I was busy with a family even over the weekend, so I haven’t had a chance to sit down and watch the debate all the way through. But I’ll go ahead and put it up for others to take a gander at (Hat tip: The Right Side of Austin). Be aware that the debate doesn’t actually start until over an hour into the video. I’ve heard of long intros, but that’s ridiculous…
The Cruz campaign sent out a list of links, and rather than link all of them and claim them as my own, I’ll just direct you thataway.
One link they didn’t send out was this review over at Big Jolly Politics, where he gave James, Addison and Dewhurst As, Cruz a B, and Leppert a C.
Kathleen McKinney ranked it Cruz first, James second, and Leppert last (“Not a lot of flash there”), though her overall impressions of all were positive.
I’ve been busy hosting a family even this weekend, so I haven’t been able to do a post on Thursday’s debate. But I wanted to point out the results of the straw poll at Saddle Up Houston (which, with 3,321 voters, had a lot more attendees than I suspected).
Keep in mind all the usual caveats that apply to straw polls: They don’t tend to mean a lot when it comes to real voting.
President
Ron Paul: 54.4%
Rick Santorum: 15.6%
Rick Perry: 13.3%
Newt Gingrich: 11.9%
Mitt Romney: 4.2%
Jon Huntsman: 0.5%
Charles “Buddy” Roemer: 0.0% (Jeeze, how do you not manage to snag even .1% of the vote?)
That’s an excellent showing for Ron Paul, but Paul has consistently proven himself much more adept at winning straw polls than primaries. Caveats aside, it’s a bad showing for Rick Perry (if you can’t win a straw poll in your own state, where can you win it?) and Mitt Romney (the frontrunner should get more than 4.2% of the vote, even against two favorite sons).
Senate
Ted Cruz: 49.1%
Craig James: 12.9%
Glenn Addison: 12.0%
Tom Leppert: 9.1%
Lela Pittenger: 9.1%
David Dewhurst: 7.1%
Charles Holcomb: 0.3%
“Doc Joe” Agris: 0.3%
Curt Cleaver: 0.0%
Ben Gambini: 0.0%
That’s good news for Ted Cruz, Craig James and Glenn Addison, and bad news for David Dewhurst. And even though Tom Leppert outpointed Dewhurst, he can’t feel good at merely tying Lela Pittenger, who has neither campaigned as much as him, nor spent 1/1000th of what he has. (Also, Doc Agris can’t feel good about putting up such a paltry total in his own back yard.) Gambini getting 0% isn’t a surprise, since he’s been the invisible man. Cleaver getting 0% is a bit more surprising, since he’s had at least the semblance of a campaign.
But again, these results don’t mean much, as I seriously doubt we’re going to see Craig James battle Glenn Addison for a spot in the runoff against Cruz. They do highlight an enthusiasm gap between Cruz and Dewhurst, but just how much of that gap will translate into votes remains to be seen. I don’t think we’ll get a glimpse of how the race is shaping up in the minds of actual primary voters until we see polls from some of the established polling companies like Gallup, Zogby and Rasmussen.
I expect the campaigns to start announcing Q4 fundraising results any day now, and I just sent off a list of interview questions to the Craig James campaign today. So here’s one final news roundup of the senate race before an expected avalanche of news.
Cruz, Dewhurst, Tom Leppert and James will all be appearing at a March 2 debate sponsored by The Dallas Morning News.
An interesting piece on a David Dewhurst proposal (or maybe just a trial balloon idea) for, not an illegal alien amnesty “path to citizenship,” but a path to a work visa, in which “if an undocumented/Illegal resident paid for thumb prints, criminal background checks, and verification of residence, we could grant them a two year Visa…renewable only if they have not been convicted of a felony and have paid their taxes.” I’m not sure if this is the right place to mention it. I’m not in complete agreement with the writer, but I will say that Dewhurst’s proposal is far from the worst illegal alien proposal I’ve read.
Back on October 11, I noted that Cruz had picked up the endorsements of “over 115 leaders of the Texas Federation of Republican Women.” The Cruz campaign has now upped that count to over 200 leader Republican women.
Still waiting for Democrats Paul Sadler to put up a campaign website, and Jason Gibson to put up one that’s more than a placeholder. Come on people, putting up a page with a brief bio and a donation link is not that freaking hard. With Daniel Boone not having updated his pages in over a month, maybe Sean Hubbard will capture the Democratic nomination simply because he can update his Facebook and Twitter feeds.
This morning former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee endorsed David Dewhurst’s Senate campaign.
That’s a very good pickup for Dewhurst, and along with his previous Pro-Life endorsements, it shows that he’s doing better than expected among social conservatives.
In his endorsement, Huckabee said that “Lt. Gov. Dewhurst is a strong fiscal conservative, with a record to show for it,” However, Huckabee is not exactly known as a small government conservative. As far as I can tell, Dewhurst has yet to pick up any significant small government/budget cutting/Tea Party endorsements, which thus far Ted Cruz has monopolized (as well as picking up some social conservative endorsements of his own).
The MSM loves to play up the economic-conservatives-vs.-social-conservatives angle (primarily because they hate both, and intramural GOP brawls help increased the chances of their favored liberal candidates), but the most successful conservative politicians (Ronald Reagan most conspicuously) have been fusionists that embodied policies that appealed to both. Texas voters are socially conservative, but they also love low taxes and small government. Whoever wins the GOP nomination will have to appeal to both groups.
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
Very soon the candidates should be crowing about how much money they pulled in during Q4. In the meantime, here are few variegated updates for your political junkie pleasure:
Rick Perry gives a boost, in passing, to Dewhurst’s Senate bid in Iowa, with Dewhurst and other Texas officials present. It certainly won’t hurt Dewhurst’s chances, but it’s a bit short of a full-throttle endorsement.
James says he’s living on real street. “Only in politics is it possible for a former football star turned national broadcaster be able to make the claim how connected they are to ordinary people.”
KYFO in Lubbock did a poll asking people if they would vote for James in the Senate race. Right now a bracing 96% are voting no…
A not particularly insightful breakdown of the race. The Craig James-to-Jack Kemp comparison is particularly inapt; Kemp went straight from playing quarterback for the Buffalo Bills in 1969 to running for and winning a congressional seat from Buffalo in 1970. James’ last year of professional football was 1988, and being a cable sportscaster is a level of fame below even a Kardashian sister.
Democrat Paul Sadler gets more love from the Longview News-Journal. Sadler’s hometown of Henderson lies between Nacogdoches and Longview.
The Houston Chroniclealso examines Sadler’s chances. Democrats have pinned their hopes on “a former six-term Texas House member who hasn’t held office since 2003, who has little statewide name identification and whose last race was a losing effort in a runoff election for the state Senate in 2004.” Indeed. But note that writer Joe Holley is incorrect when he says that Sadler “is among six other Democratic candidates,” as there are now only five Democratic Senate candidates. However, I can’t really blame him, as the Texas Democratic Party has never actually said why Eric Roberson and John Morton no longer appear on the list of candidates, nor have they answered my query on the issue.
And here’s another article that mentions Sadler, but none of his opponents in the Democratic primary. It’s almost as if the state’s lockstep MSM outlets have already picked their preferred candidate…
EmpowerTexas will be hosting a senate debate in Austin on January 12. Participants are Cruz, Dewhurst, James, Tom Leppert and Glenn Addison (which is the right five if you’re limiting it to five).
There’s also a Saddle Up Texas Straw Poll event in Houston January 12-14. Cruz, Dewhurst, Leppert, Addison, Lela Pittenger and Dr. Joe Agris are all scheduled to attend, as is Andrew Breitbart. Call me a cynic, but when an event has a list of sponsorship opportunities but no actual sponsors 10 days before the event, as well as $45 tickets (good luck with that), my gut feeling is that the organizers are going to take a serious financial bath. (Indeed, it gives off a whiff of The Ultimate Fantasy, a legendary Star Trek convention debacle I attended which also took place in Houston…)
I try to deal with substantive issues in coverage of the race, but every now and then it’s worth noting good old-fashioned politicking. Take, for example, the way Cruz celebrates every Texas university bowl win (U of H, Baylor, A&M, Texas) on his Facebook page, including team logos. Leppert comes close, but missed the Aggies. Dewhurst doesn’t seem to discuss sports on his Facebook page, despite including the Longhorns among his likes.
Since that piece came out December 19, it’s hardly cutting edge news. But I’ve been ruminating on it for a while to try and figure out if I have anything more to add. I think I do. And with the Iowa Caucuses looming, I probably should.
I haven’t covered much of the 2012 Presidential race, mainly because I’ve been focusing on the Texas Senate Race and everyone and their dog was blogging every twist in the POTUSA race.
OMG! Ron Paul is up 3 points!
Plus I don’t have cable, so I wouldn’t be able to watch the interminable numerous debates.
Finally, a baseball team the Astros can beat
Which is why I didn’t see Perry commit his brain freezes, of which there were many. (My theory is that he was still hopped up on goofballs from his back operation.)
Percocet makes me see tiny little Jim Hightowers, and I have to grab and crush each and every one of them
Having lived in Texas for the entirety of Rick Perry’s tenure as governor, I can attest that he is not a perfect candidate. There have been times (Gardasil, the Trans-Texas Corridor) when he’s strayed from conservative principles. And he’s not as polished as Mitt Romney or as articulate as Newt Gingrich.
But Perry isn’t running against the second coming of Ronald Reagan, or even Sarah Palin. Every other major Republican contender is not only at least as flawed, they’re considerably more so.
Despite cheer-leading from the likes of Kathryn Jean Lopez and Jennifer Rubin, Mitt Romney has always struck me as a phony without any real core convictions except that he should be in charge; sort of the Republican answer to Bill Clinton, without the charm or adultery. Pick an issue and Romney’s been on both sides of it at one time or another. He seems the most likely of all the major candidates to be praised by The New York Times and The Washington Post for “growing” in office. Romney is most likely to disappoint me in caving in to D.C.’s usual free-spending, pork-barrel log-rolling.
I could get behind voting for the Newt Gingrich of 1994, the one whose laser-like focus on the holding the Democrats accountable for their misdeed and promoting the Contract With America helped Republicans take the House and Senate, set the stage for a welfare reform and helped (temporarily) balance the budget. Sadly, that Gingrich is not up on offer. We have to deal with the idea-a-minute-and-many-of-them-bad, ex-lobbyist, “Big Government Conservative” Newt Gingrich of 2012, the one so devastatingly and accurately skewered by Mark Steyn in this week’s National Review. (As Bruce Sterling once said at a Turkey City Writer’s Workshop, “Cruel, but fair!”) No matter how many times he tries to sound like Reagan, there are all those other times when he sounds like everyone from Al Gore to Faith Popcorn. I imagine that I would be disappointed many times in a Gingrich Presidency. Unlike Romney, I’m sure Gingrich would find entirely new and innovative ways to disappoint me.
I could almost get behind Ron Paul, based on his absolute, rock-steady position on the biggest problem facing America: out-of-control government spending and ever-increasing size and power of the federal government. The debt bomb is an existential threat to American prosperity, and If we don’t shrink government and get the deficit under control, none of the other issues really matter. And I lean heavily on the libertarian side of the spectrum. But even given that, there’s just too much weirdness (what Kevin Williamson called “his Ronness”) about the rest of Paul’s policies: the newsletters, the footsie with racism, the conspiracy theories, the weirdness about gays and wishing Israel didn’t exist, the running against Reagan. Being just one of 435 House members was a great place for Paul to be, since he could bring up conservative and Libertarian issues without any chance that his wackier ideas would ever end up in legislation, but the Presidency is a different kettle of fish. Plus there’s the problem of his electability, or rather lack thereof. With all his diverse baggage, I believe that Paul is the GOP candidate Obama would have the best chance of defeating. Ignore all the hard-left liberals talking up Paul as a better choice than Obama; it’s just a smokescreen that would evaporate at the first excuse to jump back on the Obama bandwagon. William F. Buckley always said conservative should support the right-most viable candidate. I don’t think Paul is a viable candidate.
Michelle Bachmann’s star has faded even more than Perry’s, and she doesn’t have Perry’s executive experience or record on job creation. The fact she’s neither dumb nor crazy doesn’t mean the MSM won’t pull the Full Sarah Palin Treatment on her (Andrew Sullivan womb-diving optional) were she to get the nod.
Rick Santorum: Too little, too late, he lost his last election, and his strengths don’t lie in the economy and job creation.
Jon Huntsman: Which part of “Republican” was unclear?
By process of elimination, that leaves Perry. As I said before, Perry isn’t perfect, but he has a record on holding the line on government spending and enabling job creation that puts Romney to shame. One again, let’s go to the charts that the indispensable Will Franklin of Willisms has provided on Texas job creation:
And the case for Perry over Romney (again thanks to WILLisms) is even more stark:
While I have criticized Perry’s campaign budget proposals for being too timid, Perry insisted on balancing the Texas budget without tax hikes. I assure you that California would love to have Texas’ budget. Indeed, adjusted for inflation, population growth, and federally-mandated spending, the Texas state budget has actually gone down under Perry. His guiding principle has been “don’t spend all the money,” and it’s one that Washington desperately needs.
One final, very big reason to support Perry: He can win. Perry’s never lost a race, because he’s a tough and tenacious campaigner who’s not afraid to hit his opponents hard. Everyone thought Kay Bailey Hutchison was going to cream Perry in the 2010 governor’s race, and he beat her like a rented mule.
Or maybe a rented donkey.
In the general election against Bill White, he ran an ad featuring a police widow talking about how her husband had been killed by a multi-arrested illegal alien while White was touting Houston as a “sanctuary city.”
Even professional MSM Perry hater Paul Burka says that Perry is a hard man. “He is the kind of politician who would rather be feared than loved.” Perry will have absolutely no fear of taking the fight to Obama and going negative early and often, and he won’t let political correctness cow him into treating Obama with kid gloves.
Will the media savage Rick Perry for his flubs? Of course they will. But, as Ace noted, they’ll always find a way to crucify any Republican candidate to make Obama look better. They’ll use the same “he’s an idiot” line of attack they used on Reagan and Bush43…and you saw how far that got them.
If you’re still undecided on Perry, this video should at least give you a more rounded picture of him:
For those who think Perry is already out of the race, remember that at this point in 2004, the consensus was that Howard Dean was going to be the nominee. There’s a reason Americans actually get to vote, and they frequently prove the pundits wrong.
Insta linked to this Taylor Marsh piece about how she, as a liberal, is Totally Fed Up with Obama and the Democratic Party. I’m a bit less impressed with its significance (or sincerity) than he was, even ignoring the usual parade of liberal straw-man conservatives, mainly because of the sheer cringing cowardice of the timing. It’s like a scrawny guy at a bar going “Did you hear Mike Tyson call that woman a bitch? If he were here right now, I’d totally kick his ass!” five minutes after Tyson left.
Sure you would, champ.
Obama and other top Democrats have proven that their main priority is increasing the size and scope of the federal government, and using the benefits of that increased size and scope to rake off profits and pay off their cronies and interest groups. They’ve been doing that for three years, just like they’ve been ignoring that progressive wish list (closing Gitmo, ending predator drone strikes, ending the Bush tax cuts, etc.) for the same period of time, and now is when you’re finally fed up?
Right.
You know when your cries of outrage might have had an actual effect? Three to six months ago, when it was still possible for Obama to face a serious primary challenge from the left. But for all their theatrical outrage over “secret Republican” Obama, not a single high profile liberal Democrat stepped up to challenge him in the Democratic Presidential Primary. Not one. And now that it’s absolutely too late for that to happen, Taylor Marsh makes high-minded, ego-flattering noises about how she’s willing to leave the Democratic Party.
Sure she is.
You know why the Republican establishment had to take the Tea Party seriously? They took scalps. Marco Rubio kicked Charlie Crist to the curb, Christine O’Donnell knocked off Mike Castle, and Joe Miller forced Lisa Murkowski to run as an independent. That’s when the GOP establishment knew the Tea Party was too dangerous to take for granted. Micky Kaus noted that those challenges are what probably killed the illegal alien amnesty DREAM act: “By my count, Miller’s primary coup may have helped gain around ten votes by terrifying GOP incumbents who might otherwise have been tempted by the prospect of a feel-good, bipartisan, MSM-approved pro-DREAM stand.”
Until liberals are willing to mount real primary challenges to big-name Democrats, all their talk of disenchantment with the party is just so much vainglorious posturing. And as for their votes being “up for grabs” in November? Please. Not a single one of them will be pulling the lever for Rick Perry or Mitt Romney to spite Obama. They know it, we know it, and Obama knows it.
Maybe at some point down the line liberals really will become fed up with being taken for granted by the Democratic Party (not to mention the endemic crony capitalism corruption), and put some actual skin in the game. Until then, they’re just lap dog Chihuahuas pretending they’re Dobermans.
On December 19, I reported two additional Democrats, Eric Roberson and John Morton, joining the Senate race because their names appeared on the official list of Democratic candidates, bringing the total of Democratic candidates to seven.
However, the next day, Eric Roberson would be off the list, having filed for another race.
Strangely enough, today the name of John Morton is no longer found on the official list of Democratic candidates. No explanation for his disappearance, though I have sent a query to the Texas Democratic Party for clarification.
That leaves five democratic candidates: Sean Hubbard, Daniel Boone, Jason Gibson, Paul Sadler, and Addie Dainell Allen.
At the current rate, all Democratic candidates will be off the ballot by mid-January…
