Captain Gloomy Comes a Callin'

» Chron: Democrat heads for Houston in bid for governor

Schieffer's now officially in. Now someone tell him that gloom and doom is out.

"People know there is something wrong - they know that Texas is falling behind. They are worried about it," Schieffer said in an interview last week with the San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle.

"They want better than what we've got now," Schieffer said. "They're worried about kind of a sense that state government is going through a know-nothing phase of you don't have to be thoughtful, you don't have to be serious, you just have to mouth the buzz words that appeal to people's prejudices and not to their hopes and dreams."

Schieffer cited concern over school dropout rates, saying young people are "going to fall behind, and they're not going to wind up being taxpayers, they're going to wind up being tax consumers."

If that continues, he said, "no level of taxes ... will support the services that you have to have in this state, and I'm afraid we're literally on the road to disaster."

Just a practical matter here, but one should really refrain from references to "road to disaster" before launching a statewide roadshow announcing your campaign for public office.

UPDATE: Something I did not know about Schieffer:

Schieffer, a Fort Worth lawyer, has three degrees from the UT and his wife, Suzanne, is the daughter of former College of Arts & Sciences Dean John Silber, who went on to Boston University and a Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign as a Democrat in 1990.

It's still a stretch to think that Schieffer's doom & gloom is reminiscent of Silber's brand of shocking wackiness. So I'll stand by my concerns over Schieffer's narrative for now. But if this increases the possibility that Silber might come to Texas and do some campaigning, I might be a lot more persuadable toward Schieffer than I was this morning.

Bear in mind that I'm probably the only person in the world that views John Silber on the stump as a positive thing. Wake me when the old man's booked for a trip to Gulfton with the aim of giving a speech on crime control.