Port Aransas South Jetty (Port Aransas, Tex.), Vol. 42, No. 14, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 4, 2013 Page: 3 of 20
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Texas Digital Newspaper Program and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Ellis Memorial Library.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Co-Publishers
Mary Henkel Judson
& Murray Judson
Editor
Mary Henkel Judson
Port Aransas South Jetty
Pauken: GOP
true believer
Tom
Pauken, who
considers
himself
one of the
^P^MMcNEELY truest°fthe
Republican true believers, says he’s running
for governor in 2014.
Pauken isn’t fazed that Gov. Rick Perry,
who appointed Pauken chairman of the
Texas Workforce Commission, indicates he
might run again - for governor, and maybe
for president.
Or that Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott, who’s ‘
been quietly raising millions for a presumed
race for governor, is itching to run.
Pauken, 69, is the kind of guy to whom it
does not matter whether Perry runs again.
He believes in term limits, which Texas
doesn’t have. So, he’ll just run, and let Re-
publican primary voters decide.
“I like Rick Perry,” Pauken said. “ I like
Greg Abbott. I don’t know what they’re
going to do. One or both may run. I’m going
to run on issues.”
Pauken was chairman of the national
Young Republicans from 1965 to 1967, as
turmoil over the escalating Vietnam War
was heating up.
He then volunteered for Army intelli-
gence service in Vietnam, to avoid being
tagged a “hypocrite” for not standing behind
his support of the war.
He doesn’t fear losing. In 1976, he ran
for the Texas Senate, and lost. In 1978, he
ran for Congress, and lost - narrowly, to
firebrand incumbent Democrat Jim Mattox.
Pauken challenged Mattox again in 1980,
and again narrowly lost.
He then spent most of GOP President
Ronald Reagan’s first four years in Wash-
ington as the director of ACTION, formerly
VISTA - the domestic equivalent of the
Peace Corps. It’s now known as Ameri-
Corps.
But Pauken was so vociferous in his battle
against what he considered left-leaning
organizers that he was eventually sidelined
by James Baker, Reagan’s chief of staff.
That helped fuel a grudge against
Vice-President George Bush, who had run
against Reagan before being chosen as Rea-
gan’s running mate. His best political friend
was probably James Baker.
Pauken was an outspoken opponent in
1993 of the so-called “Robin Hood” plan to
equalize school spending among districts.
He helped defeat a constitutional amend-
ment proposal that year, to institute a pro-
gram of wealthier school districts subsidiz-
ing poorer ones. But Robin Hood was later
installed under court order.
Pauken finally won an election - for
Republican Party chairman in 1994. And it
was impressive.
With the help of the well-organized
Christian Right, Pauken beat U.S. Rep. Joe
Barton, the choice of then U.S. Sens. Phil
Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison, and of
outgoing state chairman Fred Meyer.
That was in the summer of the same year
that George W. Bush was the GOP nominee
to challenge then-Gov. Ann Richards, a
Democrat.
To say that Pauken has animosity toward
the Bush family understates it. The guber-
natorial nominee of the Republican Party
usually is able to influence the party’s selec-
tion as state chairman. But Bush - who had
yet to be elected governor, and who wanted
as united a Republican Party as possible -
stayed out of the chairmanship battle.
The overlapping years of Pauken as party
chairman and Gov. Bush as the party’s de
facto Texas leader were nonetheless uneasy
ones.
Then, in 1997, Pauken resigned as party
chairman, to seek the GOP nomination
for attorney general in 1998. Incumbent
Democrat Dan Morales was not seeking
re-election.
Perhaps ironically, on the same day in
1998 that Pauken ran a close third in the
primary race, Mattox won the Democratic
nomination for attorney general.
Mattox was beaten that November by
John Cornyn, who had won the GOP runoff,
and in 2002, moved up to the U.S. Senate.
Pauken, who now lives in Port Aransas,
may find out, along with the rest of us,
whether Perry, or Abbott, or both, will vie
for governor next year.
Perry and Abbott have said repeatedly
that they won’t be discussing 2014 political
races until at least after the current legisla-
tive session.
That is a time-honored method for
incumbent politicians to try to keep from
becoming a “lame duck” by signaling retire-
ment plans too early.
But when observers thought that’s what
Perry was doing in 2009, he instead sought
another term.
*******
Governor for Life?... This year’s Texas
high school graduates have never had to be
confused about who is the Texas governor.
It’s been Perry since they were first-graders.
At 12-plus years, Perry is already four
years past the previous eight-year record
for service by any Texas governor, and has
almost two years left in his term.
Should he run again in 2014, and win,
and serve the entire four-year term, Perry
will have been governor more than twice as
long as any other person. Plus two years.
Contact McNeely at davemcneelyl ll@
gmail.com or (512) 458-2963.
Get
Breaking News Alerts
Sign up for free at
www.portasouthjetty.com
Opinion
Member
Texas Press Association
South Texas Press Association
Texas Gulf Coast Press Association
National Newspaper Association
A
Cli
OTm
$
2k.
*5*
I’M WORKltO THfcl WE’VE
WM)t & W0C KKV OUT OF J
___ <it
pi j |
YOU’RE
A MAN?!
'll
City is looking ahead
Mary
Henkel \
Judson
As the
city council
prepares to
compare Spring
Break notes
with the police
department at _______
its April meet-
ing, it’s good to see that traffic is on the list.
The more people we invite to town, the
greater the need for improved traffic flow,
parking and — with the advent of golf carts
as an increasingly preferred mode of trans-
portation — safely blending golf carts and
traditional vehicles on the same streets.
While city officials have been concerned
with how the future of windstorm insurance
will impact future growth, it is necessary to
consider that future growth also will impact
traffic in Port Aransas.
As it is, we call holiday weekends and
Spring Break “can’t turn left” days. Over the
past 30-plus years, changes have been made,
mostly for the better, in traffic control and
flow. One huge factor in that is the switch
from nine-car ferries to 20- and 28-car
ferries. The wait times we experience now
cannot compare to the “old days” when
visitors waited four hours, sometimes even
in the wee hours of the morning, to board
a ferry. Cotter Avenue and Alister Street
were gridlocked. What we now call gridlock
does not compare. So, from that historical
perspective, we have made progress.
But we need to make more progress as our
crowds grow, and because our efforts should
be to insure a quality experience for our
visitors as well as our permanent residents.
Letters to
Postal troubles
We know the post office is in trouble.
We’ve seen small offices closed, larger offices
consolidated, and services reduced while
rates go up. Complaints are met with blank
stares from employees who don’t seem to
care, and the business plan seems to be
business as usual.
As treasurer of my homeowners asso-
ciation, I send out invoices for the annual
assessments. One of our owners lives in
Yigo, Guam. The invoice I mailed in Port
Aransas (but got a Corpus Christi postmark)
was sent to a street address in Guam, but
the owner had started to use a post office
box. The invoice was returned with the
label, “FORWARD TIME EXP RTN TO
SEND.” Below that line was the individual’s
name and post office box number in Yigo.
There is only one post office in Yigo, and
they obviously knew for whom the envelope
was intended, yet rather than put it in the
correct mailbox in the same facility, it was
sent back to Port Aransas.
Permanent residents know to stock up on
groceries in advance of a holiday weekend,
to take the back routes, aim to eliminate
the need to turn left onto any of our main
thoroughfares and get in the ferry line at just
the right time.
Frequent visitors or part-time residents
probably have all that figured out, too.
But pity the first-time or infrequent
visitor!
It will take more than well-meaning city
officials to address traffic in a small town
with two major thoroughfares (Alister/State
Hwy. 361 and Cotter/Cut-off Road) and
three lesser arteries (11th and Station streets
and Avenue G). The solution to traffic is
going to require expertise from the likes of
a traffic engineer in consultation with the
“men and women on the street,” aka police
officers, who deal with the traffic jams.
Parking is another matter that could work
in conjunction will traffic flow to alleviate
congestion in town. Private enterprise might
be inclined to help with that.
One thing is certain, if Port Aransas is to
continue to thrive as a tourist destination,
Port Aransas needs to make sure the visitor
(and permanent resident) experience is good
if they are to return (and stay).
Leaving the daily stresses of the city
behind only to drive into a traffic jam is
probably not anyone’s idea of a vacation.
City officials should be applauded for
taking steps to see that doesn’t happen.
Mary Henkel Judson is editor and co-pub-
lisher of the South Jetty. Contact her at south-
ietty¢urytel.net. (361) 749-5131 or P.O.
Box 1117, Port Aransas, TX 78373.
the Editor
I agree that the post office should not for-
ward items forever, and when an item is not
deliverable, I appreciate it being returned. In
this case, the concept of customer service to
sender and receiver was ignored, and I get to
send the invoice again. That must be part of
the business plan-force me to use another
stamp!
I also got a Christmas card in my delivery
box. It was not stamped or addressed to
us, so it was obviously placed there by
a carrier seeking a tip. It was not from
the hard-working person who serves us
almost every day, but another one who
changed routes three years ago. I believe this
is called “poaching,” and it does not speak
well for the integrity and trustworthiness
of employees who will try to claim holiday
bonuses they do not deserve or who use
seniority to usurp the opportunity to solicit
money from junior carriers.
Perhaps it’s a symptom of malaise within
the USPS system.
Steve Lanoux
Port Aransas
We Welcome Your
Letters to the Editor
Deadline is Noon Monday
(With exceptions for holidays)
Signature, phone number, mailing address
required. Unsigned Letters will not be
published. • Limit 300 words.
Letters to the editor should • contain a valid signature and mailing
address, day and evening telephone numbers where the writer
may be reached • names of persons writing letters will not be
withheld from publication • unsigned letters will not be published
•only one letter per person per 30 days period • letters endors-
ing or opposing political candidates are political advertising and
should be taken to the advertising department • letters endorsing
or opposing issues on ballots will not be published in the last two
editions before the election • all letters are subject to editing •
letters of complaint about private businesses will be forwarded
to the business and will not be published • “thank you” letters
are classified advertising and should go to the classified ad
department
Send your letters to
SOUTHJETTY@CENTURYTEL.NET OR
P.O. Box 1117
Port Aransas, TX 78373
(c) 2011 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES. INC.
Thursday, April 4, 2013 3 A
Why do liberals
fear success?
There are
many successful
liberals, so why
do so many
of them wish
to subsidize
failure for the
poor, instead of
showing them
how to succeed?
Take Dr. Ben Carson, as one example.
Carson, the renowned neurosurgeon at
Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md.,
is enjoying a certain amount of celebrity
unrelated to his profession for speaking his
mind about how individuals and the nation
might succeed if more Americans were less
dependent on government.
Carson, who is African-American, has
been denounced as insufficiently black
because he won’t toe the liberal line when it
comes to big government and the impli-
cation that those in the African-American
voting bloc, huge supporters of the Dem-
ocratic Party, who fall below the poverty
line, cannot succeed without it. The fact that
many have not succeeded with government
has apparently escaped the notice of his
critics.
Speaking with Megyn Kelly on Fox News’
“America Live” last week, Carson addressed
some of the slurs tossed at him, saying they
are what you might expect to hear “on a
third grade playground.” He appealed to his
detractors to “move beyond” such rhetoric
“and let’s have a real discussion about the
real facts. If somebody disagrees, let’s talk
about why they disagree, let’s talk about the
pros and cons, let’s see if we can find some
accommodation.”
That is precisely what the left does not
want to do, because to have such a discus-
sion would expose liberalism’s failure to
solve the problems of poverty and educa-
tion — to cite just two examples — through
government.
MSNBC’s Toure Monday has called Car-
son a token “black friend” to the Republican
Party. I don’t recall Carson ever saying he
belongs to the Republican Party, do you?
Even so, labels should not define the man.
What Carson is saying and what he rep-
resents ought to be the beginning point for
the discussion he is trying to initiate.
Carson dismissed one suggestion he
might be an “Uncle Tom” this way: “Well,
obviously they don’t know what an Uncle
Tom is because they need to read Harriet
Beecher Stowe’s novel ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’
You’ll see that he was very, very subservient,
kind of go along to get along type of person.
Obviously, that’s not what I’m doing.”
Obviously.
In the Kelly interview, Carson hit his
main point about liberal reaction on sub-
jects ranging from Obamacare to higher
taxes: “They feel that if you look a certain
way then you have to stay on the plantation.”
Isn’t such a personal attack also a form
of racism? All whites don’t think alike, why
should all African-Americans be expected
to?
If government were the solution and not
the problem, shouldn’t we expect that the
amount of money spent on anti-poverty
programs — $15 trillion since 1964, accord-
ing to a CATO Institute analysis - might
have moved the needle on poverty? Instead
there are nearly as many poor people today
as there were 49 years ago. According to the
Wall Street Journal, “Enrollment in the Sup-
plemental Nutrition Assistance Program,
as the modern-day food-stamp benefit is
known, has soared 70 percent since 2008 to
a record 47.8 million as of December 2012.”
Government as solution isn’t working and
Carson wants to discuss why. For this he is
attacked?
The nightmare for liberals would be if
Ben Carson became a role model for the
poor instead of a target. If more of the poor
had mothers like his (and maybe active fa-
thers, which he didn’t have), who focused on
reading and discipline, more might grow up
to be like him. They might reject the lie that
they are incapable of succeeding because of
their circumstances.
In addition to Carson’s remarks about
government dependency, he is also under
attack for his unorthodox positions on
same-sex marriage and evolution, which the
National Review Online reports has led to a
petition being circulated at Johns Hopkins
Medical School asking that he be disinvited
as commencement speaker. That would add
censorship to racism.
The late newsman David Brinkley said,
“A successful man is one who can lay a firm
foundation with the bricks others have
thrown at him.”
By that standard, Dr. Ben Carson is build-
ing a mansion.
Contact Cal Thomas at Tribune Media
Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114,
Buffalo, N.Y. 14207, or e-mail him at tmsedi-
tors@tribune.com.
LIKE
us on
and comment on stories,
features and opinion pieces
in the South Jetty.
Online subscribers will be able to
comment on Facebook at the bottom of
stories in the online edition.
Or, just go to Facebook and comment.
Add an online subscription to your
print edition for
$10 a year and take advantage of the
Facebook comment feature.
Call (361)749- 5131 or go to
www.portasouthjetty.com.
ft
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Judson, Mary Henkel. Port Aransas South Jetty (Port Aransas, Tex.), Vol. 42, No. 14, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 4, 2013, newspaper, April 4, 2013; Port Aransas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth505971/m1/3/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Ellis Memorial Library.