
Instead, the president has stuck to largely conservative areas where his handlers believed he could make a positive difference. In two other stops today, Bush addressed rallies in Arkansas and Florida.
Today, the president and first lady vote at their local polling place in Crawford before heading back to Washington, where they plan to watch the election results at the White House.
Slightly more than 1 million people voted early in person or by mail in the 15 most populous counties, a slight increase over the 2002 gubernatorial election.
The number of early voters increased in several suburban, Republican-dominated counties, including Fort Bend and Montgomery (outside Houston), Williamson (outside Austin) and Collin and Denton (in the Metroplex), while early voting in Travis and Hidalgo counties, two Democratic strongholds, was down.
Secretary of State Roger Williams has predicted that 36 percent of the state's 3 million-plus registered voters will cast ballots, the same percentage as voted in 2002.
Austin Bureau reporters Janet Elliott and Lisa Falkenberg contributed to this story.
julie.mason@chron.com
gscharrer@express-news.net
© 2006 Houston Chronicle:
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Monday, November 06, 2006
<< Home