Follow-Up On Last Week's Show

Sorry to be late with a post about last week's show, especially since IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST SHOWS WE'VE HAD. Our guests were State Representative Eddie Rodriguez and Texas Monthly CEO Evan Smith.

Representative Rodriguez talked about the recently completed legislative session and his accomplishments in transportation, affordable housing, public education, health care, enviromental protection. Then we visited with him about his future political plans. He mentioned how Austin's Senator Kirk Watson is being discussed as a potential Democratic candidate for Governor in 2010. If he runs for Governor, his state Senate seat will open up. Eddie announced that, if Watson jumps into the Governor's race, he will most likely be a candidate for the Senate seat.

Evan Smith visited about his recently-announced decision to leave Texas Monthly, where he's been an editor for almost two decades and as President and CEO since last year. Evan is leaving to become the CEO of the Texas Tribune, an non-profit, non-partisan, non-paper "public media organization whose mission is to promote civic engagement and discourse on public policy, politics, government, and other matters of statewide interest." Evan will lead an extraordinary bunch of journalists, headed by Ross Ramsey, editor of Texas Weekly (which the Texas Tribune has purchased) and friend of the show. Other writers include Elise Hu, political reporter for Austin KVUE Channel 11 News (and friend of the show); Matt Stiles, staff reporter for the Houston Chronicle; Brandi Grissom, Capitol reporter for the El Paso Times; Emily Ramshaw, from the Capitol staff of the Dallas Morning News.

This coming Friday (the 31st), Ann Kitchen joins us to help make sense of the national debate over health care.

Texas Politics Today Moves to Fridays

Beginning this week, Texas Politics Today expands to a new day and time on KOOP. Starting November 7, we will air on Fridays from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. Central Time. We hope you will join us in our expanded time slot.

David K., TPT: Best of Austin

Congratulations to David Kobierowski, co-host of Texas Politics Today, for being named Best Radio Talk/News Host by the Austin Chronicle. Here's what they had to say about David and about Texas Politics Today:



Best Radio Talk/News Host: David Kobierowski, KOOP
Got a story the dreaded mainstream media is ignoring? Just go to any progressive event, and look for the tall bald guy carrying the bundle of papers. That’s Kobierowski, KOOP Radio’s own speaker of truth to power, whose Texas Politics Today tag team with Deece Eckstein specializes in holding political feet to the fire. KOOP 91.7FM, 3823 Airport Ste. B, 472-1369 http://www.koop.org/



Congratulations, David!!!!

(Photo by Sandy Carson.)

Harvey Kronberg On TPT Today

Quorum Report owner and editor Harvey Kronberg will preview the fall election season and handicap the most interesting races on today’s episode of TEXAS POLITICS TODAY. The show airs every week from 2:30 to 3:00 p.m. CDT on KOOP, Austin’s community radio station. KOOP broadcasts at 91.7 FM in Austin and also streams live over the Internet at www.koop.org.

The Quorum Report is a non-partisan newsletter focusing on Texas politics and government. Founded in 1983, QR is Texas’ oldest political newsletter. Published online most days, the newsletter combines fast breaking news along with institutional memory and a healthy skepticism as befits a publication whose subscribers include most of Texas elected officials, most of the lobby as well as most law firms with a legislative practice.

Harvey Kronberg has been covering Texas politics since 1989. He also serves as political commentator for News 8 Austin — a 24 hour news channel serving central Texas. He has been cited in publications as diverse as The Congressional Quarterly, The Wall Street Journal, The Dallas Morning News, The Houston Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor and more.

Bill Bishop on "The Daily Show" (updated)

Bill Bishop, the author of “The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart,” will be Jon Stewart’s guest on the “The Daily Show” tonight. Bill was a guest on Texas Politics Today back in May of this year.

"The Daily Show” airs at 10:00 p.m. CDT on the Comedy Channel.

UPDATE: Watch the "Daily Show" episode here.

Great Minds Think Alike

On the Texas Politics Today episode on Wednesday, July 16, we joined Markos Moulitsas, founder and chief author of Daily Kos, in a wide-ranging discussion of how the blogosphere emerged as an important force in progressive politics and how they are affecting national, state and local politics in this election year. One of the points in our discussion was a contrast between the conservative/Republican domination of talk radio and the progressive/Democratic domination of the "netroots." As reported by co-host David Kobierowski here, here and here, Markos said, "the right has a top-down approach to governing, where the left has a more democratic/bottom-up approach that allows for blogging to work."

This morning on "Weekend Edition," Scott Simon spoke with Jose Antonio Vargas, Washington Post reporter on technology and politics, about the role of the blogosphere in modern politics. One of the points Vargas made: that Republicans are more top-down and Democrats more, well, democratic. Sounds like Vargas heard our interview with Markos or read our posts about the interview.

Take a listen here.

David, Markos and I

David Kobierowski and I were delighted to have Markos Moulitsas on our radio show Wednesday, but in the hustle and bustle neglected to get a picture with him. Fortunately, we caught up to him at the Netroots Nation 2008 conference this afternoon and he was gracious enough to pose with us.

TPT Show With Markos Generates Media Interest

This week’s episode of TEXAS POLITICS TODAY, which aired yesterday with Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas as our guest, was terrific. Markos turned out to be a smart and engaging interview, in one of the few interviews he’ll give while in Austin this week. His presence on the show garnered lots of local media attention.

Austin American-Statesman political reporter Gardner Selby previewed the interview, then live-blogged it. His thoughts can be read here. (The most interesting part of his story may be the comment by “Rick,” who fretted that “this radical left element is responsible for the internet attacks on government/Whitehouse/NASA/CIA/NASA/USAF website—-anything the radical left disagrees with” and expressed his ”HOPE the FBI tapes this outfit—-I am sure they will find more than a few ‘persons of interest’! ” I hope the FBI did tape the show — they can give a copy to us so we can put up a podcast.)

Elise Hu from KVUE News plugged the episode on her Political Junkie blog. She also did a story on tonight’s news that included an interview with Markos. She inserted some B-roll of our show into the segment. If you can’t remember what the “On Air” sign in the studio looks like, or wonder what the back of David Kobierowski’s head looks like, check out her report here.
Speaking of David, he’ll share his thoughts about what Markos had to say in a future post.

"The Big Sort" In The News Again

As Wayne Slater mentions in this blog post, former President Bill Clinton spoke to the centennial meeting of the National Governors Association. In his remarks, he referenced Bill Bishop’s book “The Big Sort.” Bill Bishop was a guest on TEXAS POLITICS TODAY on May 28, 2008. Read our post about his visit here.

Welcome to Texas Politics Today!

TEXAS POLITICS TODAY is a radio program on KOOP, Austin's community radio station. As described on its website,

KOOP is a community radio station owned and operated by its members. Any member of the community can apply to produce a radio program, and KOOP provides facilities and training. KOOP has about 60 different locally-produced programs airing every week, in time slots of 30, 60, 90, or 120 minutes. Each of these programs is produced by an individual member or by a collective of members. KOOP provides a diverse array of programming, emphasizing programs that deal with local issues and/or serve communities which are under-served by the mainstream media.

TEXAS POLITICS TODAY will address a vacuum in radio programing. It will be the only weekly radio program in Texas that focuses on Texas state and local politics. We believe that, just as war is too important to be left to the generals, politics is too important to be left to the politicians. Our goals are to inform, entertain and inspire our listeners.

This blog will be a part of the TEXAS POLITICS TODAY experience. We will eventually set up a website, www.texaspoliticstoday.net, but for now stay tuned to this blog. We will post information about coming shows. and -- once we master the technology -- podcasts of previous episodes. We also want this blog, and eventually the website, to contain links to other websites that are referenced on the show.

You can leave comments on this site, or email us at TexasPoliticsToday at gmail.

This is your radio show. Well, not really, but you know what we mean. We challenge you to challenge us. Suggest topics you want covered. Identify guests from whom you want to hear. Criticize us for what we do wrong, and praise us for what we do right. Most of all, INTERACT!