Archive for the ‘Republicans’ Category
Monday, April 18th, 2011
Texas Iconoclast examines Ricardo Sanchez’s chances.
Paul Burka doesn’t think any Democrat has a chance:
Patty Murray’s explanation for why she thinks Texas might be in play is “demographic change.” We have been hearing that line for many years now, and there is no evidence that demographic change has changed voting patterns. Democrats make the mistake of looking at Hispanic participation in California, in Colorado, in Arizona, in New Mexico, and thinking that Texas could be just like those states. I disagree. Hispanics in those states are alienated. Angry people vote. Hispanics in Texas are not alienated. Unless the Democrats have some pretty good polling that shows the Republicans are overreaching with their budget cuts–and I doubt that they do–they should continue to regard Texas as a lost cause.
National first quarter fundraising winners and losers from both the Washington Post and Hotline on Call. I’ve been checking the FEC site regularly, and the numbers for Texas Senate candidates (beyond the withdrawn Florence Shapiro) still aren’t up yet.
Moe Lane on Sanchez:
If Sanchez runs as a Democrat, the groups that would have been most likely to push for further investigation at this late date–the antiwar Left–will not be interested in pursuing the issue. The antiwar Left will, in fact, enthusiastically support the man who was their head devil in their designated Hell on Earth…because to do otherwise would be to show some elementary sense of self-worth and dignity, and the antiwar Left has neither. So–when your Democratic masters get around to picking your candidate for you–go ahead and endorse Sanchez, ye progressives. Get on the floor and lick those boots. Not that Sanchez will win, anyway; 2012 will be a bad year for a Democrat in Texas. But it’s always fun to watch the antiwar movement futilely beat its own ‘principles’ to death on command for the benefit of their masters. You’d think that it’d get old eventually, but no.
Over at Wired, Spencer Ackerman is also not enthused about Sanchez.
Article on the Waco Tea Party event, including snippets from Michael Williams’ speech.
Tags:2012 Election, Abu Ghraib, Democrats, Elections, fundraising, Michael Williams, Paul Burka, Republicans, Ricardo Sanchez, Spencer Ackerman, Tea Party, Texas, Texas Senate Race
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
Sunday, April 17th, 2011
Texas Democrats may have finally lured a high-profile candidate to the race: retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez. The only problem? His last notable job was being commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Which was, as Democrats wanted us to know in 2004, The Most Evil Thing Ever. Sean Hubbard now has a ready-made campaign slogan: Sean Hubbard: He Never Had Subordinates Violate the Geneva Convention.
Democrats also announced that Texas will be one of the six GOP states targeted as a takeover opportunity. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Speaking of dubious notions, there’s talk of Ron Paul’s other son, Fort Worth physician Robert Paul, making a run for the Texas Senate seat. I don’t buy it. If the GOP field was already too crowded for Paul père to make a run, I don’t see his son having a chance either.
Most of the Republican contenders were (wisely) making appearances at various tax day Tea Party rallies:
Ted Cruz was at the Clear Lake Tea Party rally
Michael Williams was at the Waco Tea Party
Both Tom Leppert and Roger Williams mentioned being at The Lone Star Tea Party (not clear on the location; maybe Grand Prairie)
Here’s a piece where David Jennings defends Tom Leppert from charges of being a liberal…but which also points out that he donated money to the Democratic campaigns of Ron Kirk and Daniel Inouye. I’m not sure you’re helping his cause…
Good: Roger Williams offers up a list of conservative beliefs. Bad: It’s in the form of a PDF.
Tags:2012 Election, Abu Ghraib, Democrats, Michael Williams, Republicans, Ricardo Sanchez, Robert Paul, Roger Williams, Ron Paul, Sean Hubbard, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race, Tom Leppert
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
(I know, tired meme is tired. But I just like saying “Facebook Boogaloo.”)
It being the second decade of the 21st century and all, it occurs to me that merely providing links to the individual candidates blogs is probably insufficient to keep up with their latest statements. So, in the interest of providing myself a handy cheat sheet informing my readers of the latest developments, here are the major candidates’ Facebook pages (plus that of the undeclared Dewhurst):
Ted Cruz
David Dewhurst
Elizabeth Ames Jones
Tom Leppert
Michael Williams
Roger Williams
Oh, and in case you think numbers of Facebook fans are a serious measure of popularity 11 months before an election (I don’t), here are the number of “likes” for each candidate’s respective pages:
Ted Cruz: 57,128
David Dewhurst: 21,320
Elizabeth Ames Jones: 8,018
Tom Leppert: 1,268
Michael Williams: 7,871
Roger Williams: 6,191
Now some more race tidbits:
According to an interview with him, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst may not run for the Senate in 2012, opting instead to run for Governor in 2014.
Interview with Michael Williams at GOP-Is-For-Me. (Psst: Michael: Twitter and Facebook are fine and all, but I shouldn’t have to go past the News/Blog page of your website to find this.)
And speaking of Michael Williams, he raised $500,000 in the first quarter of this year, significantly behind what Cruz and Leppert have announced they’ve raised.
Some musing from the new Texas Iconclast blog on what those numbers mean.
Tags:2012 Election, David Dewhurst, Elections, Elizabeth Ames Jones, Facebook, Michael Williams, Roger Williams, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race, Tom Leppert
Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
Note: A more detailed and up-to-date list of Texas Senate Candidate Websites can be found here.
For today’s 2012 Texas Senate Race coverage, I thought I would provide a handy list of all the candidate’s own websites (listed alphabetically).
Websites for 2012 Republican Senate Candidates
Ted Cruz
David Dewhurst has not announced he’s running yet, so here’s his official Lieutenant Governor’s page
Elizabeth Ames Jones
Tom Leppert
Michael Williams
Roger Williams
Since I’m trying to provide a complete lineup, here are some very, very longshots that have declared for the Republican primary:
Glenn Addison
Andrew Castanuela
Lela Pittenger
I’ve seen reports that a Nick Latham is running (he declared in 2009), but it’s hard to take him seriously as even a longshot candidate when all the links on his website are 404.
Websites for 2012 Democratic Senate Candidates
Through diligent research, I have finally found an actual, declared candidate for the Democratic nomination. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you your de facto Democratic Senate front-runner, Sean Hubbard. Yes, it’s a Facebook page. I was able to reach Hubbard by email, and he says he’s just waiting for the domain transfer for his actual campaign website to go through. To his credit, that Facebook page has been updated recently, which puts him one up on John Sharp. (Actually, it appears that a few other people have finally posted encouragement on Sharp’s Facebook page, although Sharp himself still hasn’t posted in more than a year.) One problem facing Hubbard is that Texas voters might be a little hesitant to vote for someone who looks like he still gets carded trying to buy a beer…
As for other Democratic Senate candidates, I sent email to Sharp to see if he was running and received no reply. I emailed Chet Edwards today, but there hasn’t been much time for him to get back to me. I see Chris Bell’s name being bandied about, but his law firm doesn’t have an e-mail address for him, and it seems rude to bug him by phone.
Supposedly there’s a transsexual bodybuilder named Chris Tina Bruce running as an independent, but I can’t find a campaign website. Given the paucity of Democratic candidates, I’m not sure why Bruce doesn’t just declare for the Democratic primary, as the field is wide open…
And finally a dollop of Senate race tidbits:
Ted Cruz says he has raised (extend Dr. Evil pinkie) one MILLION dollars for his campaign.
Tom Leppert says he’s raised $2.6 million…but that includes a $1.6 million loan from himself to his campaign.
Ted Cruz gets some serious love from The Weekly Standard.
Tags:2012 Election, Andrew Castanuela, Chris Bell, David Dewhurst, Elizabeth Ames Jones, Glen Addison, John Sharp, Lela Pittenger, Michael Williams, Republicans, Roger Williams, Sean Hubbard, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race, Tom Leppert
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 4 Comments »
Thursday, March 24th, 2011
A confluence of events (a cold, doing my taxes, and a miscellany of more minor concerns) has cut into my blogging time, so it might be a few days before my roundup piece on Libya is ready to see the light of day (and I may have to skip the usual This Week in Jihad as well). So here are a few bits of local news, including some on the the 2012 Senate race, to tide you over:
A call for Texas to follow Utah and Arizona by naming an official state gun, in this case the 1847 Walker Colt Revolver.
Holly Hunter has some interesting thoughts and statistics on Williamson County Redistricting numbers.
In Texas Senate race news, here’s an interview with Ted Cruz.
Also, Rick Perry vs. The World endorses Cruz.
Michael Williams comes out with a strong pro-drilling position.
Praise for Williams from the Beaumont Enterprise for having the courage to leave his current job on the Railroad Commission before running for the Senate.
A liberal radio station host is trying to draft actor Tommy Lee Jones to run as a Democrat for the Texas senate seat. Honestly, I suspect that Jones would have a lot better chance than anyone else whose name has been floated by the Democrats .
Tags:Guns, LinkSwarm, Michael Williams, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race, Tommy Lee Jones, Williamson County
Posted in Austin, Democrats, Elections, Guns, Republicans, Texas | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, March 16th, 2011
A few quick links:
Liberals are racists.
Big-spending Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez recalled from office by an almost 9-1 ratio. Alvarez was a RINO that acted like a full-bore Democrat, hiking property taxes and giving big pay raises to unionized public employees. (hat tip: Dwight.)
In New York, unions protect state employees who sexually abuse the mentally handicapped, even when they know they’re guilty. “That’s our job.”
A word on the media’s amazingly poor understanding of nuclear reactors.
My latest update on the Sendai earthquake/tsunami in Japan.
Tags:Carlos Alvarez, Democrats, Japan, liberal racism, liberals, liberals accusing people of being racists, LinkSwarm, New York, RINO, unions
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Republicans, unions | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
Things are pretty slow on the 2012 Texas Senate race (which happens when you’re more than a year away from the primary).
Both Michael Williams and Ted Cruz were at CPAC, and evidently Williams came off the better of the two. Also, I must not have been paying attention enough attention to Cruz’s resume, as I was unaware he was born in Canada.
Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert is evidently edging closer to a run.
And speaking of Dallas mayors, that piece also suggests that former mayor and current U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk will make a run for the seat on the Democratic side. The last time he ran for the Senate, he lost to John Cornyn to replace the retiring Phil Gramm.
And speaking of Democrats, the John Sharp campaigns continues to be virtually invisible, except for those occasions when it’s actually worse than invisible, with http://www.sharpsenator.com/ being squatted by a company selling, ahem, “male enhancement.” Of course, this report says that he called off his campaign last year, but that was before Hutchison announced her retirement.
Tags:CPAC, John Sharp, Michael Williams, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race, Tom Leppert
Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011
If Buddy Roemer’s name is unfamiliar to you, that’s because he was last governor in January of 1992, which was the year after he switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Twenty years is an awful long time time for someone to go between elections, much less for someone most famous for losing to ex-Klansman David Duke. (Duke has been thankfully absent from our political landscape as of late, his support for left-wing anti-war catspaw Cindy Sheehan notwithstanding.)
If anyone outside his immediate family has been urging Mr. Roemer to run, it has escaped my attention…
Tags:2012 Election, Buddy Roemer, Louisiana, Presidential Race
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 8th, 2011
From Rick Perry vs. The World comes this dandy video roundup of various Republican contenders for the 2012 Senate race. I hope to have time to watch all of them sometime today…
Tags:David Dewhurst, Elizabeth Ames Jones, Michael Williams, Roger Williams, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race, Tom Leppert
Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »