A few 2012 election tidbits, on the Senate race and others.
The Right Side of Austin reports that HB 1043 will further outlaw cockfighting by closing several loopholes in the law.
The news gives me the excuse to post a video of the greatest song ever written about cockfighting, Tom Russell’s “Gallo del Cielo”:
Matt S. Dowling has a post up up claiming that not only was Tom Leppert playing footsie with the SEIU, but he also sought the endorsement of everyone’s favorite pimp assistance agency, ACORN.
Unfortunately, he hasn’t actually provided the links to the evidence. When I pressed him on the issue in comments, he said “You ask and you shall receive….on Wednesday.”
Well, I like things sooner rather than later, and I wonder if he was hinting at this video showing Leppert hobnobbing with ACORN. Here’s the embedded MySpace version of it (I know, in the age of YouTube that’s like asking you to listen to a Victrola, but that’s the format it’s in):
Tom Leppert Supports ACORN for Dallas Mayor
bird | Myspace Video
The video, with a date of June 1, 2007, looks like it was put together an ACORN/Hispanic outreach video for Leppert’s mayoral campaign. (Don’t ask me why they put the sepia-tone wash over everything.) And here’s a screen capture of the pledge it shows Leppert signing:
Assuming the date is accurate, and there’s no funny stuff in the video editing, it does indeed show that Leppert sought ACORN’s endorsement, and pledged to support some of their initiatives.
How damaging will this be to Leppert’s campaign? I don’t know. So much RINO baggage has tumbled out of Leppert’s closet that I don’t know how much more damage another skeleton can inflict.
I do look forwarding to checking in with Dowling on Wednesday to see what he’s dug up…
Over on BurkaBlog I chanced across this framing of the debate over passing the state budget:
Who has more clout: A fictional Texas Ranger and a former major corporate CEO or a cadre of right wing interest groups?
Texas Senate Republicans gave an unabashed nod to the interest groups this week by passing a state budget that balances without tapping the rainy day fund. Instead, the Senate budget relies on accounting tricks and contingent spending. If an economic recovery fails to materialize, even deeper cuts to public education will occur.
The battle was for the senators’ heads and hearts on one side and fear of political retribution on the other. The public school coalition Raise Your Hand Texas ran television commercials featuring Tommy Lee Jones, who starred in the classic mini-series Lonesome Dove, and former GM and AT&T executive Ed Whitacre urging Texans to press against cuts to education. However, when the smoke cleared from the Senate’s budget debate, it was Michael Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texans, Peggy Venable of Americans for Prosperity, and Brooke Rollins of the Texas Public Policy Foundation who had carried the day.
The trio also ran commercials urging Republican senators to stick with state spending cuts proposed by the House. But lobbyists and lawmakers tell me the deciding factor was really the threat that the groups would find Republican primary opponents to run against incumbents and make sure the opponents were well financed. “It’s just intimidation,” said former Lieutenant Governor Bill Ratliff, one of the lobbyists for Raise Your Hand.
Well, that’s one way to spin the story. Here’s another way: Liberal pressure groups defeated by actual Texas taxpayers. And the possibility that an incumbent might actually be challenged in their primary? That’s not intimidation, it’s called democracy.
The underlying attitude of that piece seems to be: How dare elected representatives vote for limited government the way their constituents actually want rather than vote for big government the way liberal interest groups I agree with lobby for?
For years Republicans could get away with breaking their pledges to control government spending, knowing that the MSM would fall all over themselves to praise them for their “courage.” What’s changed has been the Tea Party and similar groups actually paying attention and challenging Republicans who break their promises. That’s what’s changed, and that’s what’s helping hold down spending.
No wonder liberals hate it.
Taxpayers can see the end results of the blue state model of big government, higher taxes, and caving in to unions and other liberal interest groups in California. Given the statements of some of the commentators here, California should be doing much better than Texas.
It isn’t. California businesses and taxpayers are leaving in droves to settle in Texas, because our red state economy is weathering the current recession much better than bankrupt, free-spending California.
The red state model is a success and the blue state model is a failure, and making an environment that is friendly to businesses and taxpayers is a far more effective strategy for states than making an environment that is friendly to big government, bureaucrat unions and liberal interest groups.
This is why Republicans are so firmly entrenched in Texas, and why Democrats haven’t won a statewide race in nearly two decades: The red state model works, the blue state model doesn’t.
This press release from the Ted Cruz campaign (penned by J2Strategies consultant Jason Johnson) on those Q1 Texas Senate Race fundraising totals makes interesting reading. The classic lawyer advice is “If the facts are on your side, pound the facts.” And since the facts seems very much on Cruz’s side, Johnson pounds them relentlessly and effectively. It’s not that the document is free of spin (it is, after all, a campaign press release), but that the spin which is there is made far more effective by the remorseless logic of the underlying numbers presented and the understated (indeed, respectful) nature of the comparisons made with Cruz’s opponent’s.
A few high-points, taken straight from the press release:
The press release takes particular aim at Michael Williams and Tom Leppert, perceiving (correctly, I think) that they are Cruz’s most serious rivals among declared candidates:
Cruz vs. Michael Williams
Michael Williams is the only candidate who is seriously attempting to contest Ted for the support of (1) conservative leaders, (2) grassroots activists, and (3) Tea Party leaders. But Michael Williams failed to raise sufficient funds to be able to compete in a statewide primary, especially against multiple candidates who have the ability to self-finance.In Q1: Cruz out-raised Michael Williams by a ratio of 2.5:1. $1,012,885 to $414,119 In Q1: Cruz’s cash on hand is nearly four times Michael Williams’s cash on hand. $895,153 to $237,210 (less current debts) In Q1: Cruz received over three times the contributions as Michael Williams (3.3:1.). Cruz: 1,147 Contributions; Michael Williams: 343 Contributions. In Q1: Cruz received donations from 122 Texas cities, compared to Michael Williams’s 70. In Q1: Cruz received donations from 37 States, compared to Michael Williams’s 16. On Facebook, Cruz has 57,293 supporters, compared to Michael Williams’s 7,896
The summary points make further comparisons with Michael Williams:
In the “sub-primary” to determine the strongest conservative candidate in the race, Cruz is in by far the strongest position. Indeed, numerous national conservative commentators and grassroots leaders publicly (1) expressed concern that Michael Williams could not raise enough funds to run a credible statewide campaign against a deep-pocketed self-funder, and (2) stated that they would choose between Cruz and Michael Williams based in significant part on who could raise the most money to run a strong conservative campaign. Nevertheless, Michael Williams was only able to raise just over $400,000, and in Q1 Cruz raised 2 1/2 times as much. In order to mount a credible statewide campaign in the Republican Primary, a candidate will need at least $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 to communicate with voters from January 2012 through Election Day. Michael Williams is not on a path to raise those funds. To be sure, a candidate with significant name identification among primary voters could conceivably compete with less than $10,000,000. However, multiple statewide polls have demonstrated that none of the current candidates has substantial name ID. Indeed, despite Michael Williams’s having served in a down-ballot elected position for many years, he and Cruz are statistically tied in statewide name ID. With the exception of Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, voters simply do not know any of the candidates, and it will take serious financial resources to change that in a state as large as Texas.
In addition to dinging Leppert for his narrow fundraising base, in this press release we also see the beginnings of the “Tom Leppert is a RINO” attack I’ve been anticipating ever since the Dallas Mayor threw his hat into the ring:
Politically, Leppert’s record as Mayor of Dallas is demonstrably out of step with the values of the Texas primary voters. Indeed, it is difficult to see a credible path for a moderate-to-liberal Mayor of Dallas to win a statewide Republican primary in Texas.
I’ve been communicating with the Cruz campaign, and recently sent off some questions for the candidate, and hope to put up his answers in the near future.
Ten months out from the primary, there’s still a lot of race left. Michael Williams has time to right his ship, David Dewhurst has time to decide whether to get in or stay out, and events can undermine even the best-run campaign. But at this point Cruz and Leppert have to be considered the front-runners.
“On Tuesday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) rejected Perry’s request to declare Texas a federal disaster area.”
In other news, Obama will be in Austin and El Paso next Tuesday. Perhaps those affected by the wildfires might make their feelings on the subject known to President Obama…