Posts Tagged ‘Ricardo Sanchez’

LinkSwarm for October 30, 2012

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

I was going to have an insightful, data-filed post on the Texas 23rd Congressional district race, but then I realized that the Los Angeles Times data I was relying on flipped at least one bit of information (NRA-ILA is doing independent expenditures against Pete Gallego, not against Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco), which means I can’t trust the rest. Super executive summary: Canseco has a huge cash on-hand advantage, $785,623 to $23,250, but assuming the other LA Times numbers are right, the independent expenditure race is a lot closer to even.

Now on to a LinkSwarm a week before the election:

  • Obama is clearly winning the race for military endorsements, having 6 endorsements to Romney’s paltry 359.
  • Politico worried that Romney may let lobbyists “back” into the White House, conveniently ignoring the dozens of lobbyists Obama has on staff.
  • There’s a huge amount of outrage over the MSM trying to bury the Benghazi scandal to help Obama over the finish line.
  • Even Democratic pollster Pat Caddell is outraged:

  • Syrian rebels get antiaircraft missiles. What could possibly go wrong?
  • A Daily Beast piece on the decline of the left-wing Netroots.
  • Paul Sadler managed to raise more money for his 2004 Texas Senate race than his 2012 U.S. Senate race.
  • Remember Joseph Livoti, formerly the finance director for Ricardo Sanchez’s aborted Senate campaign? Probably not. Well, his current position is “Finance Director at Joe Miklosi for Congress”. And the Sanchez campaign doesn’t appear in his job summary. Funny that.
  • Given that Miklosi has raised about half of what his Republican opponent incumbent Mike Coffman has for the Colorado Sixth Congressional District race, but only has about one-fifth the cash on hand, Livoti seems to have retained his magic touch.
  • Michael Totten: The Islamist threat isn’t going away.
  • Some pictures of Sandy-related flooding.
  • Oh Deer

    Friday, July 27th, 2012

    Ted Cruz staffer Joshua Perry recently tweeted that he had hit a deer. (Both his car and the deer were fine.) I quipped that he should hope it was a Dewhurst-voting deer. He replied he thought it was for Sadler. But there are so many other possibilities:

  • It was a Grady Yarbrough deer, disoriented from suddenly being thrust from the safety of obscurity, out into the bright onrushing headlights.
  • It was a Sean Hubbard deer, which had spent the last two months wandering around despondently without purpose, before finally deciding to put itself out of its misery.
  • It was a Craig James deer, sure it could make it across the road, but only made in 3% of the way before it got hit.
  • It was a Ricardo Sanchez deer, which just stepped out into the road before realizing that it didn’t have the energy to get to the other side.
  • It was a Joe Agris deer, who felt its mission was accomplished simply by stepping out onto the road.
  • It was a Michael Williams deer, which suddenly decided it wanted to be on another road.
  • It was a Roger Williams deer, which was just following the Michael Williams deer.
  • In summary: I’ve been following the Texas Senate race too damn long!

    No Wonder Ricardo Sanchez Dropped Out

    Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

    While it may be unseemly to kick someone when he’s not only down but actually out, the FEC report for now-withdrawn Democratic Senate candidate Ricardo Sanchez tells why he had to drop out of the race (even apart from his unfortunate house fire) in stark detail.

    For Q4, Sanchez pulled in a paltry $40,317. So the anointed Democratic candidate pulled in about one twenty-fifth the amount in contributions serious Republican candidates like David Dewhurst and Ted Cruz received during the same period.

    During the same quarter, the Sanchez campaign laid out $133,210 in operating expenditures. Even deducting the (by my quick count) $32,600 in refunded contributions at the end of the quarter, that’s a ruinous burn rate given how little he was taking in. Like the blue model welfare state, this sort of mismatch between receipts and spending is unsustainable.

    If he were still in the race, I might wonder why Sanchez was not only paying a Jennifer Lehner $11,864 in payroll between October 1 and November 26, plus a $4,000 housing stipend (for San Antonio? That seems reasonable…if it’s for six months), but was also ponying up $2,500 consulting fees for a “Mrs. Ada B. Lehner” residing at the same Carmichael, California address as Jennifer. (“If you hire me, you also have to hire my mom.”) But since he’s dropped out, what’s the point?

    Websites of the 2012 Texas Senate Candidates

    Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

    Here’s an updated list of the declared 2012 Texas senate candidate’s websites, along with any subsidiary pages that change frequently (in-the-news, press releases, etc.), along with their Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and FEC fundraising report pages, plus any additional pages worth noting. (For example, Tom Leppert’s website provides links to his LinkedIn page, and his YouTube and Flickr streams, so I have included those here.) I’ve also tried to be flexible; Ted Cruz doesn’t have links for separate YouTube or Flickr sites, so I’ve included similar pages on his campaign page.

    Consider this a one-stop research stop for lazy efficient journalists and bloggers (as well as a handy cheat-cheat for myself, since I’ve been doing extensive coverage of the race).

    Where candidates have sign-up splash screens, I have omitted those to go straight to the website (or, for Facebook links, their wall).

    Websites for 2012 Republican Senate Runoff Candidates

    Ted Cruz

  • Ted Cruz Website
  • Ted Cruz Facebook Page
  • Ted Cruz Twitter Feed
  • Ted Cruz FEC Page
  • David Dewhurst

  • David Dewhurst Website
  • David Dewhurst Facebook Page
  • David Dewhurst Twitter Feed (Note that the old Dewhurst4Texas feed is no longer active)
  • David Dewhurst YouTube Feed
  • David Dewhurst Flickr Photostream
  • The Official Lieutenant Governor’s Page
  • David Dewhurst’s FEC Page
  • Websites for 2012 Democratic Senate Runoff Candidates

    Paul Sadler

  • Paul Sadler Website
  • Paul Sadler Facebook Page
  • Paul Sadler Twitter Feed
  • Paul Sadler FEC Page
  • Grady Yarbrough

  • Grady Yarbrough’s Facebook Page
  • Websites for 2012 Republican Senate Candidates Who Missed the Runoff

    Tom Leppert

  • Tom Leppert Website
  • Tom Leppert Facebook page
  • Tom Leppert Twitter Feed
  • Tom Leppert LinkedIn page
  • Tom Leppert Flickr Photostream
  • Tom Leppert YouTube channel
  • Tom Leppert FEC Page
  • Craig James

  • Craig James Website
  • Craig James News
  • Craig James Media
  • Craig James Twitter Feed
  • Craig James Facebook
  • Glenn Addison

  • Glenn Addison Website
  • Glenn Addison Twitter Feed
  • Glenn Addison Facebook Page
  • Glenn Addison FEC Page
  • Lela Pittenger

  • Lela Pittenger Website
  • Lela Pittenger Facebook Page
  • Lela Pittenger Twitter Feed
  • Lela Pittenger FEC Page
  • Curt Cleaver

  • Curt Cleaver Website
  • Curt Cleaver Facebook page
  • Curt Cleaver Twitter Feed
  • Curt Cleaver Vimeo Page
  • Curt Cleaver FEC Page
  • Ben Gambini

  • Ben Gambini Facebook
  • Dr. Joe Agris

    No website yet.

    Republican Dropouts

    Declared Republican candidates who have dropped out of the race:

  • Elizabeth Ames Jones: Dropped out November 8, 2011.
  • Michael Williams: Dropped out June 17, 2011.
  • Roger Williams: Dropped out June 28, 2011.
  • Andrew Castanuela: Emailed December 21, 2011 saying he was running as an independent write-in candidate.
  • Charles Holcomb: Dropped out March 7, 2012.
  • Websites for 2012 Democratic Senate Candidates Who Missed the Runoff

    Addie D. Allen (AKA Addie Dainell Allen)

  • Addie D. Allen Website
  • Addie D. Allen Facebook page
  • Addie D. Allen Twitter Feed
  • Sean Hubbard

  • Sean Hubbard Website
  • Sean Hubbard Facebook Page
  • Sean Hubbard Twitter Feed
  • Sean Hubbard YouTube Feed
  • Sean Hubbard FEC Page
  • Democratic Dropouts

    Declared Democratic candidates who have dropped out of the race:

  • Ricardo Sanchez: Dropped out December 16, 2011.
  • Jason A. Gibson: Dropped out February 2, 2012.
  • Stanley Garza: Sent an email January 20, 2012 saying he was giving up his 2012 campaign.
  • Virgil Bierschwale: Sent an email January 25, 2012 saying he couldn’t afford the filing fee.
  • Daniel Boone: Switched to Congressional race March 7, 2012.
  • Democratic candidates whose names briefly appeared on the offical list of Texas Democratic Senate candidates, but which have since been removed, with no explanation given:

  • Eric Roberson
  • John Morton
  • Others

  • Libertarian Jon Roland
  • Independent Mike Champion
  • NEWS FLASH: Ricardo Sanchez Drops Out of Senate Race

    Friday, December 16th, 2011

    “Leading Democratic U.S. senatorial candidate Ricardo Sanchez announced Friday that he’s ending his campaign to replace retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.”

    I didn’t exactly predict it, but I did suggest it was a strong possibility:

    Even before his house burned down, there was precious little evidence Sanchez was really interested in running for the Senate. His fundraising is abysmal, his media appearances are rare, his campaign stops even rarer (Ted Cruz and Glenn Addison do more campaigning in a day than Sanchez manages in a month), his social media footprint miniscule, and his buzz factor is non-existent.

    Sanchez peaked when he announced for the race. Ever since then it’s been a long, painful slog, with his only reward the prospect of being slaughtered by Ted Cruz or David Dewhurst in the general election. Is there a serious non-partisan observer anywhere who looks at Sanchez’s dismal campaign and thinks he can win?

    Evidently not.

    So, Texas Democrats: Right now the only two candidates on your side who have filed are Sean Hubbard and Daniel Boone. Or a guy that doesn’t look old enough to drink, and a guy who’s been dead for 191 years. Hubbard’s been running longer, but Boone has a great name to campaign on.

    Of course there’s still time for additional candidates to file by Monday. (And maybe declared-but-not-filed longshot candidates Stanley Garza and Virgil Bierschwale will jump in.) I would imagine that DSCC chair Patty Murray will be working the phones like mad this weekend to at least give some semblance of a real Texas Senate race. Unless Tommy Lee Jones changes his mind, I don’t see her having much luck.

    Maybe Hubbard will actually start campaigning full-time. I got the impression that he was working his campaign hours around some sort of day job.

    Actually, Democrats shouldn’t be too depressed over this turn of events. All political issues aside, Sanchez was simply a bad candidate who ran a lousy campaign. At least Hubbard acts like he actually wants to run.

    Where’s Ricardo? (Plus: A New Democratic Challenger Appears)

    Monday, December 12th, 2011

    There’s some news on the Democratic side of the Texas Senate race.

    First of all, the name of the DNC’s handpicked candidate, Ricardo Sanchez, does not appear on the list of candidates who have filed for the Texas Senate race.

    Well, the deadline is Thursday. No worries. Assuming he wants to run, there’s plenty of time for Sanchez to file for the race.

    But what if he doesn’t?

    After all, even before his house burned down, there was precious little evidence Sanchez was really interested in running for the Senate. His fundraising is abysmal, his media appearances are rare, his campaign stops even rarer (Ted Cruz and Glenn Addison do more campaigning in a day than Sanchez manages in a month), his social media footprint miniscule, and his buzz factor is non-existent.

    Other signs of the moribund nature of Sanchez’s campaign: DSCC chair Patty Murray drawing audible laughs when asked about Democratic chances in Texas. “After being initially hailed as a pick-up opportunity, Texas is off the radar for Democrats. DSCC executive director Guy Cecil suggested as much last month. Murray didn’t even mention Ricardo Sanchez’s name.”

    Sanchez peaked when he announced for the race. Ever since then it’s been a long, painful slog, with his only reward the prospect of being slaughtered by Ted Cruz or David Dewhurst in the general election. Is there a serious non-partisan observer anywhere who looks at Sanchez’s dismal campaign and thinks he can win?

    Is this how Sanchez pictured his retirement? He seems for all the world like someone just going through the motions.

    However, there is one Democratic candidate who has filed for the U.S. Senate race: Daniel Boone! I believe Texans will be favorably impressed with his trackin’ and bear-killin’ skills, and thus might be willing to overlook his Missouri residency and the fact the he’s been dead 191 years.

    Sadly for Democrats, the “rippin’est, roarin’est, fightin’est man the frontier ever knew” is not the one running, but rather a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel (which sets up a nice “flyboy vs. grunt” inter-service rivalry if Sanchez does run).

    He has a website and a Facebook page. His campaign platform is vague Democratic boilerplate.

    But a famous namesake isn’t enough to overcome Ricardo Sanchez, right?

    Think again.

    Remember Gene Kelly? The perennial office-seeker whose only notable attribute was the name of the famous dancing movie star? He won the 2000 Democratic primary runoff for this very Senate seat (then occupied by Kay Baily Hutchison) over former state legislator Charles Gandy with 58.43% of the vote.

    Want to guess what Kelly’s background was?

    Would you believe retired Air Force Colonel?

    It would be tempting to use the “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce” line, but here the first time was farce.

    If Sanchez declines the race, I would say that Boone automatically becomes the frontrunner. And so far Sanchez has run such a lackluster campaign that high name recognition (even misrecognition) might be enough to beat him…

    Ricardo Sanchez’s House Burns Down

    Friday, November 18th, 2011

    Democratic Senate frontrunner Ricardo Sanchez had pretty horrible Veteran’s Day, as a fire destroyed his San Antonio home.

    The article linked above states that arson investigators (pace the video) have ruled out foul play.

    I would like to formally extend my condolences to Sanchez and his family for the tragic loss, and relief that everyone got out of the house safely.

    I actually had an inkling of this early in the week, since I had some Google search hits on “Ricardo Sanchez fire,” but was unable to find anything in the news when I searched then, just a tweet linking to a dead Facebook page. In fact, there doesn’t seem to have been anything findable by Google News until yesterday. Either major San Antonio news sources were unbelievably slow in covering an important story about a major public figure, or Google isn’t picking them up for some reason.

    Texas Senate Race Roundup for November 16, 2011

    Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

    Another Senate race roundup

  • Ted Cruz appeared on The Great American Panel:

  • Cruz also appeared on KSKY radio in Dallas-Fort Worth.
  • He also appeared on the Janine Turner Show on 570 KLIF in Dallas.
  • If it seems like I put up a lot of Cruz media appearances, that’s because Cruz makes a lot of media appearances. I try to put up or link to any major state or national media appearance by any of the Texas senate race candidates. It just so happens that the Cruz campaign is very proactive in sending me links to them and making sure they appear on their blog. If the David Dewhurst and Tom Leppert campaigns were to do more appearances and send me the links, I would be putting those up as well.
  • I’d even put up more media appearances by Ricardo Sanchez…if he did more than one a month. And if his campaign bothered to put them up on his empty YouTube page.
  • Dewhurst makes an appearance in an NBC Nightly News Veteran’s Day piece that’s mainly about his father’s service in World War II:

  • And Tom Leppert appeared on Lubbock’s KFYO.
  • Speaking of Leppert, Matt Dowling remains unimpressed with Leppert’s conservative credentials.
  • Cruz named one of the 92 most influential lawyers in the country by Law360.
  • Not a bad roundup of the race from Kate Alexander of the Austin American-Statesman. And the Sanchez campaign must be cringing over this cruelly accurate line “Democrats are barely mounting a fight for the U.S. Senate seat, so the Republican nominee is pretty much a shoo-in.” (One quibble with one of the quoted sources: I don’t think Leppert can drop $20 million on advertising. His fundraising has been solid but not mind-boggling, and he’s rich, but not Dewhurst rich.)
  • Hotline on Call is similarly dismissive of Sanchez: “Ricardo Sanchez has proven to be a non-factor in Texas.”
  • Texas Senate Race Update for Friday, November 11, 2011

    Friday, November 11th, 2011

    Elizabeth Ames Jones is out, but the other contenders soldier on. Here’s another Texas Senate Race update:

  • David Dewhurst is endorsed by the The Texas Farm Bureau Friends of Agriculture Fund. Given my opposition to agribusiness subsidies, this is not a plus in my book.
  • Dewhurst also campaigned in Midland.
  • Tom Leppert picked up the endorsements of the mayors of Corpus Christi, Arlington, Sugar Land, Richardson, Denton, and several other Texas cities. Though some of those are from his Metroplex base, those are good pickups for him, and it is interesting that he picked up the support of mayors of high-growth, suburban “ring” cities.
  • Robert T. Garrett of The Dallas Morning News calls Ted Cruz a “social conservative spearchucker.” (I can just picture Garrett using this phrase about Michael William or Herman Cain, and then Having a Little Talk with his editor.) Potentially offensive phrasing aside, “social conservative” is not quite accurate, since Cruz is a classic “fusionist” conservative Republican candidate, as both a social and economic conservative. In this race, Glenn Addison and Curt Cleaver fit the mold of social conservatives more fully than Cruz. And it does make one wonder, yet again, why Garrett insists on pushing the “Cruz sucks/Dewhurst is invincible” angle that has become his recent stock-in-trade…
  • The Houston Chronicle has a poll for which Senate candidate you support.
  • USA Today deigns to notice Sean Hubbard. That’s probably the political highlight of his week, although last week he attended Occupy Dallas, which seems appropriate, since both will be entirely forgotten by this time next year. Judging from the pictures, I’ve thrown parties that had more attendees than Occupy Dallas…
  • Many candidates have offered up thanks to veterans today, but it took Ricardo Sanchez to turn it into an election pitch. I have no problem with Sanchez running on his military record, or if he had mentioned it in passing in a post appreciating veterans, but to turn a Veterans Day message into a pitch of Democratic talking points while hustling for votes seems…unseemly.
  • Texas Senate Race Update for November 5, 2011

    Saturday, November 5th, 2011

    I suppose I should do these updates some day other than Friday night Saturday morning, since few people read them then or over the weekend, but it’s been a busy week…

  • Mario Loyola discusses Ted Cruz and his father Rafael as part of a longer story on the Cuban exile experience in America, the widespread Cuban opposition to the Batista regime, and how Castro betrayed the revolution to impose Communism. And he delivers such a complete and utter bitchslapping of The Dallas Morning News that I have to quote the last few paragraphs:

    Cubans here and there have had to endure the calamities of the Revolution alone. Conservatives in America reached out to us and supported us, and our parents found solace in their enmity to Communism. But they weren’t really with us either, because they had no idea how awful Fidel Castro really was. It simply isn’t within the comprehension of any American that someone could actually choose to be as evil as Castro. The sheer depravity of his crimes against the Cuban people helped to keep the depredations of his rule a secret hiding in plain sight, where only other Cubans could see them.

    It’s no surprise that liberal papers such as the Dallas Morning News now think they’re in some position to judge which families are truly exiles and which aren’t. It was liberal papers — particularly the New York Times — that originally built Castro up into an international hero and persisted in romanticizing him long after he offered Cuba’s young men to the Kremlin as a Third World army. It was liberal papers that blamed the U.S. embargo for the economic catastrophe into which Castro plunged Cuba. It was liberal newspapers that helped to occlude the unspeakable daily abuses of Castro’s regime beneath the fantasy of a romantic nationalist who was bravely willing to stand up to imperialism.

    “There is power,” the Dallas Morning News tells us, “in linking your past and your future to this unending struggle [against Fidel]. But because the fathers of both these men [Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio] migrated several years before the revolution, as is now clear, the link is at best a stretch. In the case of Cruz, the situation is even more complicated because his father originally supported Castro.” What utter nonsense. It would be offensive if the editors actually had any idea what they were talking about. No Cuban exile would for a second say that the Rubio and Cruz families were any less exile than anyone else. All of our families lost their homeland. That some were already here when it happened is irrelevant — nobody meant to forsake Cuba by coming here. We lost Cuba because Castro took it from us, from all of us, born and unborn, both here and back there.

    Among Cuban-Americans, having been an early supporter of Castro in no way diminishes your anti-Communist credentials. On the contrary, it is the typical story for almost every family. Virtually all of our families opposed the dictatorship of Batista. Virtually all of our families believed Castro’s rhetoric of democracy and liberty. The first thing everyone hated about him was his evident relish in betraying his most ardent supporters. That was the first of many very personal reasons he would give us to hate him, reasons that only we can really understand.

    What makes us exiles is not merely the fact that our families can’t go back to Cuba. It is that Castro wantonly ruined the land that our families grew up in, the land of our forefathers, and now that land exists only in the fading black-and-white pictures and memories of the happy childhoods of a generation that is dying now. Compared with that, what possible difference could it make that our grandparents arrived one year and not another? Senator Rubio didn’t know exactly what year his father first got here because it doesn’t matter.

    Still, I can’t say that I’m terribly surprised by the Dallas Morning News’s display of presumptuousness and ignorance. The editors are decent people, and if they knew even 5 percent of what I know about the Revolution and its exiles, I’m sure they would be deeply ashamed of what they’ve written. But they don’t and they never will — Castro has already seen to that.

    Read the whole thing.

  • Speaking of people that Mario Loyola just made look like petty, misinformed idiots, The Dallas Morning News‘s Robert T. Garrett (who we talked about last week) covers Cruz’s accusations of MSM outlets like The Dallas Morning News targeting conservative Hispanics. Tune in next week for Garrett reporting on Cruz’s complaints about Garrett’s reporting on Cruz’s complaints. Presumably from the inside of a mirror box.
  • The Ted Cruz campaign has challenged David Dewhurst to five one-on-one Lincoln-Douglas debates (and the King Street Patriots were quick to agree to host at least one). This is a smart way for Cruz to help break further away from Tom Leppert and Elizabeth Ames Jones, and turn the race into a two man contest between him and Dewhurst…which is why Dewhurst would be foolish to take Cruz up on the offer. And, indeed, he does not seem so inclined.
  • ABC News notices the hit pieces on conservative Hispanic politicians in this interview with Cruz:

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  • New Revolution Now emailed to say that Cruz won the straw poll at the Tuesday’s Texarkana senate forum. The total results were:
    • Ted Cruz: 54%
    • Glenn Addison: 21%
    • Lela Pittenger: 20%
    • Andrew Castanuela: 5%
    • David Dewhurst: <1%
  • Speaking of polls, this David Catanese Politico piece says that Dewhurst’s “internal poll” has Dewhurst at 50%, Leppert at 9%, and Cruz at 6%. I’m sure it does.
  • The Texas Tribune says “Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is running a state version of a Rose Garden strategy.” As indeed he is.
  • Tom Leppert unveils a second TV ad.
  • I get the distinct impression that someone at D magazine doesn’t like Leppert. They also evidently don’t like using anything that’s actually funny in their “comedy.”
  • Report on the Clear Lake Tea Party Rally, where Herman Cain and Lela Pittenger spoke, along with Apostle Claver of Raging Elephants.
  • This page on possible Senate race takeover targets had the Texas race down at 21st (i.e., not bloody likely), and had this to say: “Ricardo Sanchez hasn’t made the impact the local Democrats hoped he would.” Indeed.
  • Evidently all tuckered out from his 18-minute interview October 23, Sanchez seems to have returned to hibernation this week.
  • Other than appearing in that poll and turning 55 on October 29, Elizabeth Ames Jones doesn’t seem to have been much more active than Sanchez. Hey, here’s an idea: They’re both from San Antonio. Why not meet each other for a weekly debate? Nothing else they’re doing seems to be attracting donations or attention, and both need to bone up on their public speaking skills…