Rick will greet Obama at the airport... Bill White will be washing his hair...

While Bill White is busy deluding himself into thinking that visiting a lot of rural counties haphazardly is the path to winning, Rick will greet Obama to discuss border security either in Air Force One or just outside... I have read conflicting accounts on that (link). Excerpt follows...

Gov. Rick Perry will meet with President Barack Obama on Monday to discuss border security issues, the governor's office and the White House confirmed Friday.

Perry has been attempting to speak with the president for some time to advance the state's ideas about stemming illegal drugs and immigration.

Obama will be in Austin and Dallas on Monday for Democratic fundraisers. He will also give a speech on the University of Texas campus. He'll meet with the Republican governor at the Austin airport.

"We're happy to take any opportunity," said Perry spokeswoman Catherine Cesinger. "Even though it is brief, the governor welcomes the opportunity to discuss this issue with the president."

Perry said there's been too much talk about illegal immigration – fueled by debates over an Arizona law and the 14th Amendment's guarantee of birthright citizenship – and not enough discussion of border security.

"It's one of the reasons I want to meet with the president," Perry said. "I want to sit down with the president – or, matter of fact, I'll stand up – and share with him how to secure the border, because that's the issue that's important."

The governor said he wrote to the White House about four weeks ago requesting time with the president, even before Obama's Texas schedule was announced.

I don't see the meeting being especially contentious unless one or the other makes it that way... but in reality Rick is not Tom Tancredo or one of these fire breathers on immigration. Rick opposes a giant fortified wall slinging across the entire border, he has not been on the Arizona bandwagon, and from what I can tell he does not support the move to repeal the 14th Amendment which guarantees citizenship to those born in America...

That at least means Rick may be able to convey that it's all about border... border security in a sustained way to end the flood of illegals, end some of the drug trade, end some of the human smuggling and sex slavery... all of that...

Bill White is being very un Texan and craven about the whole thing for fear of being associated with Obama. Hello... you are in the same party... you wrote memos to him early on to try to impress him... you ran ads in black newspapers photoshopping yourself together with him... you agree with him on most of the issues... the cat is out of the bag on being associated with Obama...

Bill White, the Democratic nominee for governor, has said he intends to maintain his campaign obligations in West Texas on Monday and has not sought a meeting with Obama while he's in Texas.

After a campaign speech Friday to the Fort Worth Rotary Club, he dismissed questions about whether he was worried about being too closely identified with the Democratic president.

"I really don't think about stuff like that," he said. "I don't use national figures as surrogates for me. I tend to campaign for myself."

Asked to assess Obama's performance in office, White dodged, saying, "I generally don't give running commentary on other levels of government."

What does that even mean? Bill White has used national figures plenty including Bill Clinton in a fundraising letter... and no running commentary on other levels of government? That is such a weird response...