Goolsby: "I'm up to my ass in a damn campaign."
The AP reports that the Texas House is splurging on renovations to its members lounge, including $30,000 worth of antique wood furnishings, in a time when Gov. Rick Perry is ordering state agencies to cut the budgets. Who is responsible for this wasteful use of taxpayer dollars? Well, let's ask the people in charge. House Speaker Tom Craddick said he's not responsible. He throws Dallas representative Tony Goolsby under the bus, saying it's the chairman of the House Administration committee who is responsible for the expenditures. What does Tony Goolsby say?
"Goolsby said he hadn't kept up with [the project] because he's been too focused on his own political survival in a district where supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama -- and presumably his opponent Carol Kent -- are highly energized. 'I'm up to my ass in a damn campaign,' Goolsby said. 'This is the only job I've got and I'm trying to save it. Obama's got people coming from the rafters.'"LOL. Burnt Orange Report thought so much of Goolsby's quote that they led with it and repeated it twice more in their short coverage of the AP story.
If this is the only job Goolsby's got, you'd think he'd be doing a better job at it than splurging on redecorating in the face of an economic recession the likes of which our country hasn't seen in a long time. Maybe it's time to give the job to Carol Kent. She'll do a better job of protecting taxpayer money and ensuring it's spent on projects that benefit taxpayers instead of 19-year House incumbents.
No Plane Ride for DMN
The Drudge Report today reported that the Obama campaign plane is getting crowded and three newspapers are getting the boot in the last two days before the election. One of the newspapers is The Dallas Morning News. One thing all three have in common: they all endorsed John McCain.
Rabid wingnuts were quick to let their opinion be known in the comment thread of DMN Trailblazers blog item explaining the background to the Drudge news.
"Karen" says, "Obama and his gestapo has made it clear that critics will be punished." And then she gets mean. "El Bueno" says, "You've been Brown Shirted. ... OBEY!" "tracey" says, "get ready AMERICA.....you get what you deserve if you vote in OBAMA...he will take away your hard earned money, right to free speech and guns just to start with. ... What is wrong with you people?????????????"
The truth is more prosaic. Demand for seats on the campaign plane goes up in the last days of a campaign. DMN is a regional newspaper not in a swing state. DMN has had the same trouble with the McCain campaign. Business is business. And winning an election is big business.
But there are two sidelines to this story that deserve more attention. First, the news was broken by the Drudge Report, not DMN. Why is that? Every newspaper in the country is in financial trouble. Most, including DMN, are retreating to a defensive position of focusing on local news. What's more local than what's happening to DMN reporters? How can they let Drudge scoop them? Another instance of this were the layoffs at DMN last week. What's more local than what's happening in DMN's own newsroom. Yet, hardly a word was said in the newspaper or in the paper's own blogs.
Second, in downplaying news of being booted from the Obama plane, DMN says it's had the same trouble with the McCain campaign. That's not an exoneration; that's an indictment. That indicates that DMN doesn't have the size and stature that it imagines it has. That downward spiral is only likely to continue as cutbacks in the newsroom leads to skimpier news coverage which leads to ever declining readership and revenues which leads to even more cutbacks. Will DMN even be around to request a seat on the Obama 2012 re-election campaign plane?
