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HOUSTON -- A bejeweled woman in a festooned hat mingled with a mustachioed man in a red, white and blue bow tie, as each double-fisted white wine from the cash bar. A few feet away, a local congressional candidate exchanged “howdies” with cowboy boot-wearing GOP donors, as they entered the Harris County Republican Party fundraising dinner on Wednesday night.
This was Texas a week before the state's pivotal March 1 presidential primary.
The hometown candidate was well-represented here, via the “Ted Cruz for President” stickers that nearly half of the attendees had affixed to their tuxedoes and gowns.
These were some of the very same influential conservatives who helped launch Cruz in early 2011, when he set out on a long shot Senate bid. Cruz often jokes that at the time, he was polling at 2 percent in surveys that had a margin of error of 3 percent.
Five years later, Cruz is asking Republicans here in his home state -- the heartbeat of American conservatism -- to help him live to fight another day. On the eve of the Texas primary, Cruz's 2016 presidential bid increasingly looks like a fading prospect in the face of Donald Trump's mounting electoral success.
Yes, Cruz is the only Republican remaining in the race who has defeated Trump in any state so far -- as the Texas senator will gladly remind anyone within earshot.
But Cruz's central problem is a nominating calendar that once appeared like it could be his best friend, but now increasingly looks tailor-made for a bombastic New Yorker to sweep to a string of victories among a deeply angry Dixie electorate.
Though polling in many of the Super Tuesday states has been sporadic, of the dozen March 1 contests, Texas in the only one where Cruz has held a consistent advantage over Trump, according to an average of recent polls.
And even that lead now appears tenuous, as a SurveyUSA poll conducted this week showed Trump and Cruz tied for first place in the Lone Star State.
Cruz does, however, have reason for some hope that he can survive with a home state boost.
Texas will award more delegates than any other GOP contest, though the allocation is proportional. And if Cruz holds on to the state even as Trump wins everywhere else, Cruz will be able to make a case for continuing his candidacy -- on a prayer that something will trip up the frontrunner somewhere down the line.
At the Harris County GOP dinner, a lengthy prayer of a different kind opened up the festivities, immediately before the crowd took two separate pledges of allegiances -- one to the Stars and Stripes and one to the flag of Texas (“the greatest state in the greatest country in the world”). Next came a group singalong of the national anthem before the main event finally got underway.
The lengthy invocation of state and national pride served as a reminder of the particular brand of deep-seated, old-fashioned conservatism for which Texas has long been a breeding ground. It’s a collective value system that would appear on its face to have far more in keeping with a candidate like Cruz than one like Trump.
But then again, the same might have been said for every other state where the populist-propelled frontrunner has triumphed thus far.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who endorsed Cruz officially earlier in the day, began his remarks at the dinner with a healthy dose of Texas-style bravado. Abbott checked off his list of accomplishments in office, and then delivered the “bad news” to every other governor in the nation: “We will continue to kick your tail.”
Next, Abbott spoke about the “crossroads” that the country was in, adding his view that the right to bear arms was being threatened by “East Coast elites”--probably just the kinds of folks, it need not have been said, who were being taken in by a certain reality TV star-turned-White House hopeful with New York values.
"I know when I vote for Ted Cruz that he is going to live up to the promise of true conservative Texas values,” Abbott added.
Applause followed, but it was of the polite, dinner crowd variety.
Texas-style whoops were similarly absent when Cruz took the stage a few moments later.
As he paced the stage in his typical manner, Cruz pointed to the in-state endorsements he’d received from Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, former Gov. Rick Perry "and more than half of the Texas republican state delegation in Austin.”
He then played political analyst, noting that the role of the first four states on the presidential calendar has traditionally been merely to “narrow the field,” while Texas now has an opportunity “to make a choice.”
"It has been an interesting race, to put it mildly,” Cruz said. “This has not been boring."
He predicted that Super Tuesday would be “the most important day of the entire presidential cycle,” adding that nearly half of the delegates required to win the nomination would be awarded by that day, including the 155 that will be doled out by “the crown jewel” of Texas.
Finally, after running through his typical stump speech and taking his usual array of shots at Trump, Cruz -- the consummate political performer -- did something that he rarely does in public: He took out a piece of paper and read from it.
It was a copy of the famous letter penned by William Barret Travis -- a lieutenant colonel in the Texas Army -- on Feb. 24, 1836, as he and his troops were hunkered down at the Alamo.
“‘I am besieged, by a thousand or more,’” Cruz began reading, pausing briefly as he skipped over the next part of Travis’ letter, which had identified the enemy as “the Mexicans under Santa Anna.”
Cruz repeated Travis’ vow to “never surrender or retreat” and raised his own voice to relay the Texas soldier’s final rallying cry: “Victory or death.”
For Travis, and all of the other Texan defenders under siege at the Alamo on that day, it would prove to be the latter.
But Cruz didn’t say that. Instead, he turned the obvious metaphor that he was drawing into an even more direct allusion to the current political battle lines.
“Today, America, just like the brave heroes of the Alamo, America is besieged--we are besieged by an assault from Washington that’s taking away jobs and that is piling debt on our children and grandchildren,” Cruz said. “And I believe now, just as in 1836, that it will be the people of Texas who will stand together and say, ‘Enough is enough. No more Washington deals. No more giving into the debt. No more surrendering our values. Let us stand for who we are as Americans.”"
This time, the crowd responded with the enthusiastic applause for which Cruz had been reaching.
As he prepares to face off against Trump and the three other remaining Republican candidates in Houston on Thursday night, the last Texan standing in the GOP field knows full well that it's his own do-or-die time.
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Housing developers – whether they specialize in market-rate properties or affordable housing – face tremendous hurdles in getting projects off the ground in California.
“There’s probably a hundred challenges,” says Cynthia Parker, the president and chief executive officer of BRIDGE Housing, a nonprofit housing developer based in San Francisco.
See More Stories in Capital & Main’s Affordable Housing Series
Material prices keep going up, with the costs of steel and glass not expected to come down any time soon. Labor expenses also keep rising. Even with the lowest interest rates in our lifetime, it still can be very difficult to make economic sense for starting a new construction project without some sort of guarantee that it will not be a bust. Developers say that perhaps the toughest impediment to new housing construction is local opposition, especially if the proposed construction site is in a safe neighborhood with good schools.
But dealing with prejudice against affordable housing dwellers and NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) is not a new struggle.
If the community or the city council doesn’t want the project, they can hinder it,” says Clifford Goldstein, who has been in Southern California’s commercial and multifamily real estate development business for more than 30 years. “If you delay a developer long enough, that can kill it.”
Goldstein complains that most legislators don’t take the time to understand the costs of construction, or the financial return requirements of lenders and investors. A developer can only operate within certain parameters in order to move forward.
“Time, meaning the time to obtain approvals — and the risk of not obtaining approvals – is perhaps one of the most important issues that causes the financial and investor community to require higher returns,” he says. “It is these higher return thresholds that often drive up the minimum rent that a developer seeks.”
Evan Gerberding, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Housing and Community Development, spells out the bane of developers: “Projects with more community opposition, with significant changes imposed by local design-review requirements or that received funding from a redevelopment agency, cost more on average.”
Stereotypes and negative perceptions of what an affordable-housing dweller looks like don’t help. Parker has heard them all. Potential neighbors fear that the low-income inhabitants will drive “junkers” and mar their pristine suburban landscape. The newcomers have too many children and, of course, the building will resemble a Soviet housing project.
Nothing could be further from the truth, Parker says.
“I can’t underscore [enough] the community acceptance piece of this,” she says, her voice streaked with frustration.
BRIDGE’s website proudly displays numerous awards from such prestigious bodies as the Urban Land Institute for the developer’s aesthetically pleasing LEED buildings (structures certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Besides, residents range from grandmothers living on fixed incomes to teachers and those who, through no fault of their own, have a physical or mental disability.
Parker’s BRIDGE group locates projects near transit corridors and currently has 5,000 units in the development pipeline, with 800 to 1,200 units being produced each year.
“That’s very busy but it’s not even a drop in the bucket,” says Parker.
You always want a balance but if we are so strict in our rules and guidelines, then things become black and white, and housing doesn’t get built.”
"Frankly, what we need to do is simplify the way we develop and finance affordable housing in our country,” Parker says in regard to the risks faced by developers. Part of the issue is having to report to different “masters.” She adds that nonprofit affordable housing developers are in the business of following rules and making sure there is compliance with all of their funders’ requirements.
Many projects can end up with 15 sources of funding, which often complicates matters when the funding sources have their own sets of requirements, rules and expectations.
Housing developers cite “risk” as being their biggest impediment. Such risks include the same ones that Goldstein voiced – rising construction costs, zoning changes, permitting changes and “entitlements” — the term that is used to describe the various approvals allowing a specific development or use of real property.
“It can take six years for one project. It’s very inefficient and trying to do this in concert with the community – there’s just a lot of twists and turns,” Parker says. “You have risk until you get all of these things in place.”
Community redevelopment agencies that were dismantled in 2011 by Governor Jerry Brown and the state legislature left a gaping hole in affordable housing construction. The agencies used a portion of property tax money to partner with developers, encourage development and combat blight. “It was the most efficient vehicle that we had,” Parker says. “About a billion dollars in California set aside for affordable housing and now we don’t have it.”
In Los Angeles alone, Goldstein says, there are arguably 40,000 units that need to be built each year to catch up to the demand for housing.
“We are only producing about 10,000 units a year so there is a shortfall of 30,000 units – ranging from low income, moderate to any level of income.”
Downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood are currently hot spots for new housing but their pricey projects are tailored to the wealthy. According to Goldstein, there are good reasons why it’s easier to get project approvals in those areas.
For many years Hollywood, despite its antiquated reputation to the outside world as a glamorous locale, was essentially a blighted town. There was a desire to clean up the area with new, attractive housing and the political leadership was heavily invested in the idea, so it happened.
In downtown Los Angeles, meanwhile, because there weren’t any neighborhoods or residents to engage in heated discussions over parking or overcrowding in schools, developers were welcomed and given a sort of blank slate to work with.
“Capital,” Goldstein notes, “is attracted to places where there is less risk.”
One current novel idea is to rezone large swaths of the city currently zoned for manufacturing and turn them into residential neighborhoods.
“There is some lower hanging fruit that could spur affordable housing,” Goldstein says. “We could rezone industrial and manufacturing areas that long ago lost their manufacturing base. Many politicians are fearful of losing land set aside for manufacturing and that makes sense to a point, but the world of manufacturing has changed. [Many] manufacturers have moved to other areas. You always want a balance but if we are so strict in our rules and guidelines, then things become black and white, and housing doesn’t get built.”
Related: Santa Ana: Living Behind Cardboard Walls
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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Melissa Rivers is still dealing with complicated feelings about the public's reaction to the death of her mother, iconic comedian Joan Rivers.
Joan's death unleashed an outpouring of appreciation for her groundbreaking comedy and a mourning of the pop-cultural hole she left behind -- sentiments that often eluded her during her life, when she was mocked for her plastic surgery and off-color jokes. And while Melissa says she appreciates the "love and respect" for her mom's career, she told HuffPost Live's Alex Miranda she regrets that it came only in death. Rivers explained:
I was so beyond grateful for the love and support I received from the public at large and from people within this industry. Then I hit a point where I was very angry because that kind of love and respect was rarely shown to my mother while she was alive. And it's very hard to ... get past that something that she always said came true, which was, "Just wait, when I die, they're all gonna love me again."
But Melissa, who carries on her mother's legacy by continuing her E! series "Fashion Police," added that Joan was never one to pass up appreciation when it came her way, and she knows her mom would gleefully accept the posthumous adoration.
"The bottom line is, I hear her in my head going, 'Better late than never, and isn't this fabulous that I made such an impact in this world?'" River said.
Want more HuffPost Live? Stream us anytime on Go90, Verizon's mobile social entertainment network, and listen to our best interviews on iTunes.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Ouch, OG model Cheryl Tiegs was not feeling Ashley Graham’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover calling the model’s body type ‘unhealthy.’ E!News caught up with Tiegs at the 13th Annual Global Green USA Pre-Oscar Party where she disapproved of Graham on the cover.”I don’t like that we’re talking about full-figured women because it’s glamorizing them because your waist […]
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Zendaya and Odell Beckham Jr. might be dating or she’s at least he’s being auditioned for the role. Z stopped by New York’s 92.3 Amp radio. “Here’s the thing: Even if it does progress, you gotta go through my dad first. Just because you’re in the NFL, you killin’ stuff, that doesn’t mean you get to skip […]
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