News Roundup, 2/18/08: Resignations and Endorsements

A hot news item you are likely to see later today concerns the endorsement of John McCain by former President George H. W. Bush. This is the kind of thing McCain needs in order to make his case to the conservative base, but he's going to need to collect endorsements and alliances at a frenzied rate to make up the ground he's lost among that groups of voters.

I don't know if it was yet another play to the conservative base or if he's just arrived at a new idea on his own, but in case you missed it, McCain went counter to his long-held stance against torture last week by voting against the prohibition of it during CIA interrogation. So I guess you can expect more of that as the campaign wears on.

For the person who likes to think of himself as the conservative, the weekend held some bitter news: Mike Huckabee was shunned by Tom Scholz, lead singer and songwriter of the band Boston. Boston released "More Than A Feeling" in 1976 and Huckabee has been playing it at his campaign events, and he apparently did not ask for permission from Boston. A rebuke in the press by anyone is bad enough, but this had to sting.

He must take solace in the fact that, at least to him, he still has enough support out there to keep him in the race until the convention. When you start telling your supporters that the best case scenario is a brokered convention in which you cause the brokering, your campaign has reached an unglamorous (albeit unique) state that I'm sure requires a high level of salesmanship.

The Texas GOP seems to be grasping at similar straws, recently requesting the military records of Rick Noriega, a State Representative and Lieutenant Colonel in the National Guard. I think that this signals something unfortunate and desperate afoot for junior Senator John Cornyn, if his party is already resorting to the favorite Rovian trick of trying to run a negative campaign against an opposing candidate's strong points.

Late on Friday also came the news Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal had decided to resign amidst the brewing scandal over emails and other things. It was a long time in coming, although I'm not sure what the net effect will end up being. I know that, from a law-and-order perspective, troubles in the DA's office make everyone nervous, so at the very least that office can return to a somewhat normalized level of functionality.

Lastly, in some additional Texas news, a little bit of editorializing and speculation from the Houston Chronicle: Rick Casey examined the various ways the March 4th primary could shake out on both sides, and Douglas MacKinnon contends that no major Republican player from Texas will end up running alongside McCain. And in yesterday's On The Record, Grace Stevens spoke with another member the Texas Democratic Party's staff, deputy finance director Katelyn Patterson.

The Democratic candidates will be all over Texas this week, culminating in their debate in Austin on Thursday night. Stay with us all week, and thanks for reading.