The week: People who don't like Dan Patrick still don't

As he promised during his campaign, state senator and Houston talker Dan Patrick made news this week in the capital with his high-profile efforts to draw attention to the growth of state government.

Various lefty blogs have blasted Patrick for his theatrics, which saw the senator release a list of proposed budget cuts to the press, address his colleagues on the floor on the matter of cutting government spending, and ultimately read from his list of proposed cuts when directly challenged by a colleague to pony up.

State senator Dan Patrick
It's hardly surprising that bloggers who dislike Patrick and dislike Patrick's political philosophy had plenty of criticism for the freshman senator's actions. However, the reaction of some journalist-bloggers was perhaps most interesting, as Texas Monthly's Patricia Kilday Hart blasted -- and I do mean BLASTED -- Patrick on Paul Burka's blog. Hart led her post with comparisons to Joe McCarthy, which prompted a tempered response from Patrick that the BurkaBlog also posted. Hart responded with another post basically standing by her criticism of Patrick, on the grounds he should have tried harder to work within the system.

Now, it's not exactly news that Patrick provokes strong reactions, certainly from his opponents and sometimes from supporters and colleagues (on that last, I have some experience). But that's just the point -- it's not a secret. That journalists seem surprised that Senator Patrick, whose insurgent-outsider campaign was a big story for them in 2006, has taken his insurgent-outsider approach to Austin as promised is... well, surprising!

Whether folks agree with Patrick's political philosophy or not, nobody should be surprised that instead of making quiet backroom deals to cut a few thousand dollars'-worth of spending here and there (as Hart and some lefty bloggers seem to prefer), Patrick took to the floor and the press last week to push his notion of limited-government conservatism in a high-profile, incendiary way.

This probably won't be the last time Senator Patrick upsets the Austin establishment (Democrats, press, and probably even some fellow Republicans) with his insurgent brand of conservatism -- especially since it seemed to work so well this time! We rather doubt that Patrick is overly disappointed that lefty bloggers still don't much like him, but we suspect this played pretty well in his district.

What do blogHOUSTON readers think? Specifically, I'm more interested in your thoughts on the media/blog coverage of the Patrick affair and Patrick's tactics than whether you agree/disagree with Patrick's position on budget specifics (there are many other places where that can be debated).

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/15/07 09:29 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Sphere | Comments (21)

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