TX GOP Leading in New Poll

In the race to be the governor of Texas, Republican Gov. Rick Perry has a 15 percentage-point lead over Democratic opponent Tony Sanchez, whose campaign in all has spent more than $64 million, compared with $23 million for Perry so far, the Texas Poll shows.

The Scripps Howard Texas Poll, released Wednesday, also shows the race for lieutenant governor to be a virtual dead heat between Democrat John Sharp and Republican David Dewhurst, with 39 percent of those polled saying they preferred Dewhurst and 37 percent saying they plan to vote for Sharp.

Twenty-three percent of those polled have not made up their minds in that race, according to the poll.

Perry's campaign spokesman, Kathy Walt, said the survey was on target. "I think it clearly illustrates a ringing endorsement of Gov. Perry's leadership," Walt said.

Sanchez said the survey was flawed. "The Texas Poll is as wrong as Rick Perry," he said.

The poll also showed that only 44 percent of the people approved of the governor's performance in office - his lowest mark since taking office. It was down 23 percentage points from fall 2001, when Perry enjoyed a 67 percent approval rating.

Walt reasoned that the governor's drastic dip in approval ratings was due to the "attack ads" Sanchez has placed on television.

In the race to replace retiring Republican Phil Gramm in the U.S. Senate, Republican John Cornyn leads Democrat Ron Kirk by 9 percentage points, 44 percent to 35 percent.

The survey showed that 22 percent of the voters still had not decided whom to vote for in that race.

The poll randomly questioned 1,000 Texans by telephone. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Among those questioned in the most recent Texas Poll, 50 percent said they would vote for Perry, 35 percent said they liked Sanchez and 15 percent said they were undecided or would not vote for either candidate.

In the race for attorney general, Republican Greg Abbott scored 37 percentage points to 29 for Democrat Kirk Watson. But 34 percent of those polled said they still were undecided.

The Texas Poll found that Republican Jerry Patterson, with 39 percentage points, was ahead of Democrat David Bernsen, with 28 percentage points, in the race for land commissioner. Thirty-two percent remained undecided.

Thirty-one percent remained undecided in the contest for railroad commissioner. Republican incumbent Michael Williams of Arlington was leading with 39 percentage points compared to Democrat Sherry Boyles' 30 percentage points.

Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs, a Republican, scored 45 percentage points in the Texas Poll, while Democrat Tom Ramsay had 31. Twenty-three percent remained undecided.

The widest margin between candidates was in the state comptroller's race, where Republican incumbent Carole Keeton Rylander received 56 percentage points to only 18 for Democrat Marty Akins.

I am cautiously optimistic about the elections in Texas. People here are awfully conservative and face it, 9-11-01 didn't make too many people go "gee I think I'll become a liberal", but it DID make a lot of people think "I'd better get conservative before it's too late."

The Kirk Watson campaign is now running ads about Abbott's disability -- that he took advantage of the system by hiring a 'trial lawyer' a.k.a. personal injury lawyer and got $10 million for the accident. I had a moron (lawyer) I know try to sway me and a bunch of other people on this with a letter about a month ago... hell I'm going to post it. Here was his initial letter:

Subject: Hypocrisy

All and sundry,

No matter how you feel about the issue of tort reform, I hope you are appalled by the outrageous conduct of Greg Abbott, who is running for attorney general. Abbott's campaign has focused almost exclusively on the
evils of lawsuits and the lawyers who bring them. His opponent, Kirk Watson, is a plaintiffs' lawyer and the former mayor of Austin. Abbott is backing a legislative package that would greatly restrict the damages that
juries could consider. But Abbott is a rich man because of a settlement in a personal injury case.

I always liked Greg personally and am extremely disappointed in his lack of integrity. The following story was in Tuesday's Austin paper. It gives details of Abbott's settlement for the first time that I know of. Janet Elliott of the Chronicle broke the gist of the story back in April, I think, but didn't have specific information about the settlement.

XXXX XXXXXXXX

Lawsuit brought Abbott $10 million settlement
By David Pasztor
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, October 8, 2002
Republican Greg Abbott, who has made "greedy" trial lawyers and excessive lawsuit judgments whipping boys in his campaign for attorney general, received a tax-free settlement worth more than $10 million in his own
lawsuit stemming from the 1984 accident that left him in a wheelchair. In 1984, Abbott had graduated from Vanderbilt University Law School and had just taken the Texas bar exam when he was struck by a falling oak tree while
jogging in the River Oaks neighborhood of Houston.
The accident left him partially paralyzed, and his fight back from the devastating injury is the focus of Abbott campaign commercials that began airing this week.
Abbott sued Roy Moore, a Houston lawyer who owned the tree, and a tree care company that had inspected the oak eventually was brought into the case. The lawsuit was settled, and Abbott has steadfastly declined to say how
much money he received. But Abbott's forceful attacks on trial lawyers in general, and Democratic opponent Kirk Watson in particular, prompted a friend of Moore's to
disclose the terms of the settlement. Houston plaintiff's lawyer Tommy Fibich said he is outraged that Abbott is
basing part of his campaign on bashing trial lawyers -- and calling for tort reform measures that would limit damages in lawsuits -- when Abbott himself sought out a trial lawyer "in his darkest hour" and was well-served by the
results. "The hypocrisy of it is what has gotten me out on the cause," said Fibich. Abbott campaign manager Jason Johnson called release of the settlement terms
"a cheap political attack by trial lawyers," and said Abbott has advocated nothing that would keep future plaintiffs from recovering as much money as
he did. But Fibich said Abbott's repeated attacks on Watson because he is a plaintiff's lawyer are "outrageous."
"He went out and got a lawyer like Kirk Watson when he needed one, and his lawyer did a good job," Fibich said.
Watson's campaign declined to comment on the settlement.
Don Riddle, the lawyer who represented Abbott, would not specifically discuss the settlement terms. But Riddle said Abbott's actual damages -- mostly medical bills and lost income -- were relatively small compared with
the money Abbott received. "Far and away the largest" portion of the settlement was for noneconomic damages such as physical impairment and pain and suffering, Riddle said.
In various ways, most tort reform proposals call for limits on noneconomic or punitive damages. Under the settlement, the Aetna life insurance company established an annuity to pay Abbott over time. The total value of the agreement depends on how long Abbott lives. The former state Supreme Court justice receives an escalating payment each month that began at $5,000 a month in 1985 and would grow to as much as $30,000 a month when Abbott is in his 60s.
Abbott also will receive a lump-sum payment every three years until 2022, and that amount also grows. He received $100,000 in 1989, and the lump-sum payment will grow to $740,000 by 2022. He also received $300,000 at the
time of the settlement and two payments of $222,112 each in the late 1980s. Abbott's lawyer fees were paid out of a separate annuity.

OK. Watson is now desperate and running ads about this. I think it is appalling to make a paraplegic's disability a political topic. I responded to the idiot (and to his entire mailing list) as follows:

Dear xxxx --

I wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your email which helped me to make up my mind for whom to vote for Attorney General in the upcoming election. I understand that you yourself are an attorney, and I mean no offense to any individual in particular. However, it does not take too much of a stretch to imagine why you would be opposed to a candidate running on a platform of tort reform. The trial lawyers lobby is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) contributors to the Democratic party. Together, the Democrats and the trial lawyers have formed a sort of 'unholy alliance' which, as long as it continues uninterrupted, virtually guarantees that there will never be meaningful tort reform.

What's worse, this alliance continues to push Democratic lawyers into and upward through the ranks of the judges and is one of the primary causes of the astonishing judicial activism that has pushed us to the brink of an 'imperial judiciary' beholding to no one but their Democratic partisan
backers. This judicial activism has resulted in judges making decisions on important issues such as criminal procedure, prayer and the Ten Commandments in public schools, internal security, pornography, forced busing, racial preferences and quotas, term limits, abortion and election procedures. The federal courts have invented new "rights" such as the right to abortion and welfare payments. Additionally they have set themselves up as a
super-legislature and grabbed authority to micromanage schools, prisons, hiring standards, and legislative reapportionment. Together this power grab threatens to turn America into a socialist state without the voters
intention or permission. It must be stopped.

I'm glad you implicitly invited me to share my opinion on the AG race through your unsolicited attack on Mr. Abbott. I will indeed be voting for him and against the trial lawyer candidate Kirk Watson. This race is about issues much more serious than whether Mr. Abbott benefited from the system when he became disabled.

His considered reply to me follows:

John,

I don't know what Democratic judges you are talking about, as there are none to speak of in the state of Texas nowadays. Of the 100-plus elected judges in Harris County, there is not one single Democrat on the bench above the position of justice of the peace. Dallas is in the same condition, and I don't think things get more liberal when you get out into the country. If there's an unholy alliance, it hasn't been much of a success.

You are right that there is judicial activism, but it is entirely of the Republican variety. In the last survey I read, business and insurance interests won 83 percent of the judgments in the last year from the Texas Supreme Court. That doesn't sound much to me like a state threatening to fall into socialist ways. Back in the 1980s, when a similar survey showed that plaintiffs and their interests were winning at the Texas Supreme Court about 65 percent of the time, people who shared your views voted in their candidates at all levels of the judiciary, and there they have remained.

There has been "meaningful tort reform," over and over. Every time the insurance carriers invest badly, or the stock market goes down, there is a new attack on our court system and new calls for reform. The restrictions always pass, but somehow, the insurance industry still has problems, complains again, and new laws are passed. The complaints always blame huge judgments for their problems, which generates a wave of newspaper stories. Those are followed by a second wave of stories analyzing the causes of the insurance industry's troubles, of which judgments and settlements turn out to be a relatively minor component.

By the way, I represent defendants and plaintiffs in all kinds of lawsuits, including but certainly not limited to personal injury.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.