Ted Cruz won the endorsement of Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, which is a terrific pickup for him. He joins Jim DeMint and Rand Paul among sitting conservative Republican senators who have endorsed Cruz.
Rice University political scientist Mark P. Jones says that David Dewhurst is a moderate by Republican standards: “Frequently used his powers of agenda control to help pass legislation opposed by the most conservative members of the Republican delegation. In addition, the best estimate of Dewhurst’s location along the liberal-conservative continuum which dominates voting in the Texas Senate suggests he is significantly less conservative than approximately one-third of the Republican delegation, particularly conservative outliers Brian Birdwell of Granbury and Dan Patrick of Houston….for Republicans located in the party’s centrist and moderate conservative wings, Dewhurst is likely to be ‘just right.'” It’s an interesting statistical analysis, and conforms to my own opinion of Dewhurst: Not a RINO, but not a true movement conservative, either.
The Dewhurst campaign is being more than a bit silly (again) in trying to link Cruz to George Soros because some of the other 1,300 lawyers at the same international law firm have done work for Soros. I’ve already debunked this. It’s actually fairly embarrassing that they’re still trying to make this argument.
After much back and forth with his campaign trying to find a date, I was finally able to interview Texas Senate candidate Craig James on March 21 at the Rudy’s on South 360 here in Austin. This was, alas, not an ideal atmosphere for an interview (it got better when one of his staffers asked Rudy’s to turn off their piped in music for the area, which is something I should have thought of asking for), and the first part of the interview makes it hard to hear. After the first question, I stopped the camera and moved it closer to James so you can hear his answers, so the audio gets much better about 1:35 in, though I seem to have cut off the top of his head in the process. So let me apologize in advance for the less-than-sterling sound and video quality for various parts of the interview, but the vast majority of the interview is intelligible. I filmed this with my Mino Flip camera and did a light edit in iMovie, so the crappiness is 100% my fault (or that of the environment it was filmed in).
Thoughts:
James is a very confident, well-spoken and personable speaker with a lot of natural charisma. He seems to get the big picture of the conservative agenda (a constitutionally limited government, and a commitment to free markets) and obviously comes from a social conservative background.
I like that he would eliminate the Department of Education, but it’s a bit hard to square with his emphasis on vocational training in the second part of the answer. It’s not that I disagree that it’s a good idea, it’s just that after the elimination of the Department of Education, I don’t see any viable (or proper) role for such fine-grained educational policy control at the federal level.
I’m not particularly interested in the Texas Tech question that starts part 2, but since it’s the most famous controversy he’s been involved in, the interview would have felt incomplete without it.
There are a couple of interesting admissions I give him credit for: admitting that Texans for a Better Tomorrow was created as a vehicle for him to explore a role in politics, and admitting that he would root for the New England Patriots (for whom he played in the NFL) were they to meet the Cowboys in the Superbowl, a brave position that’s obviously not pandering to his constituents.
I didn’t like the vagueness of his positions beyond a few policy specifics, and the fact he tried to straddle both sides of some issues (such as PIPA/SOPA in the second half of the interview). Both Ted Cruz and Tom Leppert were occasionally vague on some points, but James is already sounding awfully vague for someone who hasn’t ever held elective office.
The low-point of the interview (about 3:15 into the second part) was finding out that James has never heard of the Posse Comitatus Act. This is not an obscure statute, it’s one of the fundamental laws governing the limitations of using federal troops. I would expect not only anyone with an interest in politics to at least have heard of the Posse Comitatus act, I would actually expect the same of anyone with a basic college education.
I’d like to thank Craig James for taking time out of his busy schedule to speak with me, and his staff for their assistance in setting up the interview.
Now I’ve interviewed all the major Republican Senate candidates but David Dewhurst. If his campaign would get in touch with me to set a convenient date in the next few weeks, I’d like to correct that oversight…
Today I added The Texas Public Policy Foundation to the blogroll. TPPF is the leading Texas think tank on both state and national issues, including the budget, education, and ObamaCare. Take, for example, this piece by Mario Loyola explaining why the individual mandate cannot be separated from the rest of ObamaCare.
In addition to Loyola, TPPF has snagged an impressive array of fellows, including Richard Epstein, Arthur Laffer, and William Murchison, among many others. (Current Texas Senate candidate Ted Cruz also worked at their Center for Tenth Amendment Studies.)
If you care about the deeper implications of today’s policy controversies, the work TPPF is producing is well worth your time and attention.
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.
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…
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…
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?
This is a significant pickup for the Cruz campaign, since David Dewhurst was previously endorsed by the NRA for Lt. Governor. Thus far Dewhurst has gotten a the lion’s share of business group endorsements, split social conservative groups with Cruz, and essentially garnered none of the economic conservative or Tea Party endorsements, which Cruz has been dominating. The Gun Owners of America is a big win for Cruz, since Texas has lots of gun owners. My guess (and it’s just a guess) is that the NRA will either issue no endorsement in the race, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that they could endorse Dewhurst. (How the NRA does endorsements is a somewhat murky area I don’t fully understand, especially when they candidates in question have no legislative record.)
Gun Owners of America is a smaller and newer organization than the NRA, and have been far-stauncher in support of issues like concealed carry that the NRA was initially more cautious on. It’s a good endorsement for Cruz, and one that will solidify his position as the candidate most likely to be in a runoff with Dewhurst.
It’s been a very quiet week in the Senate race. I suspect that some of the candidates had already scheduled vacation or break time following the original March primary date, so I expect things to pick up shortly. But Both Ted Cruz and David Dewhurst released ads mentioning their fathers:
Ted Cruz has released two radio ads, one called “Fighter” and the other “Delivered”:
Forbes columnist Louis Woodhill looks at Ted Cruz’s economic program. He generally likes them, but doesn’t go far enough in some areas, and goes to far in seeking entitlement reform. I agree with the former and disagree with the latter.
Robert T. Garrett in The Dallas Morning news says that the “guilt by association” wars between Cruz, Dewhurst, and Craig James is more than a little silly. Unless there’s more to the Tony Podesta story than the Cruz campaign has been able to bring forth, I tend to agree.
He also seems to be doing something of a straddle on the Texas Women’s Health Program issue:”I’m all for protecting life. I’m pro-life. I’m also for taking care of women and their health so there’s a balance somewhere in there, personal responsibility, and if they have a need for things, that they need to be able to take care of it themselves. If they can’t, then there needs to be a service to help them take care of their health issues.”
The Texas Tribune talks about Texas having a conservative core of voters, and how that’s affecting the presidential and Senate races (among others). It’s actually not too bad as these things go, but I do wonder if anyone has ever done a similar profile on “extremely liberal” voters?
Finally, I still haven’t been able to meet with David Dewhurst or Craig James for interviews. If the campaigns of either are reading this, and your candidate will be in either Austin or Houston sometime in the next month, please contact me so we can set up an interview.
Now that all the post-redistricting filings have been finalized, I thought I would take a look at Texas U.S. congressional races to see where either the Republican or the Democratic party has failed to field a candidate. While districts are usually drawn to protect incumbents and minimize the chances of the out-of-power party, it’s usually best to contest all possible races, for a variety of reasons:
You can’t beat something with nothing.
It helps tie down time, money and effort that could otherwise be shifted to other races.
It helps down-ballot races by drawing voters to the polls.
It offers a chance for Republicans to get their message of limited government, lower taxes and greater freedom out to people who might not otherwise hear it, and possibly make some converts in the process (the parable of the sower).
Stuff happens. Sudden, unexpected twists of fate can play out at any moment. Incumbents get caught stuffing bribe money into their freezer or consorting with prostitutes. Planes crash. And there’s always the possibility of someone being caught in bed with a dead woman or a live goat.
Unexpected opportunities arise, but you can’t take advantage of them if you don’t have a candidate in place.
With that in mind, let’s see how well Republicans and Democrats have done in finding candidates for all 36 Texas congressional races:
U.S. Congressional Races Where Democrats Failed to Field a Candidate
U.S. Representative District 2: Republican Incumbent Ted Poe
U.S. Representative District 3: Republican Incumbent Sam Johnson
U.S. Representative District 4: Republican Incumbent Ralph Hall
U.S. Representative District 13: Republican Incumbent Mac Thornberry
U.S. Representative District 17: Republican Incumbent Bill Flores (in a seat that was held by Democrat Chet Edwards until 2010!)
U.S. Representative District 19: Republican Incumbent Randy Neugebauer
U.S. Representative District 25: Open seat, formerly Lloyd Dogget’s until he moved to the newly created 35th District following redistricting. No less than 12 Republicans have filed for this seat (including former Senate candidates Michael Williams, Roger Williams, and Charles Holcomb). 56% of the newly reformulated 25th District’s residents voted for McCain in 2008; that’s solidly, but not overwhelmingly, Republican. But not one Democrat bothered to run…
So that’s seven U.S. Congressional races where Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee National Chair for Recruiting and Candidate Services Allyson Schwartz, and, well, whoever the hell it is at The Texas Democratic Party in charge of recruiting candidates, were unable to find a single person out of approximately 688,488 citizens in each of those districts to run for the United States House of Representatives. Say what you want about Alvin Greene running for Senator in South Carolina, but at least he showed up, which Texas Democrats couldn’t even manage to do in almost one-fifth of U.S. Congressional races this year.
By contrast, Republicans only fell down on the job in one congressional district:
U.S. Congressional Race Where Republicans Failed to Field a Candidate
U.S. Representative District 29: Democratic incumbent Gene Green gets a pass. In a district that went 62% for Obama, any Republican was going to have an uphill race. But given that there are five districts even more heavily Democratic (the 9th, 16th, 18th, 33rd, and 35th) where Republicans fielded a candidate, this seems like a lost opportunity, especially for a Republican Hispanic candidate in a Hispanic district headed by an old white guy. (Granted, this didn’t work for Roy Morales in 2010, but I would have preferred that Morales file again and run a token campaign over no one running at all.)
All in all this is good news for Republicans. If I were a Democrat, I’d be mad at how thoroughly the state and national party fell down on the job of recruiting candidates.
A suggestion: All six Republican incumbents who haven’t drawn an opponent should each hold a fundraiser for Republican Incumbent Francisco “Quico” Canseco, who figures to have the toughest race of any incumbent this time around.
I’ve made my feelings about district-shopping and carpetbagger bids clear before. Roger Williams’ home of Weatherford is smack dab in District 12, currently represented by Republican incumbent Kay Granger. I can certainly understand not wanting to take on an entrenched Republican incumbent, but that still doesn’t justify district shopping.
That said, I think either Williams would make a solid Republican Representative.
The latest Democratic Party filing information shows Daniel Boone no longer running for U.S. Senator, but rather running in the U.S. 21st Congressional District against the SOPA-loving incumbent Republican Lamar Smith. I’m not sure this is a good move for Boone, since I think he was at least as likely as Paul Sadler to win the nomination. Republican Charles Holcomb has also dropped out.
Conversely, a Grady Yarbrough now appears on the list of Democratic candidates. He appears to be a personal counselor [update: apparently not the same Grady Yarbrough; see comments] and his named is spelled differently than the late Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough, who helped transform the Texas Democratic Party from a majority conservative party to a minority liberal one.
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 “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.)
