#TxLege — the myth of the 'moderate Republican' and the inside-the-Mopac gaggle

I've mentioned the inside-the-Mopac gaggle a few times before. Texas mainstream media aren't all bad all the time, but, the political reporters, and even more the analysts and pundits from the legacy print media, and the new online folks like the Trib, are often as problematic as their inside-the-Beltway peers in DC. (Some exceptions, like Jonathan Tilove, and Bud Kennedy from his remove in Fort Worth, do bat above average a fair chunk of the time.)

And, of course, that's why I created the inside-the-Mopac phrase.

Yesterday's Joe Straus retirement announcement did just the opposite, by and large, of bringing the cream to the top. Turds in the punchbowl, to use another metaphor, would be more correct.

I think I would have thrown up in Joe Straus' mouth had I seen the phrase "moderate Republican" once more. (The vomitorious feeling was compounded by Patrick Svitek at the Trib, in a clear swipe at Tom Wakely, saying that Andrew White was the "serious candidate" Dems have been waiting for to run for governor.)

Anyway, Joe Straus is NOT a "moderate Republican."

That's because no such thing exists in the Texas Legislature, or in state-level executive offices, whether elected or appointed.

I could accept the phrase "moderate conservative."

But "moderate"? Absolutely not.

I refuse to participate in the inside-the-Mopac's enabling the Texas GOP of today by erecting a glass house of Overton Windows.

Some of them did mention that Straus signed off on the sanctuary cities bill, at least implying that he could have further moderated it, if not blocked it completely, a la the bathroom bill lite that got some traction in the House.

But, the turd-polishing label of moderate Republican still gets attached to him.

This was only added to by Chris Hooks not only calling Straus a moderate, but writing something that looked like Hooks was offering his services as media spin doctor should Straus make the Indy run for governor.

I swear, Bernard and Audre Rapaport must be turning over in their graves every time one of Hooks' pieces runs in the Observer.

The GOP's worst candidates for 2016

I don't have a lot to add to Brains' "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" take on last night's GOP presidential debate, fortunately the last one of this year. No Scrooges stealing Christmas fun from the general public or whomever. That's better than the other side of the duopoly.

(Dems get their last on Saturday, which will probably get drowned in Christmas-related events. "Nice," and possibly deliberate from Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Teh Google sez it's going against a rerun of "The Wiz Live," which means younger black voters for sure won't be watching, and many Americans in general will be at Christmas parties.

Oh, wait, it gets worse, possibly. The next debate after that, for Dems, is on the Sunday of MLK weekend.)

That said, the tenor of the debate and ISIS issues aside, or even including them, I actually don't think The Donald is the worst GOP candidate for the general election.

Look, we know a lot of Americans love money. We also know that, other huffing and puffing aside, if Trump has a plurality of delegates, a brokered convention might be hard to pull off, and that, if he has an apparent pre-convention majority, at least not counting GOP superdelegates, a brokered convention would cause a revolt.

It's actually Cruz who would be the worst. Trump's nuttery is sprinkled with populism enough that he might garner independents. Cruz has none of that skin in the game. Plus, as Brains notes, he got shown to be a public hypocrite for the first time, though Cruz will probably claim Big Biz, vs Big Gummint, has a right to do whatever it wants to your privacy.

So, Havana Ted would be the worst GOP candidate for the general election, in my book.

Second worst? Christie Kreme, or whatever name you want for him.

Why? Picture Bridgegate indictments coming through at about the time of a Chris Christie nomination. Plus, the man can be louder than Trump at times.

Third? We'll slot The Donald here.

Anybody not named Jeb! or possibly Marco, though he seemed to morph into Jeb! Jr. last night, which he can't afford, is probably tied for fourth.

That said, the GOP also had another kids' table debate last night. Lindsay Graham eyerolling at Rick Santorum ... there's a Log Cabin Republicans plus "Santorum" (if you know what I mean) plus Graham joke in there somewhere ... were the highlight there.

Per my poll at top left, why some of the clowns haven't decided the clown car isn't taking them anywhere, I don't know. Why some of their financiers haven't decided that for them is an even greater mystery. I guess vanity candidates have vanity funders willing to pound sand down ratholes, which is what makes the Merika where Donald Trump thinks he was "great," or, per Ann Richards,

The America where George H.W. Bush was born on third base thinking he'd hit a triple ...

"Great."

Merika. On sale now at your local Walmart.

Of course, they're all lying. And Merikan Xceptionalism means denying that Merikans are so base and lowly.

And, any media pundits that didn't award at least one grade of D or lower last night are Inside the Beltway, or locally, Inside the Mopac.

#InsideTheMopac media will go in the tank for the #TPP

For the unfamiliar, or those missing my post of earlier this morning, the Inside the Mopac media is the Texas state-level version of the Inside the Beltway media. I'll be blogging about it more and more in the future, Peter Principle and all.

In fact, in Dallas, the Snooze is already doing it, writing a puff piece about how much ranchers will like the Trans Pacific Partnership. The piece mentions none of the potential problems for the TPP, whose full text is here.

Among things the Snooze doesn't mention is that Japan is still reserving agricultural "safeguards." We've seen how restrictive Japan has been on exports in the past. If this opens the door to other countries doing the same, then it's not much advancement. And, per that link, Japan at least isn't cracking its doors open a lot.

And, the intellectual property rules could allow genetic research on livestock improvement to become more bottled up and pricey than now.

Saying no to the #InsideTheMopac media

Fellow Texans of a political bent, especially fellow bloggers, will, I hope, get the meaning of the hashtag.

Texas has its state-level version of "inside the Beltway" media. The Mopac freeway doesn't run all the way around Austin, but, as the original bypass, it's a handy symbol for calling out the Austin bureaus and the state-level political analysts at Texas' main seven-day daily newspapers for their suckupitis to Austin's ruling class.

I am including the Dallas Morning News, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, the Houston Chronicle, the San Antonio Express-News and the Austin American Statesman. I'm not as familiar with the El Paso Times, but since it was bought by Gannett earlier this year, which since then bought Corpus Christi and other Journal Sentinel papers, I'll mark it down as an expected suck-up for the future. Anything smaller than these falls under the state-level version of regional papers (Corpus, Laredo, the lower Valley, Lubbock, Odessa, Midland, Beaumont, Amarillo, Waco, Wichita Falls and even smaller.)

On constitutional amendments? I suspect the Lege could put forth a bill to constitutionally enshrine goat-fucking and the inside the Mopac media would all solemnly sign off on it, and offer reasons to support it.

I know this well with the Snooze; having lived in metro Dallas most of the previous decade, there's not an establishmentarian ass that paper won't kiss. I am 119 percent sure that, within the city of Dallas, if the Dallas Citizens Council said, "We support goat-fucking," the Snooze would do the same, on a dime. The Startlegram, I have enough familiarity with it from my time in the Metroplex to say that it's only better by the soft bigotry of low comparisons.

The Chron? I know less about it, but not nothing. It seems to me to tank pretty well itself. The Express-News, especially with bureau consolidation, just follows its lead.

The Stateless? The paper's not as liberal as traditional Austin, and tilts left-neolib to some degree in deference to "new Austin." Plus, in print, it's barely a seven-day daily newspaper anymore, and if Cox can't sell ads into it on Mondays, why keep pretending?

The EP Times? Already checked that box; it's a Gannett paper.

And, per this follow-up post, expect to see more and more "tanking" on the Trans-Pacific Partnership by the Inside the Mopac media.