Posts Tagged ‘Michael Baselice’

Dewhurst Tosses in Another $2 Million of His Own Money

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

David Dewhurst loaned his campaign another $2 million of his own money, according to his Q4 report. That’s a considerable chunk of change, but I imagine the Cruz campaign is breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn’t 5 times that much.

Another thing that strikes me about his Q4 report (which I have only given a cursory glance to, given there’s more than 800 pages to it) is Dewhurst’s incredibly high burn rate. He’s already spent $4,397,491. Some examples of what he’s spending money on:

  • He seems to be spending $500 a day each on Facebook and Google advertising. I’m not sure that’s money well spent at this stage of the campaign. Last two weeks? Sure. Now? Not so much.
  • Campaign manager James Bognet seems to be pulling down a cool $35,000 a month, plus reimbursement expenses.
  • Finance director Rebecca McMullin is pulling down a respectable $9,480 a month, plus expenses. Kevin Moomaw, an old Dewhurst hand he lured back from his cushy job as a UT professor, is making about the same, which is a goooooooooood salary. (Inside joke.)
  • He gave pollster Michael Baselice just over $24,000.
  • The nice thing about being the “bank” in the race is that you don’t have to worry about funding a top-heavy campaign if you’re getting results. Is he? So far the Dewhurst campaign hasn’t knocked me out with its organizational skill. It’s competent, but I think both the Cruz and Leppert campaigns have been more obviously focused and effective at communicating. But I’m probably not the type of voter the Dewhurst campaign is trying to reach (as far as I can tell, Team Dewhurst reachout to bloggers and new media (beyond the obligatory Facebook and Twitter accounts) is non-existent).

    Texas Senate Race Update for January 25, 2012

    Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

    Time for another update. And since none of the Republicans liked the Keystone Pipeline decision, or Obama’s State of the Union address, I’m not going to list each individual reaction here.

  • Ted Cruz endorsed by the national Tea Party Express.
  • A roundup piece from the Ft. Worth Star Telegram, in which we learn that the academics that MSM reporters usually go to for consensus wisdom say that Tea Party influence is on the wane. Imagine my shock.
  • Mark Davis of WBAP talks to Michael Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texas about both the Texas redistricting decision and the senate race:

  • Robert T. Garrett of The Dallas Morning News reports that David Dewhurst pledged to serve only two terms in the Senate if elected. As Garrett notes, Ted Cruz and Tom Leppert have also pledged to support term limits. Also, since I have been fairly critical of Garrett’s reporting on the race, I should point out that there seems to be neither errors nor sneers in this piece.
  • Somehow I overlooked this Garrett piece from 12 days ago where Craig James admits to taking “insignificant” amounts from boosters in his SMU days.
  • Also in the DSM, John David Terrance Stutz notes that David Dewhurst is preparing a state senate agenda that just happens to dovetail nicely with his U.S. senate race themes. Including “the potential negative repercussions of Obamacare and Sharia law.”
  • Another poll done for the David Dewhurst campaign comes to the startling conclusion that the David Dewhurst campaign is awesome. As I previously discussed, the partial results of secret polls leaked to the media without full disclosure of the complete results, including the questions asked, the sample size, the screening criteria, etc., is essentially meaningless spin. In fact, I just sent a query off pollster Michael Baselice asking for that information. I’ll let you know if I get a reply…
  • Glenn Addison calls Cruz, Dewhurst, and Leppert flaming moderates.
  • Addison also gets a nice profile over at KXAN.
  • Addison also announced he would be attending the Texas Republican Assembly Biennial Endorsing Convention at the Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth on Saturday, January 28.
  • Addison also announced he would be at the East Texas Conservative candidate forum in Tyler Friday, January 27. Say what you will about Addison, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a longshot candidate keep up such a hectic schedule.
  • Democrat Jason Gibson has updated his website. Slightly.
  • Lela Pittenger raised $13,159 in Q4.
  • Ben Gambini doesn’t seem to have a website yet, but he does have a Facebook page. Judging from the graphic he put up there, he seems to be running mostly as a social conservative.
  • Democrat Addie Dainell Allen also has a Facebook page, where she seems to be going by Addie D. Allen.
  • Still can’t find campaign web presences for Dr. Joe Agris or Charles Holcomb.
  • Via email, longshot, non-filed Democratic candidate Virgil Bierschwale indicated he could not afford the filing fee, and thus is out of the race.
  • Via email, longshot, non-filed Democratic candidate Stanley Garza indicated he was giving up his campaign for 2012. Which brings up the question: Will he return that $1 of unspent campaign contributions?
  • All the above updates have also been made on my page linking all the candidate’s websites.

    Ted Cruz on Sean Hannity Tonight Discussing Fast and Furious, And a Bit on Polling

    Friday, November 11th, 2011

    Ted Cruz will be on Sean Hannity’s show at 8:30 PM tonight, discussing Fast and Furious, Occupy Wall Street, and no doubt many other topics. Since there does not appear to be a radio station that carries Hannity in Austin, and since I will be celebrating Nigel Tufnel Day tonight anyway, I guess I’ll have to catch it in reruns.

    While on the subject of Cruz, I wanted to partially take issue with some of the assertions in the Kevin Brennan National Journal piece called “Popping the Ted Cruz Bubble.” Essentially it argues that Cruz is not the frontrunner and that previously mentioned internal Dewhurst poll shows that Cruz is way behind.

    These two consecutive sentences get to the heart of the problem with Brennan’s piece: “Of course, a poll conducted for one of Cruz’s rivals is by no means a definitive take on the race. But that poll mirrors results of other surveys conducted privately in the state in recent months.”

    The first part of that sentence is true but incomplete, since it is missing the word “internal” before poll, and the Dewhurst campaign has not deemed to share with us any of the methodology with which it was conducted. Despite Brennan’s assertion that its finding “come from live-call surveys that follow best-practices methodology most top-quality pollsters use, ” the only thing we actually know (thanks to Brennan) is that it was conducted by Mike Baselice.

    Likewise, the second sentence makes assertions which are completely unverifiable to readers, and Brennan offers no convincing argument why we should take those assertions at face value. “Lots of super-secret polls that no one else but me has seen totally agree with the point I’m making.” Which polls? Conducted by who? Surveying how many voters? Registered or likely voters? With what methodology? With what margin of error? Etc. Without that knowledge, Brennan is simply making an unfounded assertion and asking us to take it on faith. And the rest of his article depends on taking those assertion at face value.

    Honestly, if Dewhurst’s internal poll was rock solid, they would have released the full poll and methodology to the public, not merely leaked tidbits to favored journalists, especially given how favorable it is to Dewhurst. The fact that they haven’t indicates there are either methodological problems that can’t stand up to real scrutiny, or that the poll show other things (low likability scores for the Lt. Governor, perhaps?) that the Dewhurst campaign doesn’t want us to see.

    There are some things in the Brennan piece I have no problem with: Dewhurst is indeed the frontrunner, and I would not take that University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll as gospel either. (Much less the Azimuth Research Group poll.)

    Ultimately, Brennan uses those unnamed, unshared polls to offer the conclusion that “Cruz is virtually unknown among Texas conservatives,” a statement that is not merely false, but actively risible. The guy who was endorsed by Jim DeMint and the Club for Growth, has raised just shy of $3 million from contributors, and who was the poster boy for a laudatory cover story in National Review is “virtually unknown among Texas conservatives”?

    Right. Pull the other one.