White vs. Shami, Round One

There were two clear winners of Monday's Democratic gubernatorial primary: Moderator Dave Montgomery of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (one of the real deans of the capitol press corps) and former Houston Mayor Bill White. In fact, the only person who thought White's rival Farouk Shami won seems to be his campaign manager Vince Leibowitz.

The biggest losers on the night were the other five Democrats who weren't invited. One of that list, Star Locke, called the Chronicle today to say that he and three others are planning to sue broadcaster KERA and the Texas Democratic Party because they were excluded. Unfortunately for such a suit, neither entity was legally obligated to invite them.

Back to the debate floor: There was a creeping suspicion that the only reason that White's campaign (which has looked for a while like it's really always aimed straight for November) only agreed to this debate because 1: the GOP had invited Debra Medina to join their big two in their debates and 2: putting Shami on a public stage would reveal every weakness in his candidacy that most campaign watchers already knew.

Shami stuck to his policy playbook, but was short on real proposals and instead threw out platitudes. The moderators had to re-ask several questions because Shami simply wasn't answering (Not a shocker: On Saturday, Shami was present for the University Democrats' meeting at UT, but departed after a quick speech and left Leibowitz as a proxy for the Q&A with White.)

Shami comes with a basic problem for a Democratic primary: The whole "Run Texas like a business" schtick is exactly why so many Dems hate the GOP. White, on the other hand, quickly revealed who he is: A remarkable policy wonk who is far sharper on the stump than he's willing to admit. When he tackled his one-on-one audience question, he revealed exactly why the Republicans have gone after him so hard. Not only did he remember questioner Margaret Murphy's name (it's surprising how often candidates make that rookie mistake) but he was switched seamlessly from statistics to sympathy. He even took time to pay some tribute for Shami's commitment to renewable energy (just before reminding everyone that he's the former US Deputy Secretary of Energy.)

Obviously, both campaigns issued statements saying they had won, but Shami's campaign then plummeted to the low road with three press releases that tried to play gotcha on White's statements. White's campaign breezily waved them off with a quick rebuttal (opening line: "Hi folks, Getting lots of emails from the Shami spin machine?")

Shami's folks repeated an error that Shami himself made during the debate: Going negative sometimes just allows the accused to redefine the narrative and tout their achievements. When Shami went after White on his environmental record, he not only talked specifics about Houston's air quality but also about how he could apply the reforms he oversaw during his tenure at city hall statewide.

As the Dallas Morning News quickly noted, this one went to White definitively. (Update: Bud Kennedy at the Star Telegram was even tougher in his column this morning, announcing that, while White went heavily after expected general election opponent Gov. Rick Perry, "Shami launched his campaign against himself.")

There will be some rumbles from some Democrats that they'd like more details about White's position on transportation funding, and there will be some concern about his antipathy towards an execution moratorium (Update: That's happening already, as shown by the comment below from Scott Cobb of the Texas Moratorium Network.) However, it will be interesting to see how far Shami gets with reproductive rights groups on his first-trimester-only approach to abortions, thus ruling out medically necessary terminations.

However, White's closing speech – well-rehearsed, straight to camera, all the beats his campaign pros will have wanted him to hit – was one that will probably convince a lot of waverers that he's their only real hope.