Washington Democrats injecting millions more into Texas...

Make no mistake... this is about redistricting and maybe a little bit about Rick's upping the ante on tort reform and promising more tort reform with loser pays in the next session.

With regard to redistricting... this week a report came out showing that Texas will get 4 new seats in the United States House of Representatives for the 2012 election...

Now the trial lawyers are going full bore against Rick (link). Excerpt follows...

 In a surprise move, the Democratic Governors Association has decided to up the ante in Texas, with plans to launch an attack ad against Gov. Rick Perry (R ) that assails him as a career politician who has lost touch with the people of the Lone Star State.

The audacious action comes in a state that has been a Republican stronghold for more than a decade. But Democrats have concluded that, even in a year that tilts strongly toward Republicans, Perry is more vulnerable than he has appeared in his race against Democrat Bill White, the former mayor of Houston.

The DGA has already contributed $2 million to White's campaign. The new ad buy, which is scheduled to begin running in the Dallas area Tuesday, represents an independent expenditure on behalf of White. A Democratic strategist said the DGA would spend about $650,000 to $700,000 a week on its ad campaign.

The latest poll in Texas, conducted by Blum & Weprin Associates for a consortium of Texas newspapers, gave Perry a seven-percentage-point lead, 46 percent to 39 percent. The poll was published on Sunday. Perry's lead was consistent with other surveys taken in September.

The public poll showed White and Perry running about even in the Houston area, where White is well known. But Perry held a solid lead in the Dallas area. The DGA hopes its ad campaign will cut into that margin there, which could be the key to White's hopes of winning. 

It looks like Rick will end up getting out spent by a huge margin by his liberal opponents just like he was massively out spent in 2002 and 2006 by his opponents. The DGA message is on HPV, TTC, and living in a mansion... three of the most meaningless issues ever. Issues Kay used ineffectively. Issues Bill White has used ineffectively.

On the cancer vaccine the issue is a net plus with Rick among moderates and especially women yet it never went through anyway... on the TTC it has been dead for a long time now and some people like toll roads anyway since it shows Rick was trying to be proactive on building infrastructure... on the mansion... whatever... governors live in governors mansions.

Is it just me or is this campaign a very similar re run of the March primary?

Three takeaways...

1. Democrats are going to lose really big all over the country if they are wasting big money on Texas. A few million dollars goes a lot further in smaller states than it does in Texas.

2. This looks like the same thing that Chris Bell sued Rick for after the 2006 election, with the RGA putting a huge buy into Texas. Now it is Texas trial lawyers like Steve Mostyn funneling money through the DGA to help his trial lawyer friend Bill White. How ironic. I wonder if Rick will sue and get a huge personal settlement from Bill White.

3. In some ways, this looks like the national Democrats and maybe even Obama himself surveying the land scape and seeing redistricting coming up and saying they have to at least try to do something in Texas so they can't be accused of giving up... in some ways it seems like the Democratic Governors Association could have just given the money directly to Bill White as they have already done but instead they chose to spend potentially 2 or 3 or more million dollars on television over the next few weeks.

Why wouldn't they give the money straight to Bill White like they did before? Was it that they didn't trust him anymore? Was it that Bill White suddenly wanted to try to keep his name off negative attack ads even though he has personally attacked Rick in several commercials already from his own mouth?

Could it also be that the liberal Washington Democrats are hijacking Bill White's campaign against his will, in a sense? He is too po dunk and small time for them, so they are going to show him how it's done?