Deep in the heart....

I know it seems like I'm all over the map here sometimes, but there really are a couple of underlying themes that run through most of these posts. There's the election of John Kerry to the Presidency, of course, and the recapture of the US House of Representatives, starting with victories in the two open seats here in Washington State. It's particularly pleasing, therefore, to find an item that ties those two threads together in a neat package.

The Stakeholder obliges...

Robert J. Perry, the main financier behind the effort to discredit Sen. John F. Kerry's military record, is the most prolific political donor in Texas.

***

In the 2002 election cycle, he also provided about $700,000 for the GOP's effort to dominate Texas politics. That included $165,000 given to Texans for a Republican Majority, an offshoot of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority, formed to help conservatives get elected.

The election that year of a slate of DeLay-backed Republicans - all supported by Perry - gave the GOP control of the state House for the first time in 130 years.

One of our frequent side interests is the defense of plaintiff's rights in the courts against the onslaught of the Republican's phony 'tort reform' campaign, and Jerry Bowles at Best of the Blogs folds that one neatly into the Robert Perry package, too.

Perry has also been one of the biggest supporters of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, one of the state's largest special interest groups, which works to protect hard-working businesspeople (like, say, homebuilder Bob Perry) from disgruntled buyers and their evil lawyers.

If Perry's not the actual heart of the VRWC, he's certainly a major artery, one I'd love to see blocked by John Kerry and a Democratic House.