The silly season is a term used by one of my friends to discuss the last days of an election. Misleading comments and untruths fill the mailboxes and phone lines. Let’s take a quick break from silly season and do something much more productive. Let’s talk about the issues.
As you may know, I built my entire campaign on doing something novel, going door to door and talking to folks in the district. My goal was to listen, to learn and to lead. I have listened (and walked) to voters from Haslet to Grapevine.
Our residents want a more limited government, one that handles our tax dollars efficiently. We want protection from a federal government that intrudes on our personal lives and hurts our businesses. We want a state that is open and transparent and tells us where and how every dollar is spent.
We want politicians to live under the same laws as the average citizen. We want to curtail benefits to those here illegally – because we believe in fairness to everyone. We think the gross margins tax hurts business and that fees are really taxes. We think our education system needs an overhaul – both parts – finance and curriculum. We cherish our property rights. Whether it’s the new median on 1709 or increasing bus fees we have concerns and opinions and we’d like to express them.
We are optimistic and positive. I believe that Barack Obama will lose his election in November and our state and country will move forward. Until then we need energetic, passionate leaders who will fight and work hard every day for our freedoms and liberties.
Silly season doesn’t end with this email but sometimes we just need a little break. Please let me know if you have any questions about anything.
Sincerely,
Giovanni Capriglione
p.s. As we enter the final stretch any financial support you can give would be greatly appreciated. With your help we can finish strong!
Representative Vicki Truitt is in a bad way. Truitt-friendly Tim Madigan of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram characterized Truitt’s win in 2010 as a “romp”. A well-funded Truitt beat a virtually unfunded field by 4 points. This spin betrays Truitt’s weakness.
In reality, Truitt was weak in 2010, as she is now. Her constituents were alerted to her voting record in 2009, specifically how she tried to raise gas taxes. The exposure cost Truitt, who despite outspending her opponents 10 to 1, only avoided a runoff by the skin of her teeth. For perspective, the average margin of victory for challenged Republicans was 20 points. Truitt’s margin of victory was the smallest in the party.
The situation is worse for Truitt in 2012 as her rematch is outing the baggage she acquired as one of Joe Straus’ lieutenants during the 2011 session. Adding to her resume of “falling on her sword” to increase taxes, Truitt decreased government transparency in 2011.
There is another bad omen for Truitt. None of the other Republicans who won by less than 10% in 2008 or 2010 – and there were only a handful that weak – will be in the 83rd Legislature.
A very busy week and as the “construction season” heats up, it will only get better. Construction starts are up in the area, but prices are still very cheap. Got to pick and chose your projects well.
We had a marathon meeting on Tuesday with only two items on the “official” agenda. Lots of stuff to take care of in executive session, take that as a good thing for the City.
There is a poll floating around that was done in Austin on HD98, the numbers just seem out of whack, even for a Gio supporter like me. A 14 year incumbent down by double digits this close to an election is just out there. I’m thinking it was an outlier..but we will soon find out..I also heard that Charlie Geren is frantically trying to raise money for Truitt in Austin, but isn’t having any luck. The last financial statement showed that she still had about $150,000 on hand, and I’ve only seen two mailers from her, but maybe that TV Time she purchased in Southlake cost a lot of money.
Vicki Truitt also sent out an email this week that was kind of silly, accusing her opponent of stealing her signs. This is something I expect from a council or school board race, but not from a 14 year old incumbent in a State House race. And while Truitt’s email seemed silly, it wasn’t creepy like the one I got from Wendy Davis’ kids, asking me to give money to her campaign for her birthday……..a trick straight from the Obama campaign
Finally figured out (through a friend’s help of course) why the endorsement of Governor Perry of Kelly Hancock has made a huge difference in the campaign….it’s because once Perry endorsed in the race, the big money dried up for Todd Smith. As much as the press wants you to believe that Perry lost a lot of clout in the state, the big money people still don’t want to be on the wrong side of the Gov.
Still haven’t had a lot of time to go over the numbers and voters from the election last Saturday. But here are some initial thoughts. Candidates for office in Keller now know what wins, and that is walking door to door. The incident that made the paper made a huge swing in the vote, as there was a 12 point swing from Dodge in early votes to McCrary on election day. Dodge had a huge lead going into election day and McCrary couldn’t garner the votes needed to pull it off. In the end, it was close at 52-48. The Council Seat has a one year term, so with the race being that close, who knows if somebody challenges Dodge in a year. It is very hard to beat an incumbant in Keller unless there is some sort of controversy going on in the City.
Speaking of controversy, looks like Dave Lieber is going to do a column on how the City of Keller is squandering money this Sunday. Let me lay it out for you, after Dan O’Leary’s departure, the City Council hired Steve Polasek to take his place with an increase in salary from his salary as an Assistant City Manager. Steve gave Chris Fuller extra responsibilities by taking over two more departments, with that responsibility came a promotion of sorts and an increase in salary. Steve also created a Director of Public Safety and inserted Chief Hafner in that position, and with an increase in responsibility came an increase in Salary. Steve also created a position to handle Special Projects. There is always something going on in town that the Council directs the Staff to do, and this person will handle taking care of those projects.
All in all, the City will still save over $60,000 a year from where we were a month ago, but apparently Dave Lieber felt that the City should be saving the entire salary of Dan O’Leary with his departure. In fact, the Council knew before we hired Steve officially of his plans, and he had our blessings from day one. We aren’t stupid, we knew part of the reason O’Leary made his exit the way he did is to make him look better for his next job. Nobody expected the story to go internationally the way it did though, and we all expected a little bit of blow back after that happened. (In fact, it was Steve that warned us of it weeks ago) Sunday’s column is part of that blow back. I told Steve that as long as the column doesn’t feature him living in a 10,000 square foot mansion and driving a Bentley on the weekend, I was fine with it. (If you want to laugh harder, ask Steve to show you his vehicle….then you’ll get the joke)
Yes, the Rangers dropped 3 out of 4 this week, but remember it’s a LONG season. By September you won’t even remember this week.
There’s a whole lot more to write, but don’t have the time. Maybe this weekend I’ll post some more.
I’ll leave you with Junior Brown, who will be at the Granada on August 4th
This video has been making the rounds for years, yesterday it showed up on Fox News for some reason. My main hobby used to be Rock Crawling, and while I did some pretty stupid stuff, none of it was on video. The video in question is of a buddy of mine we called “Swine” (it’s a long story) and was shot at another buddies property up in Nacona, Texas about 10 years ago. The young kid that walks into the video towards the end is now serving our country in the US Navy….how time flies.
I still have the Jeep, sitting in the garage. My wife lets me take it out every other year or so to go play, but I have a much larger sense of my own mortality than I used to.
Looks like Greece is falling apart at the seams. What this means for Spain and Italy are only guesses, but I read an article yesterday (can’t find the link) that quoted a guy that thinks the Euro is going to be at par with the Dollar soon.
Huge election news out of Nebraska yesterday……just remember not to believe everything you read in the press about the right wing of the party being dead.
The “Firefighters for Truitt” were out walking in Southlake yesterday. Don’t know if there are 4 or 40 of them, but they will be in Keller in the next week. Also expect them at the polls working on election day as they were two years ago.
Early voting for the Primaries began on Monday, GET OUT TO VOTE!!
I’ve written about Chris Knight a bunch on this blog, he is one of my favorite singer/songwriters. My son Nicholas turned me on to him, and in turn I got my brother Rich to start listening to him. I bought Rich tickets to Chris Knight in Illinois this week, and hopefully he makes time out of his busy schedule to go see him. Chris will be at the Glass Cactus in early June (a place I can’t believe he plays, when my son saw him there last year it seemed he hated being at such a place).
Love and a .45….One will kill ya, one will keep you alive
Happy Mother’s Day to my mom, who I have written about multiple times on this blog. She was my hero growing up, and in many ways is still my hero today. I wish we got to see my mother more often, but she is always just a phone call away, which I usually make every day heading home from work. Yes, I’m a momma’s boy.
To my mother-in-law, another brave lady that raised five children. While we don’t get to see her very much as well, she is always there for her middle daughter, and I think one of her greatest enjoyments in life is listening to Shannon describe all the new places that she travels to. She has been a great mother-in-law, and we wish her a happy Mother’s day.
To my 91 year old Grandmother, happy Mother’s Day. She is a very special lady, one of 10 children of dirt farmers from Kentucky, who moved to Illinois looking for a better life. She herself had six kids, and an uncountable number of grandchildren. She is so special I named my youngest daughter after her. We love you grandma.
To my daughter Kristina, happy Mother’s Day. I know it isn’t the easiest day in the year for you. But Maddie was a special little girl, and we will always remember her with her big smile.
To my other daughter Crystal, Happy Mother’s Day, even though you are just now pregnant with your first child. Remember what I said the other night….Douglas is a great name for your first born son!
And Happy Mother’s Day to my wife and my best friend, Shannon. You have been a very special mother to your own children, and to accept my children as your own into our blended family. Our kids will one day think of you as a saint, as my brothers do my mom, it will just take a little time. J
People will say the closer you get to an election, the sillier the actions by supporters of candidates get. They call it the Silly Season…..
The City Council and School Board election is tomorrow. You can vote (based on your precinct) at Bear Creek Intermediate or Shady Grove Elementary. The forecast is for rain and thunderstorms….I’m wondering what that will do to turnout…
Yes, there was an article in the Star Telegram this week…no, I decided not to post it on the blog. Why? Because the readers of this blog most likely have already read it. It also deals with personal matters at City Hall and I don’t want to get into that here. We have a good staff at City Hall, they will do their jobs and they don’t need me interfering with it, or making it harder. So, for the first time ever, I’m restricting the comments, no mentions of names on the incident or the comment will be deleted. The article is a must read before you go vote tomorrow though.
It’s the silly season…….
In my runoff last summer, there was a similar incident where this time it was the Candidate getting in the face of a couple my volunteers. I blew it off as the silly season, but maybe I shouldn’t have.
I got a phone call earlier this week that basically stated that our State Rep made a phone call to a large private religious school in Keller demanding that a certain conservative State Rep candidate not be allowed to speak to a bunch of fourth graders about government without her being there also (I guess these fourth graders are the swing votes in HD98). This upset the parents of the fourth graders so much that they invited Gio to their homes last night so he could give the class there. Not only that, they all took pictures with him and in protest they have now posted those pictures as their profile pictures on Facebook and have stated they are now committed to get all the parents at this certain school to vote for Gio.
Stupid mistake, but remember, it’s the Silly Season….but a 14 year incumbent should know better. I’ve heard other details that involve a locally elected official, but I’ll wait and see how this shakes up before I post them.
Representative Truitt went on TV today…..a little 15 second spot that has a quote from the Mayor of Ft. Worth. (Like that is going to help her in Keller and Southlake?) She also has a web ad up featuring our very own Mayor. I applaud him being involved in the campaign………but remember that when he tells you I shouldn’t be involved.
Don’t know how I missed this, but here it is from April 25th no less:
On Monday evening, the city council of Duncanville voted to hire a new city manager, Daniel O’Leary of Keller , Texas . When contacted by the Suburban, Daniel O’Leary stated “I am honored that the Council has chosen me as their next City Manager. I look forward to the challenges of managing a premier Texas city like Duncanville. I promise the citizens of Duncanville that I will work hard to earn this honor bestowed me.” O’Leary has an extensive background in city government. He has been the city manager for Keller since 2008. Prior to being the city manager of Keller, O’Leary was employed by the city of San Marcos, Texas .
You know the drill: We lifted the color scheme from the inventors of the federal terror watch, ranking districts by the threat to each incumbent, to the incumbent party, or just by the level of interest in and heat generated by a particular race, then assigning each group a garish color.
Yellow means there’s trouble on the sidewalk.
Orange is trouble on the front porch.
Red is trouble walking in the door.
Open seats are rated by the apparent margin between top candidates (closer is hotter).
Incumbents are indicated with this: (i). A printable version is attached as a .pdf file.
This is certainly and intentionally subject to argument, and we’ll revise and adjust each week, based on interviews, our reporting and your feedback through the May 29 primary. Let us know what you think.
They rank the race as a CODE RED, big danger for the incumbent…..which matches what I’m hearing on the street. It’s not over, heck it hasn’t even started yet, but the next couple of weeks should be some real fun.
For those that thought that Vicki Truitt couldn’t be beat, think again. Remember, she barely kept from having to go to a runoff 2 years ago, and the drum beat has just gotten louder and louder…….
I was watching the game the other night between the Nats and the Philly’s when Jayson Werth made a sliding catch in right field that ultimately broke his left wrist. It’s painful to watch, even more painful as it reminds me of a play my son made at Highland Park his Junior year in High School.
Werth is a great player and that wrist has been problamatic before this latest injury. Here’s hoping to a full recovery.
