With 75 days to go until early voting, Bill White, the Democratic candidate for governor, started airing his first TV ad in North Texas for the fall campaign.
Most of the ad introduces White, the former Houston mayor, to voters in his race against Republican Gov. Rick Perry.
But the commercial does make at least one claim that's misleading.
White knows he must become better known among North Texas voters, and his ad tries to frame him as a person and public servant with a vision.
”We're a great state, but we need to invest in the future,” White says in the ad.
In a graphic, the commercial claims he has also been a “successful businessman.”
But not so fast.
White did well in business from 1997 to 2002 running a Houston private investment firm that helped him earn a net worth of about $8 million.
But as The Dallas Morning News recently reported, his business record isn't perfect.
Frontera Resources, an oil and gas exploration firm White started in 1996, lost money for investors, and currently sells for six cents a share.
Another graphic states that as Houston mayor, White “cut tax rates five times” out of six years.
That's true.
But since most Houston property owners saw their actual tax bills go up because of rising home values, it's misleading.
PolitiFact Texas, a feature of the Austin American Statesman, checked out White's claim and found from the Houston city data available during four of those five years the average value home tax bill went from $784 to $903 from 2006 to 2009.
White's ad also says he wants to improve education and job training, but offers no details how he would do that — or how he would pay for it.
As voters learn more about White, they'll want answers — especially with the state's $18 billion budget gap.
E-mail bwatson@wfaa.com
