Posts Tagged ‘Glenn Addison’

New Poll: Cruz Within 9 Points of Dewhurst

Monday, May 21st, 2012

According to the UT/Texas Tribune Poll released today, David Dewhurst is at 40% and Ted Cruz is at 31%. In April, the same poll had Dewhurst 38%, Cruz 26%. In January, it was Dewhurst 36%, Cruz 8%. So Dewhurst has gone from an 18 point lead to a 12 point lead to a 9 point lead. And this during the same period Dewhurst has been spending more than $1 million a week on the race, much of it in negative advertising aimed at Cruz. That would explain why Dewhurst felt compelled to drop another $6 of his own money into the race.

The poll also shows that all Tom Lepeprt’s spending has done is allow him to solidify his grip on third: he’s at 17%. Craig James languishes within the statistical range of Lela Peitinger and Glenn Addison.

Right now the race is exactly where the Cruz team wanted it to be: heading for a runoff between Dewhurst and Cruz.

Texas Senate Race Update for May 11, 2012

Friday, May 11th, 2012

Certainly Sarah Palin endorsing Ted Cruz was the big senate race news of the week (compared to the tiny news of my own endorsement of Cruz), but there’s still a bunch of other Senate race tidbits:

  • Both Ron Paul and Rand Paul have endorsed Ted Cruz. Rand Paul, of course, has been in Cruz’s corner a while. Not as big as the Sarah Palin endorsement, but not chopped liver either.
  • In the wake of Richard Mourdock’s defeat of Dick Luger, The Weekly Standard wonders if Ted Cruz is next.
  • A look at The Club for Growth’s record of backing winners, and how they’re backing Ted Cruz.
  • Dewhurst skips another debate.
  • Dewhurst puts out a new ad featuring Mike Huckabee:

    TV Ad: Values from David Dewhurst on Vimeo.

  • Pro-Dewhurst SuperPAC put up another attack ad against Cruz:

  • Dewhurst announces the endorsement of Texas RNC member Bill Crocker. Might help a bit more than John Gordon.
  • I still don’t see how highlighting his father’s World War II service is supposed to convince me to vote for Dewhurst. (Cruz’s story of his father (who was at Sunday’s rally) at least dovetails nicely with his campaign themes.)
  • Actual headline from Tom Leppert’s website “Dykes Urges Support For Leppert For Senate”. Were they actually trying for a Fark link? (That’s Pastor David Dykes, by the way.)
  • Leppert’s pastor also goes to bat for him:

  • A look at last Friday’s Senate candidate forum. I didn’t liveblog it, but i did put up some random tweets.
  • Kate Alexander on the state of play in the race.
  • Any new information in the Texas Tribune round-up of the race? (scans it) Nope.
  • Even by the previous lame standards of Team Dewhurst leaks, this “internal poll leak” that shows Leppert about to overtake Cruz is lame.
  • Heh. Team Dewhurst has that “Ted Cruz on Chinese currency ad” appearing on the sidebar of National Review Online. You know, the magazine that just endorsed Cruz. I don’t think that ad will be winning Dewhurst any new supporters…
  • Big Jolly endorses Dewhurst. This is hardly a shock.
  • Glenn Addison endorses Ron Paul. As you can see further up this blog post, you can’t switch the subject and predicate in the preceding sentence…
  • Craig James gets profile in the Dallas Morning News. It’s a nice profile.
  • DMN talks about their Republican endorsement interviews. For the dozen or so conservatives their endorsement might actually sway.
  • James also put up an anti-Cruz radio spot:

  • Naturally, Democrats Sean Hubbard and Paul Sadler both back gay marriage.
  • As the anointed Democratic establishment candidate, it’s no surprise that Sadler picked up the endorsements of both The Dallas Morning News and The San Antonio Express News.
  • Addie D. Allen finally turned in a campaign finance report (some 15 days after deadline), and raised $9,889, of which $5,000 is a loan to herself.
  • BattleSwarm Blog Endorses Ted Cruz for United States Senator

    Monday, April 30th, 2012

    Lawrence Person’s BattleSwarm Blog endorses Ted Cruz for United States Senator. I believe that Cruz is the best candidate, that he has the longest, strongest, and deepest commitment to conservative principles among all the candidates running, and that he will make the best United States Senator for Texas.

    Because I strive to be both fair and clear, I want to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of all the other Republican candidates in the race, and why I believe Ted Cruz is the superior choice for Senator.

    Let’s dispense with the candidates that didn’t run serious campaigns: Dr. Joe Agris never bothered to even put up a website and never campaigned beyond an event appearance or two; I can only assume his run is a way to advertise his medical practice. Ben Gambini did little better, only managing a Facebook page and a few events. Curt Cleaver at least made some effort, but not enough to make an impression,

    Lela Pittenger ran a semi-serious campaign, raising some money and appearing at numerous events, but I always got the impression that she was running more for ego than to take principled positions at odds with the more prominent candidates. Plus I never got the impression she put in the sustained effort into the nitty gritty, unglamorous work that a real longshot candidate has to in order to have any chance of succeeding.

    With all but one of the longshots dispensed with (we’ll get to him further down), let’s turn to the major candidates.

    Given how heavily favored he was coming into this race, it’s shocking how poor a job Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst has done campaigning.

    To be sure, Dewhurst has many strengths, but two of his strongest (name recognition and personal wealth) play no role in my deciding who to endorse. And while I’m impressed with his U.S. Air Force service and his business acumen in amassing a $200+ million fortune, both of those attributes must take a very distant backseat to his decade-long record as Lt. Governor.

    Some of Dewhurst’s record is worthy of praise. While other state governments have spent money like drunken sailors in a Thai whorehouse using George Soros’ stolen credit card, Texas, under Governor Rick Perry and Lt. Governor Dewhurst, has generally controlled spending, has balanced the budget without raising taxes (though some of that has been accomplished through gimmicks), and actually reduced the state budget for the 2012-2013 biennium compared to the 2010-2011 budget. What share of credit does Lt. Governor Dewhurst take for this achievement? A fair amount. While constrained both by the overall direction of the Governor’s Office of Budget, Planning, and Policy, and by the Comptroller’s revenue estimates, the Lt. Governor has considerable control over the process by virtue not only of his oversight of the day-to-day affairs of the state senate, but also his ability to essentially pick half the seats on the Legislative Budget Board, which has a large hand in establishing and managing budget priorities.

    This, and his efforts at shepherding through the (constitutionally required) 2003 redistricting are among the primary reasons Dewhurst has been considered a conservative. And I have defended Dewhurst from charges he was a RINO in the past. Dewhurst occupies that vast gray area between real RINOs such as Arlen Specter and Charlies Crist and true movement conservatives; call him a “big business Republican,” the sort of guy who will defend the free market 90% of the time, but won’t let anything like principles stand in the way of doing favors for well connected friends. (That would also explain why, though he has mostly contributed to Republican candidates, he did make two donations to Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen.) I fear that Dewhurst is probably the most amenable of all the candidates of signing on with the sort of “grand compromise” that gets praised by the press for selling out conservatives rather than fighting to shrink the size and scope of the federal government.

    There’s been real dissatisfaction with Dewhurst among movement conservatives for years. Despite having controlling majorities in both House and Senate, conservative Republicans found their agenda being thwarted in many ways great and small by Dewhurst in the Senate and Speaker Joe Straus in the House:

  • Dewhurst, much more than Perry, has been willing to compromise on higher spending levels.
  • Dewhurst floated the idea of a “Payroll Tax” that Cruz has characterized (I think correctly) as a stealth income tax.
  • Last year Dewhurst floated the idea of raiding the Rainy Day Fund until Perry put his foot down and ruled it out.
  • Dewhurst has frequently chosen Democrats and moderate Republicans as committee chairmen.
  • Dewhurst has frequently compromised on conservative legislative priorities even when he didn’t have to. To be sure, part of his job description is hammering out compromises, but he has frequently seemed to seek out such compromises as a first resort, rather than the last.
  • Numerous insider accounts attest that Dewhurst personally killed Dan Patrick’s anti-TSA groping bill, choosing to knuckle under to the Obama Administration’s empty threats of stopping all air traffic to Texas rather than making liberals defend idiotic practices that are deeply unpopular with the public at large.
  • All this was bad enough, but his lackluster campaign and poor public speaking skills have given even more reasons for voters to look elsewhere. The Cruz campaign was right to ding Dewhurst for his repeated failures to show up at numerous candidate debates and forums across the country, but the Belo debate went a long way toward showing why exactly why Dewhurst has been avoiding such events: He’s not a good debater, he doesn’t seem to think quickly on his feet, and he seemed to grow worse and more confused as the night went on. Frankly, he didn’t seem up to the job.

    Then there’s the issue of his indifference or even hostility to both new media and grassroots conservative activism. The fact that Dewhurst was the only major Republican senate candidate not only unable to find time to sit down for an interview for this blog, but whose campaign even failed to even respond to repeated requests, is only a minor concern (after all, people are busy). But it’s emblematic of the larger issue of Dewhurst’s indifference to new media, the Tea Party, and voters. You can bash Obama failures all day, but that won’t make you stand out from any other Republican candidate in the entire country. Dewhurst is an insider, establishment Republican who seems to have made zero effort to reach out to Tea Party voters.

    This quote from Tea Party 911 blogger Barry Schlech neatly encapsulates what many Texas conservatives think about Dewhurst:

    There is not a lot of tea party support for Mr. Dewhurst because of his more liberal Republican views. He has probably sensed this animosity since he has been unavailable for or a “no-show” at many of the tea party events to which he was invited. He is seen, by many, to represent the “good ol’ boy moderate to liberal Republican establishment that is well entrenched in Austin. He is seen as a close ally to House Speaker Joe Straus whom the tea party does not respect. Many tea partiers are not happy with this liberal Republican clique in Austin and want to change to a more representative and more conservative legislature.

    All that said, David Dewhurst has some real strengths. He’s good at making and cultivating business and cultural connections, good at managing the intricacies of the legislative agenda, good at finding compromises and building consensus, and good at the backslapping minutia of legislative interpersonal relationships. Unfortunately, those are precisely the qualities I’m not looking for in my Senator. I don’t want a negotiator, I want a conservative fighter. I want someone to fight for shrinking the size and scope of the federal government and reign in insanely bloated federal spending, not manage it better. There are quite enough get-along-to-go-along compromisers in the senate already; we don’t need another one.

    There are no areas in which I think David Dewhurst would do a better job than Ted Cruz in the Senate, but many in which I think he would perform markedly worse.

    Speaking of people who I just don’t think are up to job, let’s talk about Craig James. James has a lot of strengths: he’s handsome, charismatic, personable, and has done very well for himself in his post-NFL business career. Politically James’ heart seems to be in the right place, he seems considerably more authentic and less calculated than Dewhurst, and his decision to release several years of his own tax returns was a savvy move for increased transparency the other candidates were forced to emulate. James seems to have awakened politically to the numerous problems facing the nation and how far we’ve drifted from a constitutional republic of enumerated powers. That’s a great first step on your political journey.

    Unfortunately, the next step in that journey is not “Run for the United States Senate.” The second step is to read widely, broadly and deeply of both classic and modern political thought. The Constitution and The Bible are great first steps, but you should also read The Federalist Papers and Democracy in America and The Wealth of Nations and The Road to Serfdom and Economics in One Lesson and The Gulag Archipelago and The Black Book of Communism and Darkness at Noon and Up From Liberalism and Conscience of a Conservative and Losing Ground and Liberal Fascism and, yes, Atlas Shrugged, even if you object to Ayn Rand’s anti-religious bias. Start there, keep reading, and soon you’ll have the intellectual underpinnings to deepen and articulate your views. (It would also help you get beyond the irritatingly vague and platitudinous nature of your answers on any issues that go beyond your standard talking points.)

    James doesn’t have that intellectual depth yet, and the fact that he hadn’t even heard of the Posse Comitatus Act is emblematic of his inexperience. His problems are compounded by his late start and his background. If you start out as a professional football player and then move into sports broadcasting, you’re going to have to work twice as hard to convince people that you have the intellectual acumen to run for public office. (Jack Kemp worked very hard at establishing his policy credentials.) James’ problem is compounded by his unwise decision to declare he was living on “Real Street” as his campaign’s central rhetorical motif. Craig, you were a professional football player and broadcaster. It doesn’t matter how many mayonnaise sandwiches you ate in your hardscrabble youth, the voting public at large is never going to believe an ex-NFL player/broadcaster is living on “real street,” no matter how hard you try or how many jobs you create as a businessman. Give it up.

    Craig James isn’t ready to be Senator. Could he “skill up” to be electable a few years down the road, once the Texas Tech controversy has faded? Very possibly, though more likely at the congressional than senatorial level. (Let’s face it, when the bar starts at Sheila Jackson Lee, there are few non-incarcerated Republicans that aren’t up to the task.)

    I’ll give this to Tom Leppert: When this campaign started, I really didn’t see myself ranking him higher than just about any of the declared candidates (which at the time included Roger Williams, Michael Williams, and Elizabeth Ames Jones) or Dewhurst. Leppert is intelligent, he’s dogged, he’s a very good one-on-one retail politician, he doesn’t make many mistakes, he’s assembled a campaign team second only to Cruz’s in their competence and grasp of new media, and he has much better stage presence than Dewhurst.

    So given all that, and Leppert’s solid conservative policy positions on a wide range of issues, why doesn’t he rank higher? Mainly because until October 13, 2010, when Leppert endorsed Rick Perry in the gubernatorial race, Leppert gave absolutely no public sign that he was even a Republican, much less a conservative Republican. Before he started running for mayor, Leppert was just another rich guy whose campaign contributions went to people on both sides of the aisle, including contributions to Democrats like Texas Senate candidate Ron Kirk in 2002, Hawaii’s incumbent Senator Daniel K. Inouye in 1992 and again in 1998, and congressional contender (and later Honolulu mayor and member of Bloomberg’s gun-grabbing Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition) Muliufi Francis Hannemannin in 1990.

    While running for mayor of Dallas in 2007, Leppert:

  • Sought the endorsement of the left-wing SEIU public employees union:

    When he first ran for Mayor, as a moderate and a supporter of working men and women, he was pro-SEIU, pro-public employees organizing, pro-collective bargaining.

    So committed to these ideals was Tom, that he vigorously pursued SEIU’s endorsement.

    So committed to these ideals was Tom, that he came to our union organizing launch in the Water Department — encouraging folks to join SEIU.

    So committed to these ideals was Tom, he frequently threw on an SEIU T-shirt and came to our union hall.

    So committed to these ideals was Tom, that he wrote a letter of support to Senator West and testified in favor of SEIU members getting a form of collective bargaining.

    Tom even signed an SEIU membership card!

    Now, that Tom wants to compete in a Republican primary, he has renounced his support of unions and even has the gall to declare he “has expanded the Right to Work.”

  • Sought the endorsement of far left pressure group ACORN, who have been quite busy committing voter fraud in Texas and elsewhere.
  • Did the same thing with the Dallas gay community, marching in their parades while running for mayor of Dallas, only to reverse course when he decided to run for the senate. “After being in office and reaching out to the gay community, he then basically turned his back and slapped us in the face because it was politically expedient to do so.”
  • And that’s just while running for mayor. His record as Mayor of Dallas has just as many question marks on both conservative and good governance grounds:

  • Why did he push so hard for the Trinity Toll Road to be situated inside a flood plain rather than outside it, against the wishes of the Army Corps of Engineers, driving up costs in the process? (The initial cost was estimated at $400 million; it’s now projected at $2 billion, and the construction still hasn’t started.)
  • Why did he push so hard for the city to spend $550 million for a city-owned hotel?
  • What role did the now-dead Lynn Flint Shaw (Leppert’s treasurer during his mayoral campaign) and Willis Johnson play in steering minority contracts under the Leppert Administration?
  • And there are at least two or three other big question marks about Leppert’s term as mayor. Indeed, one sign of how controversial that term was is how rarely he talks about it on the campaign trail, where he puts his business background first and foremost, as though his four years as mayor of Texas’ third largest city never happened.

    The least charitable explanation for Tom Leppert’s behavior is that he’s a pure political animal with no core ideological beliefs other than being elected. The most charitable explanation is that he’s been a “secret conservative” all along, and was just waiting for the opportunity to proclaim to the world what he actually believes. My own suspicion is that he, like Dewhurst, fits neatly into the “get along to go along” establishment Republican mold. Like Dewhurst, I doubt Leppert would be notably more conservative as a senator than the departing Kay Baily Hutchison. That’s not good enough.

    But even if he were a “secret conservative” all these years, why would I prefer him to someone like Ted Cruz who’s never been afraid to proclaim and defend conservative principles throughout the entirety of his career?

    So that takes care of all the major candidates besides Cruz. But there’s still one candidate we haven’t covered. If I weren’t voting for Cruz, I would probably cast my vote for Glenn Addison.

    Though a relative unknown, Addison has probably worked harder than any other candidate on the campaign trail, he’s well-spoken with a certain folksy charm, and he’s run a serious campaign in every aspect except funding. With his energy and effort, he could easily be a successful candidate in a down-ballot race.

    Addison has staked out strong conservative positions on just about every issue, but there are a few I disagree with. I oppose his desire to sanction China for currency manipulation (protectionism is still loser economics). His evidently friendliness with the John Birch Society (there’s a reason William F. Buckley, Jr. felt compelled to cast them out of the respectable ranks of the conservative movement) is not a plus. And the few areas that I do prefer his policies over Cruz (eliminating the EPA and the Departments of Education and Energy, for example) are ones which have absolutely no chance of being passed in the near future. Which doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be pushed for…

    If Ted Cruz were not in the race, I would vote for Addison knowing that he would probably be creamed by Dewhurst.

    Fortunately, Ted Cruz is in the race.

    Early on there was debate whether Cruz or Michael Williams was the best Tea Party candidate for the seat. Cruz won that “Tea Party Primary” so decisively that Williams dropped out. Not only is Cruz the unquestioned Tea Party representative, he is the one with the broadest and deepest conservative background. While the phrase “Ivy League Trial Lawyer” is technically accurate, you don’t specialize in 9th and 10th Amendment studies because you want to be rich, and you don’t work at the Texas Public Policy Foundation if you want moderate Republicans to consider you one of their own. Cruz is not only exceptionally sharp, an excellent debater and a gifted public speaker, he’s also a classic fusionist candidate with both strong free market and social conservative credentials, and fits the definition of the rightmost electable candidate in the race.

    Don’t buy the MSM consensus wisdom that Dewhurst is invulnerable because he’s rich. There are lots of “unbeatable” politicians who have been knocked off by lesser-known challengers. Ed Koch was a shoe-in for Governor of New York until he ran into Mario Cuomo. Charlie Crist was going to mop the floor with Marco Rubio until he didn’t. George H. W. Bush looked invulnerable heading into 1992. Despite Dewhurst’s numerous advantages, he hasn’t been able to poll above 50% and Cruz has been steadily eating into his lead. I’ve had relatives who aren’t nearly as politically aware as I express unbidden how impressed they are with Cruz. The grassroots excitement about Cruz is not only palpable here in Texas, but among conservative and Tea Party organizations across the country, with conservative senate stalwarts like Jim DeMint and Rand Paul eager to help Cruz join their ranks.

    I believe Ted Cruz is far and away the best best candidate in the race, and I urge all my Texas readers to cast their votes for him as the next United States Senator from Texas in the Republican primary.

    Texas Senate Race Update for April 12, 2012

    Thursday, April 12th, 2012

    Reminder: I will be liveblogging the Texas Senate debate here tomorrow at 7 PM. Feel free to drop by for insightful commentary, snarky asides, and no doubt a veritable cavalcade of deeply embarrassing typos.

    Now this week’s Senate race news:

  • Ted Cruz decries Obama’s understanding of the constitution over at NRO.
  • The Hill picks up on the Ted Cruz-Marco Rubio comparison.
  • Ted Cruz picks up the endorsement of…Pat Boone? Actually it’s in his role as spokesman of the 60 Plus Association. Like Dewhurst’s many business association endorsements, it won’t hurt, but I don’t actually see it swaying anyone’s vote. Unless hipsters suddenly made Pat Boone cool while I wasn’t looking…

  • The Cruz campaign also rolled out a new website to attack Dewhurst with, http://www.dewbious.com/. No new revelations there if you’ve been following the campaign closely.
  • The Houston Chronicle profiles David Dewhurst. Honestly, it’s less interesting for the Dewhurst coverage than the usual liberal MSM talking points scattered throughout, including the classic “or like Perry, whose budget called for cuts to public education that some have labeled extreme.” And by cuts he means “increase” and by “some” he means “all my fellow liberal reporters.”
  • The Dewhurst camp dings, quite properly, Cruz-supporter Dick Armey’s reference to Dewhurst being backed by “Daddy’s money.” Dewhurst’s father died when he was three, and Dewhurst spent time in the Air Force and the CIA before making his own fortune in the oil industry. Armey owes Dewhurst an apology, but Cruz does not; receiving someone’s endorsement does not make you responsible for their every dumb statement.
  • Dewhurst agrees to one more candidate forum on May 3, featuring Cruz, Tom Leppert, Craig James and Democrats Paul Sadler and Sean Hubbard.
  • State of play piece in the Houston Chronicle.
  • Dewhurst unveils a new radio ad featuring Mike Huckabee:

  • Tom Leppert unveils a new TV ad:

  • The Texas Tribune notes that Leppert attacked Cruz and Dewhurst, but not Craig James. Well, duh. Why should the guy in third place attack the guy in fourth place?
  • Craig James blasts Cruz for suggesting to him (via text message) he bring up Dewhurst’s constant debate ducking at tomorrow’s debate. A rare misstep for Cruz.
  • Glenn Addison complains about not being included in the debate.
  • Texas Senate Race Update for March 23, 2012

    Friday, March 23rd, 2012

    Wednesday night I finally got a chance to interview Craig James, so I hope to have the video of that up next week (though I have to warn you in advance that the technical quality is not as good as it could be, as the location (the Rudy’s on south 360) was less than ideal for filming, sound-wise). I also hope (if he has the time) to post an email mini-interview with Ted Cruz specifically focused on the Supreme Court taking up the ObamaCare case.

  • Ted Cruz picks up the endorsement of the Republican Liberty Caucus.
  • Cruz also got a generally fair and balanced piece on his arguing of cases before the Supreme Court by Kate Alexander in the Austin-American Statesman. Of all the MSM reporters covering the race, so far I’d say she’s doing the best job, something I never thought I would say about someone at the Statesman
  • He also appeared on the Mark Levin Show.
  • He also produced a TV ad that offers a subset of last week’s radio ad:

  • National Journal says the Cruz ad buy on Fox News is $222,000.
  • Craig James joins the chorus of those complaining about Dewhurst ducking debates.
  • And the one upcoming debate Dewhurst is not ducking? Turns out one of the hosts is backing a Dewhurst SuperPac That’s some might fine objective journalism you’ve got going on there, Lou…
  • Big Jolly is impressed with Dewhurst and Tom Leppert’s campaigns.
  • Leppert campaigned in Longview.
  • Leppert appeared on the “Dr. Carol Show” (I’m assuming it’s this one, which seems to be out of Austin, and not the “Holistic Veterinarian”):

  • Craig James gets a Texas Monthly profile. It’s an interesting piece.
  • The Houston Chronicle‘s Joe Holley also speaks with James.
  • Glenn Addison campaigns in Lubbock.
  • The Wall Street Journal offers up a surprisingly bland and insight-free snapshot of the race. Like the mashed potatoes on your cafeteria tray, it’s strictly filler.
  • Paul Sadler, Addie Dainell Allen and Grady Yarbrough all appeared at a debate in Dallas, the details of which, alas, are hidden behind the Dallas Morning News paywall. But where was Sean Hubbard?
  • Texas Senate Race Update for March 6, 2012

    Tuesday, March 6th, 2012

    Today was going to be the day Texans went to the polls, but the redistricting lawsuit put the kibosh on that plan. Now we get six more weeks of winter twelve more weeks of campaigning.

  • David Dewhurst denies that the meeting he attending in Washington, DC at Democrat Tony Podesta’s house was a fundraiser, and he says the people attending were Republicans who worked for the Podesta Group, not Democrats. I would link directly to Dewhurst’s denial, but the recent reorganization of the Andrew Breitbart empire (evidently already planned before his untimely death) has broken the links.
  • David Dewhurst also hits Cruz for (in their words) “Ted Cruz’s close ties to the Obama Administration.” How close? Big donations to Democrats from…partners at the Morgan, Lewis and Bockius law where Cruz is also partner. Given that there are some 1,300 lawyers employed by Morgan, Lewis and Bockius, of which some 469 are partners, and the firm isn’t named Morgan, Lewis, Bockius and Cruz, this is pretty weak sauce. (Weaker even than the working for Red China slam, which at least had the virtue of involving Cruz directly.)
  • Cruz won three more straw polls: the Downtown Houston Pachyderm Club, Brazos County GOP and New Braunfels GOP Women. However, do note that the Cruz campaign’s claim that Cruz “has now beaten all the major candidates in 20 straw polls by wide margins” is carefully phrased to omit the fact that Glenn Addison won two straw polls in that timeframe…
  • The Houston Chronicle profiles Ted Cruz.
  • The “insiders” polled by the Texas Tribune were somewhat split, but 62% think the Republican Senate race will end up in a runoff. They also think Greg Abbott can take Rick Perry in the 2014 Governor’s race, should Perry run again. Also this from one respondent to the “biggest surprise” question: “Doggett switches to U.S. Senate race.” I’ve had similar thoughts myself. With his $3 million war chest and name recognition, Doggett could easily win the Democratic primary…only to be creamed by Cruz or Dewhurst in the general election. Hmmm, lose a Senate race in the general election, or potentially lose your congressional seat in the Democratic primary? Decisions, decisions. (It’s not to be, as Doggett, as expected, filed for the District 35 race today.)
  • Blogger Reverend Rubicon makes the case for Ted Cruz, and for ideology over power-seeking.
  • Cruz hits Dewhurst over spending:

  • Tom Leppert wants to take on David Dewhurst one on one. I’m sure he does.
  • The Chronicle looks at the various charitable giving of various candidates.
  • Craig James appeared on the Jon-David Wells show on KSKY in the Metroplex:

    Also, the James campaign might want to know that its fancy media grid page won’t launch a vido in my version of Firefox…

  • Democrat Paul Sadler has revamped his website, and now has news and press release sections.
  • Democrat Sean Hubbard has finally broken the 1,000 Facebook followers barrier.
  • Texas Senate Race Update for February 23, 2012

    Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

    Trying to catch back up with the Senate race after my trip, so some of this may be slightly old news:

  • The biggest recent news in the Senate race is the newest Texas Tribune/UT poll that shows David Dewhurst leading the race at 38%, but with Ted Cruz up to 27%. Tom Leppert and Craig James are tied way back in third place at 7% each, an outcome that must be discouraging for the Leppert team, given that he’s been running for over a year and James has only been running for two months. Glenn Addison and Lela Pittenger are the only other candidates to get any support at all at 1% each. However, the margin of error is ±5%. Full results in PDF form here.
  • Dewhurst managed to pull in big bucks from a big donor in Washington. A big democratic donor. “He was doing what he always does: reaching across the aisle. He’s not a Washington insider yet, and he’s already a Washington insider. No wonder the Texas press has so often labeled him ‘bipartisan’…This is a critical race for the Tea Party and for conservatives across the country. If Dewhurst wins, we’ll have yet another squish on our hands – and a squish who is only too eager to rub elbows with the liberal establishment.” (Hat tip: Must Read Texas.)
  • This Kate Alexander piece in the Austin-American Statesman is pretty interesting, not so much for the information there (BattleSwarm readers will find very little I haven’t already covered), but for the approach. Overall the piece is probably mildly negative on Cruz, but not unfairly negative. Unlike, say, certain of Robert T. Garrett’s pieces in The Dallas Morning News, the issues she raises are generally real and non-trivial, though not ones that most conservatives will find of burning importance.
  • Cruz womps the field in a survey of the North Texas Tea Party.
  • Cruz appeared on KYFO in Lubbock.
  • The Dewhurst campaign attacks Cruz for “not supporting Sen. John Cornyn for Republican Senate Whip.”

    Cruz has previously told reporters it’s more important to elect Senators who would pledge fealty to a divisive challenge to GOP leadership than it is for Republicans to regain its U.S. Senate majority this year. Cruz’s glaring lack of support for Sen. Cornyn, who’s now responsible for Republican efforts to retake that majority, effectively puts Cruz’s personal ambition and interests above conservative attempts to organize and stop the Obama agenda.

    So Dewhurst is attacking Cruz for actually wanting to enact conservative ideas rather than just paying lip-service to it while toeing the Republican establishment line. Got it. (Maybe someone on Team Dewhurst might want to take a look at this.)

  • Cruz elaborates on the subject.
  • Establishment vs. the Tea Party.
  • Dewhurst appeared on KCRS:

  • There was another candidate forum that David Dewhurst skipped. Attendees included Cruz, Tom Leppert, Craig James, Glenn Addison, Lela Pittenger, and…Andrew Castanuela? Did no one inform the organizers never filed for the Republican primary?
  • Scott Haddock interviews Tom Leppert Part 1 and Part 2.
  • The Texas Tribune did an interview with Craig James:

  • Glenn Addison gets a profile by the Houston Chronicle‘s Joe Holley. Addison’s evident friendliness with the John Birch society (yes, it’s still around) is not a plus in my book. I am gratified to see that Holley, who I dinged heavily, correctly lists both the number of candidates for each party, as well as their names.
  • That same TT/UT poll shows the Democratic side of the race virtually tied, with Sean Hubbard at 12%, Paul Sadler, Daniel Boone, and Addie D. Allen all tied at 10%, and John Morton (who the Democrats kicked off the ballot two months ago) at 3%. That’s good news for Hubbard (frontrunner again!) and Allen (whose campaign might be charitably called “low-key”), and bad news for anointed Democratic establishment candidate Sadler and “Gene Kelly 2.0” Boone. But the margin of error for Democrats is even higher at ±6%, so it’s still anyone’s race at this point.
  • Democrat Addie D. Allen now has a website (though it just has the GoDaddy parking page for now) and a Twitter feed.
  • University of Texas Democrats endorse Paul Sadler. That should be good for an extra five, maybe even six votes, easy…
  • Daniel Boone appeared before the Llano Tea Party, which I think makes him the first Democratic senate candidate to take up the repeated Tea Party offers for Democrats to speak. Good for him.
  • Pro-tip for Boone: Most people put the newest content at the top of their blog, not the oldest.
  • As far as I can tell, Craig James, Charles Holcomb, Ben Gambini, Joe Agris and Addie D. Allen have not filed Q4 reports with the FEC. Maybe none of them conducted any fundraising in the quarter.
  • Texas Senate Race Update for Februry 16, 2012

    Thursday, February 16th, 2012

    When I first started covering the senate race, I would grab just about any scrap of information I could about and throw a link to it. Now? The firehose is starting to open up, and I’m getting a bit more selective. For example, I’m not feeling the need to link to Democrat Paul Sadler calling out David Dewhurst over education funding (or Dewhurst’s response), especially since Sadler repeats the lie that the state cut education funding, when it actually increased slightly. (Actually, Sadler attacking Dewhurst, and Dewhurst counter-attacking, is good for both of them; by attacking each other, not only do they garner publicity, but it’s easier for them to ignore the primary challengers that threaten them from their left and right flanks (respectively.) Likewise, I’m not going to link to the Politifact piece on Cruz, since doing so would suggest Politifact has something resembling credibility, which it doesn’t.

    Maybe I’m just feeling cranky today.

  • Politico looks at the Cruz-Dewhurst contest. The idea that Tom Leppert is in second place is mainly supported by that internal Dewhurst poll, which is (as I’ve argued before) dubious due to the completely opaque nature of the methodology,
  • David Dewhurst: The GOP’s Bad Side Personified: Dewhurst’s “complete disregard for the voters has become so pervasive an issue that it threatens to throw him into a downward spiral; and rightfully so…familiarity with Dewhurst makes it easy to discern that the more he interacts with the right-wing base, the higher his negatives grow.” Ouch!
  • Ted Cruz was interviewed several times at CPAC. Here he is on Fox Business News:

  • One by Red State:

  • And Hot Air:

  • And Human Events:

  • Cruz listed among up-and-coming Tea Party candidates by the New York Post.
  • He also gets some love from The American Spectator.
  • Dewhurst campaign endorsed by HOSPICE, errr, HOSPAC, the Texas Hospital Association’s political action committee. I can see Dewhurst seeking these business group endorsements, I just can’t see why he would think announcing them to the world at large would cause anyone to vote for him. Every single one of them is like a big rubber stamp that reads APPROVED REPUBLICAN ESTABLISHMENT CANDIDATE.
  • Dewhurst picks up the endorsement of the Texas Agricultural Aviation Association, which means…wait, really? That’s a real organization? There are enough cropdusters in Texas that they have their own PAC? How can I be sure they’re not just making it up to see if I’ll link to it?
  • Another candidate forum, another Dewhurst skip.
  • This tiff by the Glenn Addison campaign over Cruz campaign “dirty tricks” is much ado about nothing. You mean opposition research staffers actually sign up for opponent’s emails? Do tell. The piece also mentions that Team Dewhurst is the one pushing for inclusion of Addison in the debates, since he potentially siphons conservative votes from Cruz. That’s smart thinking from the Dewhurst campaign, and even principled, as Addison has run a hard-working, serious Senate campaign in every aspect except fundraising.
  • Craig James gets some fundraising help from fellow “Pony Express” backfield star (and NFL Hall of Famer) Eric Dickerson.
  • He also endorsed Rick Santorum for President. That’s probably a pretty canny move for him, as Santorum (for good or ill) seems to be consolidating support as the anti-Romney conservative candidate, and thus, very possibly, the actual GOP candidate. (Now that I’ve said that, given my previous prognostication skills when it comes to predicting Presidential races, expect Ron Paul to sweep Super Tuesday.) It’s quite possible that some Santorum supporters take a closer look at him on that basis alone.
  • James discusses his endorsement on (you guessed it) Mark Davis of WBAP, who seems to be the go-to radio guy for this race:

  • James gets profiled by his alma mater’s newspaper.
  • This National Journal piece? Meh. Leppert simply can’t self-fund to nearly the extent Dewhurst can.
  • Democrat Sean Hubbard raised $6,533, and spent $6,833, during Q4.
  • I see no sign that Democrat Addie D. Allen has filed an FEC report. Maybe they’re just late putting it up.
  • Texas Senate Race Update for January 31, 2012

    Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
  • A testy exchange between Ted Cruz and Tom Leppert at last week’s Texas Republican Assembly Biennial Endorsing Convention Biennial Endorsing Convention on Leppert’s gay rights parade and ACORN baggage that I, Matt Dowling and whoever was behind the now-silent Race to Replace KBH dug up.

  • Last week Ted Cruz was on the Glenn Beck Show:

    Glenn Beck: “There’s no way you’re ever going to get elected. You make too much sense.”

  • Cruz was also named as one of the Top Ten Conservative Challengers in Texas by New Revolution Now.
  • Craig James appeared on WFAA (again, apologies for their crappy, non-YouTube video embedding):

  • Ted Cruz, Lela Pittenger and Ben Gambini all appeared at the North Shore Republican Women’s forum in Montgomery County.
  • Craig James is just fine with a later date for the primary. That piece isn’t particularly information, but I thought I would put it up since they do actually manage to mention all the Republican and Democratic candidates filed for the race, a sharp contrast with other news stories I could name…
  • The Texas Association of Business will have another Senate candidate forum in Austin tomorrow from 200-3:30 PM. Scheduled to attend are Ted Cruz, David Dewhurst, Tom Leppert and Craig James. I’ve been sending email back and forth with the James campaign to try a find a time to interview him while he’s in town, but it doesn’t look like we’ll find one that matches both our schedules. (It’s a busy time for my day job.) So we might end up doing an email interview instead.
  • The National Association of Realtors endorses Dewhurst. I’m sure this is a shocking turn of events completely unforeseen by anyone following the race.
  • Texas Sparkle lends her blog to Kevin Jackson so he can make the case for Craig James. His upshot seems to be that James is a tough competitor. Well, great. But getting your chin stitched up without anesthetic is probably a skill that will never be needed on the senate floor, and Mr. Jackson’s piece seems to be devoid of any actual discussion of political positions.
  • The AP takes a look at three of the five Democrats in the race.
  • Of them, Paul Sadler gets endorsed by the AFL-CIO. So that’s a second traditional Democratic interest group Sadler has in his corner along with the legacy news media.
  • Profile of Democratic candidate Jason Gibson. “Gibson considers himself a mainstream Democrat who believes in lower taxes and efficient government and who supports the Second Amendment. He’s pro-labor, he said, with an abiding interest in worker safety, but still is working to fill in the blanks on most issues. Jobs and the economy, he said, are key. He has hired several well-regarded campaign consultants and has said he is willing to spend into the seven figures.”
  • Glenn Addison raised $17,606 in Q4. That’s down significantly from the $35,059 he raised in Q3.
  • An Example Of What’s Wrong With Journalism These Days

    Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

    This Houston Chronicle piece by Joe Holley is an example of why so many people are dissatisfied with the job the legacy media is doing of reporting events.

    In covering the American Jewish Committee/World Affairs Council of Houston senate candidate forum on foreign policy I mentioned previously, we have a news story that is demonstrably deficient in several areas:

  • You get told who wasn’t there (Craig James, Paul Sadler, and Lt. Governor Chupacabra), and even how many of each flavor were there (“six Republicans, three Democrats and one Libertarian”), but the article itself only lists five of those ten. That would be the very first “W” of the “Five Ws and an H,” assuming they still teach that at journalism school. (Maybe they’re replaced it with another class on “Reporting Social Justice.”)
  • However, because I’m so Old School, I actually went out and got a list of who attended the forum from the AJC: Republicans Ted Cruz, Tom Leppert, Glenn Addison, Lela Pittinger, Charles Holcomb, and Ben Gambini (yes, an actual Ben Gambini sighting!), Democrats Daniel Boone and Jason Gibson, Libertarian Jon Roland, and independent candidate Mike Champion. So it turns out that even the summary of candidate affiliations was wrong.
  • In an article on a foreign policy forum that runs just shy of 500 words, a grand total of 96 of them actually dealt with the candidate’s foreign policy views, and even those are essentially free of concrete information. Let’s repost those parts in their entirety:

    Cruz also said that “President Obama has been the most anti-Israel president this nation has ever seen.”

    [snip]

    Leppert emphasized his experience as an international businessman familiar with issues of currency and international trade.

    [snip]

    Cruz and Leppert were the only two candidates who were able to respond with practiced ease to a series of sophisticated questions dealing with world affairs, ranging from Israel’s response to the Iranian nuclear threat to whether the United States should help bail out faltering European economies. Most of the others on the stage seemed unfamiliar with even the most basic foreign-policy issues.

    That’s it. That’s the extent of coverage of the candidates’ foreign policy views in a forum dedicated to that very subject. We are no wiser as to what any candidate thinks of our troops levels in Afghanistan, what our relations with Pakistan should be, whether we should help topple the Assad regime in Syria, how to counter an increasingly bold China, or whether we should use military force to prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Were those topics covered? We don’t know, as Holley and the Chronicle do not deign to tell us.

  • Instead of giving the candidates’ actual views, Holley merely gives us his dismissive analysis of eight of the ten candidates, telling us they are “unfamiliar with even the most basic foreign-policy issues” without bothering to provide a single example of this ignorance.
  • The rest of the piece consists of horse race analysis, noting Dewhurst’s absence, audience attendance figures, and an interview with a random forum attendee. All of which would have been fine in a longer piece.
  • Joe Holley and/or his editor have missed a chance to actually inform their readers. I have a hard time thinking of a blogger who couldn’t have done a better job.