Another day, another attack on Rick from Kay's team...

Kay's team has basically turned into all attack, all the time, in the past few days (link).

The trouble is, their attacks are just plain stupid and ineffectual.

The latest negative attack from Kay's camp is that Rick was AWOL during session (link).

Their evidence?

A list of events Rick attended during the 140 day legislative session. Excerpts follow... 

84 Days To Sine Die: Perry Flies To DC To Receive Award From American Medical Association. (Gov. Rick Perry Twitter Feed, http://twitter.com, Accessed 6/4/09; Gov. Rick Perry, "Gov. Perry Receives AMA Nathan Davis Award," Press Release, 3/11/09)

83 Days To Sine Die: Perry Flies Back From DC To Texas. (Gov. Rick Perry Twitter Feed, http://twitter.com, Accessed 6/5/09)

[SNIP] 

5 Days To Sine Die: Perry Crashes Political Fundraiser With Rush Limbaugh In Houston. (W. Gardner Selby, "Candid photo: Rep. McCaul, Rush Limbaugh and Gov. Perry," Austin American-Statesman's "Postcards" Blog, www.statesman.com, 5/29/09, Accessed 6/4/09)

· Meanwhile, At The Capitol, The Smokeless Tobacco Tax Increase, Which The Small Business Tax Cut Was Contingent Upon, Was Running Into Trouble. (Jason Embry, First Reading, 5/29/09)

4 Days To Sine Die: Perry Throws Out First Pitch At Texas A&M Baseball Game In Fort Worth. (Oregon State University Athletics Website, www.osubeavers.com, 6/4/09)

· Windstorm Insurance Legislation's Future Called Into Question. (John Reynolds, "House Members Face Midnight Deadline As Fate Of Many Non-Germane Amendments Remain Uncertain," Quorum Report, 5/29/09)

3 Days To Sine Die: Perry Stays Up To Watch Longest College Baseball Game In History. (Gov. Rick Perry Twitter Feed, http://twitter.com, Accessed 6/4/09)

· Meanwhile, At The Capitol, $2 Billion In Funding For TxDOT Is Thrown Into Jeopardy. (Mike Ward and Ben Wear, "TxDOT bill in peril after tax measure dies," Austin American-Statesman, 5/31/09)

2 Days To Sine Die: Perry Attends Longhorns Baseball Game With Political Consultant David Weeks. (Eyewitness Testimonial)

Eyewitness testimonial? Really?

This attack is frankly pretty weak on their part. Rick went to some events outside of Austin, and outside of the Capitol grounds during the legislative session. Oh dear! It would be very weird of Rick to hole up in the Capitol and try to micromanage everything, especially considering the razor thin margin the GOP had in the House...

How strange of Kay's team to emphasize Rick's award from the American Medical Association too. Seems like they are repeating a positive of Rick's, in the same way campaigns should not repeat a negative about themselves.

Obviously what is happening here is Kay is trying to define the session as a total failure and then attribute that failure to Rick.

One, I am definitely not pleased that a few things got killed by Jim Dunnam's chubbing, but this session was far from a failure. I think Kay is defining failure way too much like Al Gore defined failure against George W. Bush in 2000. Texas is the worst place on earth for education and health care and all that other jazz, according to that liberal storyline.

Two, I think Kay's team has to be careful not to cast the session as a failure when they were eagerly opposing the Governor and undermining him from the left whenever possible. I blogged about that back when it was happening (link, link, link).

Suffice it to say, Kay has been running a negative campaign pretty much since her big lead in the polls went sour for her. Word around the dome is that certain Republicans did some of Kay's work for her in terms of pushing for CHIP expansion, unemployment expansion, and against some of Rick's nominees and social initiatives like the pro life license plates. The other word is that Kay is not for voter ID and was glad to see that fail.

Three, I think Kay needs to be careful about appearing too negative too much of the time. They have made a conscious decision to "go negative" early and often, but people will start tuning her out and her credibility will fail. She was supposed to be a happy warrior, but she has turned into an attack dog, while Rick doesn't really mention Kay other than her code name "Washington." 

Not an attractive thing for Kay to be in attack mode so much of the time, especially since her attacks are so similar to generic attacks made by Democrats against Texas Republicans.