Posts Tagged ‘Kay Bailey Hutchison’

Audio Interview With Ted Cruz Part 2

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

And here’s part two of the Ted Cruz interview. Some interesting thoughts on Victor Carrillo’s loss in 2010, Republican acceptance of Hispanic candidates, and his record studying the Tenth Amendment, among others.

Ted Cruz Interview Part 2

If you missed them, here’s the shorter video version of the interview, and here’s Part 1 of the audio interview.

Texas Senate Race Spending: A Look at This Point In Previous Cycles

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Now that half the fundraising year has passed, I wanted to take a look at how the funds raised this year compare to this point in years past.

Unfortunately, it’s been so long since there’s been a competitive regular Republican Senate primary in Texas (I’m discounting the special election of 1993 because it’s difficult to compare special elections to regular elections) that it’s hard to find a precedent for that side of the race. John Cornyn had no serious competition in 2002. Indeed, you’d have to go back to Beau Boulter vs. Wes Gilbreath in 1988 for a truly competitive regular Texas Republican senatorial primary. And the main FEC page doesn’t go back before 1999.

So let’s look at the Democratic side of the race, where there’s a lot more precedent for an open race. While my initial assessment of Ricardo Snachez’s $160,000 was it was about what you’d expect given his late start, it seems disappointing in light of what previous Democratic senatorial candidates were able to raise.

2008 Senate Race

For the 2008 race against John Cornyn, trail lawyer Mikal C. Watts had already raised over $3 million by July of 2007, mostly through self-funding. What, you never heard of Watts? That might be because, despite his financial firepower, he dropped out of the race before the primary. Why? Well, it might have something to do with the fact that letters came out showing him pressuring litigation targets to settle by bragging about how much money he had contributed to appellate judges who would hear the case:

“This court is comprised of six justices, all of whom are good Democrats,” Watts wrote. “The Chief Justice, Hon. Rogelio Valdez, was recently elected with our firm’s heavy support, and is a man who believes in the sanctity of jury verdicts.”

The letter goes on to name Justices Errlinda Castillo, Nelda Rodriguez, J. Bonner Dorsey, Federico Hinojosa and Linda Yanez, and says his firm also has financially supported them.

Strangely enough, this was seen as injuring his election chances, and he dropped out in October. Sanchez might take comfort in the fact that eventual Democratic nominee Rick Norgiega, didn’t even file his paperwork until July 11 of 2007, and that he eventually raised over $4 million. Or it would be comforting, if not for the fact that Cornyn raised $13 million and beat him by 12 percentage points despite the Obama wave in 2008.

2006 Senate Race

In the 2006 election cycle, eventual Democratic nominee (and yet another trial lawyer) Barbara Ann Radnofsky had already raised $355,218 by April 5, 2005. By July 5, 2005, she would amass a total of just under half a million dollars. By the time the race was done, she would raise just shy of $1.5 million, and, despite it being a Democratic wave election year, Kay Baily Hutchison would raise over $6 million and would wallop her 61.7% to 36%.

2002 Senate Race

Eventual Democratic nominee Ron Kirk didn’t even file his first campaign report until December 7, 2001, and still managed to raise over $9 million for the race. Kirk was part of the Democratic Party’s 2002 “Dream Team” along with Tony Sanchez and John Sharp: One black, one Hispanic, and one white all running serious, well-funded, top of the ticket campaigns in a year in which the party out of the White House usually does well. They all lost. Kirk did better than Sanchez (losing to Rick Perry), but worse than John Sharp (losing to David Dewhurst).

By the way, Tony Sanchez spent $60 million of his own money for the privilege of getting creamed by Rick Perry, who took over 60% of the vote, thus disproving two theories beloved by political consultants (money is everything, and the Hispanic vote will make Democrats in Texas competitive Real Soon Now) in one fell swoop.

Conclusion

Ricardo Sanchez’s military background gives him several distinct advantages other Democratic candidates have not had, but quick access to significant campaign funds is not among them. Certainly the pay for Lieutenant (three star) General in the united States Army isn’t chickenfeed (about $143,000 a year), but it’s far short of what he would need to self-finance his campaign. Financially, Sanchez’s campaign is going to suffer from him not being a trial lawyer, or, well, Ron Kirk, who was (and presumably still is) amazingly well-connected in both business and Democratic political circles.

Ricardo Sanchez is already behind where most recent Texas Democratic senatorial candidates were during this part of the fundraising cycle. And all of them lost.

LinkSwarm for Friday, May 6, 2011: Immigration, the NYT, and Tom Leppert’s SEIU Ties

Friday, May 6th, 2011

A small LinkSwarm for a lazy Friday:

  • Mickey Kaus: “Why do these Democrats tell pollsters that immigrants are a burden because they ‘take our jobs’? Maybe because they do. Just a thought.”
  • The New York Times gets the Texas Senate Race, well, not quite right. “So far, only Republicans have declared in the Senate race.” False. Political neophyte Sean Hubbard has declared for the Democratic nomination, and has been filing his campaign financing reports with the FEC. “At least seven Republicans are vying for the seat being vacated by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.” Technically true but incomplete; there are five declared major candidates (Ted Cruz, Tom Leppert, Michael Williams, Roger Williams, and Elizabeth Ames Jones), three declared longshot candidates (Glenn Addison, Andrew Castanuela, and Lela Pettinger), one withdrawn candidate who filed her wind-down report with the FEC (Florence Shapiro) and one undeclared potential frontrunner (David Dewhurst). Saying “At least seven” makes me wonder exactly who you’re counting…
  • The Race to Replace KBH on Senate candidate Twitter antagonists. “Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite them/And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so on ad infinitum…”
  • From the same source we also learn that Leppert asked for, and received, the endorsement of the far-left SEIU.
  • More on Leppert’s SEIU support from the horse-mouth, SEIU Texas political coordinator Shannon Perez in the lefty Dallas Observer:

    “The Republican primary voters of the state of Texas need to know the truth about Tom Leppert.
    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…Tom even signed an SEIU membership card!

    Tom, Tom, Tom, it makes it hard to take your Second-Coming-of-Ronald-Reagan rhetoric seriously when stuff like this keeps tumbling out of your closet. Is it too late for you to switch to the Democratic Primary? You’ve already got a huge lead over Sean Hubbard…

  • 2012 Senate Races Already Heating Up (In Texas and Elsewhere)

    Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

    It’s only a few days after she announced her retirement, but several serious contenders are getting a lot of buzz for Kay Baily Hutchison’s Senate seat:

    • Even though he hasn’t announced, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst is considered the presumptive front-runner. Having successfully run for a very powerful (and very prominent) statewide office, Dewhurst would be a formidable candidate. And his intention to jump in just may be deduced from the Google ad that shows up when you search for his name: “Taking the Fight to Washington? Stay Updated Here/www.DavidDewhurst.com”
    • Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbot is rumored to to be considering a run. Current Senator John Cornyn made the same jump in 2002.
    • Roger Williams, former Texas Secretary of State (not the theologian the Rhode Island university is named for), has picked up a serious endorsement from former President George H. W. Bush. Williams worked on both the Bush41 and Bush43 campaigns and headed the Texas Republican Victory 2008 Coordinated Campaign. It’s a big jump from Secretary of State (which is an appointed, not elected office) to the Senate, but the Bush Machine excels at fund-raising, and if it really throws its weight behind Williams he won’t have any trouble raising money. (Edited to add: I didn’t realize that Williams had already announced his candidacy all the way back in December 2008.)
    • A different Williams, Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, gets some serious love from South Carolina Senator (and Senate Conservatives Fund head honcho) Jim DeMint. But the Railroad Commission, while quite powerful, doesn’t have nearly the public profile of Lt. Governor.
    • Another Railroad Commissioner, Elizabeth Ames Jones, is already off and running, having evidently announced back in 2009.
    • A serious dark-horse contender is State Senator Dan Patrick, who has a lot of name-recognition in Houston for being a former sportscaster. (He might even get false name recognition, since he’s not the other sports-casting Dan Patrick.)
    • Other names being bandied about are Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert and former Solicitor General of Texas Ted Cruz.

    And that’s just the first batch of names to be floated, and says nothing of random billionaires or old Republican warhorses jumping into the race.

    The Democratic names being floated are a far less imposing bunch: San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, ex-Congressman Chet Edwards, and former Comptroller John Sharp. Edwards got trounced in the most recent election, while Sharp was defeated by Dewhurst in his run for Lieutenant Governor in 2002, and it’s hard to treat someone as a serious candidate who haven’t updated their twitter feed in almost a year and who let his campaign website (http://www.johnsharp.com/) lapse.

    In related news, Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, of deeply red North Dakota, announced he was declining to run in 2012 as well, which means Democratic chances to hold onto the seat probably just went from slim to none.

    Kay Bailey Hutchison Declines to Run for Reelection

    Thursday, January 13th, 2011

    “Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison announced today that she will retire at the end of her current term, quashing speculation that she would run for a fourth full term in the U.S. Senate.”

    Given the drubbing she received at the hands of Rick Perry in the Governor’s race, this was probably a wise decision, as Perry did such a good job painting her as an out-of-touch Washington insider that she would probably have been beaten in the primary. As for who will be the Republican nominee in 2012, there are a lot of possibilities…

    More on Perry’s Victory

    Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

    This Michael Barone piece shows Perry beating Hutchison pretty much everywhere, but racking up a particularly large margin in metro-Houston, which would seem to bode well for defeating former Houston Mayor Bill White in November.

    Updated: A piece from Kevin Williamson in NRO on Perry’s victory. I think he overstates the Ron Paul component of the Tea Party. (I also think most Paul supporters themselves were less wedded to his fringe isolationist and conspiracy theory views than they were with his populist anger at the GOP establishment that had abandoned conservative principles of fiscal discipline in favor of pork-fueled cronyism.)

    Updated 2 From Danny Huddleston at American Thinker: “Note to all Republicans running for office anywhere in America, stick to Reagan conservatism and you will win. Contrary to popular belief independents don’t want moderate candidates, they want authentic candidates with core values.”

    Instant Analysis: Why Perry Beat Hutchison Like A Rented Mule

    Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

    As of now, just after 10 PM, Perry is winning big enough to avoid a run-off, and Hutchison conceded. That was the exact opposite of what most pundits predicted when Hutchison got into the race 18 months ago. After all, Perry was considered by many (including many conservatives) to be, not to put too fine a point on it, an asshole. He built up a reputation for cronyism with the attempted Trans-Texas Corridor land grab and the vaccine fiasco, both of which involved former aides. His love of toll roads (even converting existing, paid-for roads into toll roads) rubbed many Texans the wrong way. His veto of the post-Kelo eminent domain reform HB 2006 pissed off still more people, many of whom view the later 2009 Constitutional Amendments addressing the issue (Proposition 2, Proposition 3) as weak substitutes.

    But in the end, none of that mattered. As many commentators noted, Hutchison’s best day was the day she announced, and it’s been downhill ever since. Why? Many reasons, but here are a few of the main ones:

    1. Perry ran a much better campaign, running hard and never letting up. Hutchison expected people to vote for her because she was popular (routinely racking up 65% of the vote in general elections) and wasn’t Rick Perry. Perry asked for people to vote for him because he was conservative.
    2. For all his numerous missteps, Perry has actually gotten the big picture right: keeping the budget balanced, refusing to even consider a state income tax, and generally not screwing up the Texas economy. Even in today’s serious recession, Texas running rings around high-tax states like California. Perry deserves real credit for that.
    3. In a year when outrage against big-spending in Washington is at a rolling boil, Perry was able to successfully paint Hutchison as a Washington insider, a task made easier by Hutchison’s unapologetic defense of earmarking. He was able to do this because, while Hutchison’s voting record is conservative by the standards of the U.S. Senate, it’s not particularly conservative by the standards of Texas. There’s always been a suspicion by many rank and file Texas Republicans that Hutchison is a little bit of a “squishy” conservative, much like George W. Bush, who was dinged by conservatives numerous times for his free-spending ways.
    4. Perry constantly courted Tea Party activists despite the presence of Tea Party favorite Debra Medina in the race. As an energetic and widespread movement, the Tea Party voters he was able to win away from Medina probably put him over the top.

    There are many other reasons, but running the best campaign, and as more conservative than Hutchison in a very conservative year, was enough to clinch the deal for Perry.

    Debra Medina, Truther?

    Thursday, February 11th, 2010

    For those not following the Texas Gubernatorial Race, Medina is the Republican Party candidate who’s not Rick Perry or Kay Bailey Hutchison. From what little I’ve seen and read about here, she’s comes across as a somewhat clumsy debater (forgivable), pretty Libertarian (good), but in a distinctly fringe-y way (bad). The way she went on about “State Sovereignty” (responding to questions where it clearly wasn’t applicable) in the one debate I saw made me think she wasn’t ready for prime time.

    But now that it turns out that, if she’s not actually a 9/11 “Truther,” she’s at least sympathetic to their theories. (Wow, way to make people think Libertarians aren’t nuts. While you’re at it, why don’t you start ranting about how the State of Texas should stop taking little pieces of green paper and insist on being paid in gold the way another loony Libertarian candidate did a few election cycles ago?)

    This will not do.

    In theory, Texas Republicans should be enjoying a race between three candidates who are, by national standards, genuinely conservative. In practice, all three have some serious baggage.

    I hope to talk in more detail about some of Perry and Hutchison’s baggage in a future post…