Time for another update. And since none of the Republicans liked the Keystone Pipeline decision, or Obama’s State of the Union address, I’m not going to list each individual reaction here.
A roundup piece from the Ft. Worth Star Telegram, in which we learn that the academics that MSM reporters usually go to for consensus wisdom say that Tea Party influence is on the wane. Imagine my shock.
Mark Davis of WBAP talks to Michael Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texas about both the Texas redistricting decision and the senate race:
Robert T. Garrett of The Dallas Morning Newsreports that David Dewhurst pledged to serve only two terms in the Senate if elected. As Garrett notes, Ted Cruz and Tom Leppert have also pledged to support term limits. Also, since I have been fairly critical of Garrett’s reporting on the race, I should point out that there seems to be neither errors nor sneers in this piece.
Somehow I overlooked this Garrett piece from 12 days ago where Craig James admits to taking “insignificant” amounts from boosters in his SMU days.
Also in the DSM, John David Terrance Stutz notes that David Dewhurst is preparing a state senate agenda that just happens to dovetail nicely with his U.S. senate race themes. Including “the potential negative repercussions of Obamacare and Sharia law.”
Another poll done for the David Dewhurst campaign comes to the startling conclusion that the David Dewhurst campaign is awesome. As I previously discussed, the partial results of secret polls leaked to the media without full disclosure of the complete results, including the questions asked, the sample size, the screening criteria, etc., is essentially meaningless spin. In fact, I just sent a query off pollster Michael Baselice asking for that information. I’ll let you know if I get a reply…
Addison also announced he would be at the East Texas Conservative candidate forum in Tyler Friday, January 27. Say what you will about Addison, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a longshot candidate keep up such a hectic schedule.
Ben Gambini doesn’t seem to have a website yet, but he does have a Facebook page. Judging from the graphic he put up there, he seems to be running mostly as a social conservative.
Democrat Addie Dainell Allen also has a Facebook page, where she seems to be going by Addie D. Allen.
Still can’t find campaign web presences for Dr. Joe Agris or Charles Holcomb.
Via email, longshot, non-filed Democratic candidate Virgil Bierschwale indicated he could not afford the filing fee, and thus is out of the race.
Via email, longshot, non-filed Democratic candidate Stanley Garza indicated he was giving up his campaign for 2012. Which brings up the question: Will he return that $1 of unspent campaign contributions?
In covering the American Jewish Committee/World Affairs Council of Houston senate candidate forum on foreign policy I mentioned previously, we have a news story that is demonstrably deficient in several areas:
You get told who wasn’t there (Craig James, Paul Sadler, and Lt. Governor Chupacabra), and even how many of each flavor were there (“six Republicans, three Democrats and one Libertarian”), but the article itself only lists five of those ten. That would be the very first “W” of the “Five Ws and an H,” assuming they still teach that at journalism school. (Maybe they’re replaced it with another class on “Reporting Social Justice.”)
However, because I’m so Old School, I actually went out and got a list of who attended the forum from the AJC: Republicans Ted Cruz, Tom Leppert, Glenn Addison, Lela Pittinger, Charles Holcomb, and Ben Gambini (yes, an actual Ben Gambini sighting!), Democrats Daniel Boone and Jason Gibson, Libertarian Jon Roland, and independent candidate Mike Champion. So it turns out that even the summary of candidate affiliations was wrong.
In an article on a foreign policy forum that runs just shy of 500 words, a grand total of 96 of them actually dealt with the candidate’s foreign policy views, and even those are essentially free of concrete information. Let’s repost those parts in their entirety:
Cruz also said that “President Obama has been the most anti-Israel president this nation has ever seen.”
[snip]
Leppert emphasized his experience as an international businessman familiar with issues of currency and international trade.
[snip]
Cruz and Leppert were the only two candidates who were able to respond with practiced ease to a series of sophisticated questions dealing with world affairs, ranging from Israel’s response to the Iranian nuclear threat to whether the United States should help bail out faltering European economies. Most of the others on the stage seemed unfamiliar with even the most basic foreign-policy issues.
That’s it. That’s the extent of coverage of the candidates’ foreign policy views in a forum dedicated to that very subject. We are no wiser as to what any candidate thinks of our troops levels in Afghanistan, what our relations with Pakistan should be, whether we should help topple the Assad regime in Syria, how to counter an increasingly bold China, or whether we should use military force to prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Were those topics covered? We don’t know, as Holley and the Chronicle do not deign to tell us.
Instead of giving the candidates’ actual views, Holley merely gives us his dismissive analysis of eight of the ten candidates, telling us they are “unfamiliar with even the most basic foreign-policy issues” without bothering to provide a single example of this ignorance.
The rest of the piece consists of horse race analysis, noting Dewhurst’s absence, audience attendance figures, and an interview with a random forum attendee. All of which would have been fine in a longer piece.
Joe Holley and/or his editor have missed a chance to actually inform their readers. I have a hard time thinking of a blogger who couldn’t have done a better job.
The Cruz campaign announced that it raised $1.1 million in Q4. That’s slightly up from the $1.05 million he raised in Q3, but honestly, I find it a bit disappointing; I would expect him to have a bigger Q4 fundraising bump from his National Review cover than that. They go on to note that the Cruz campaign ended the quarter having raised nearly $4 million for the race overall, and have $2.8 million cash on hand.
David Dewhurst, as previously reported, raised $1.54 million from donors in Q4, which was down from his Q3 totals, but we don’t know yet if he kicked any more of his own money into his campaign.
Dewhurst was always going to be the leading fundraiser in this race. The good news for the Cruz campaign is that, given the later primary date from the redistricting court fight, he has more time to close the fundraising gap. And Cruz is still winning the passion and momentum battles. But his campaign still needs to do more to leverage those advantages into contributions.
Still waiting on Q4 fundraising numbers from the candidates. In previous quarters they came out around the 15th of the month after the deadline, but maybe the deadline is longer for End-of-Year reports.
Another blogger grading the TPPF debate. He ranks Tom Leppert first (followed by Ted Cruz, Craig James and Glenn Addison) and David Dewhurst last. However, the Leppert campaign will find no comfort in his analysis of their candidate: “Once Texans take a closer look at his actual record (and how deeply he appears to be in the back pocket of T. Boone Pickens), I think he’ll be reduced to what he actually is: the least conservative and—other than Craig James —the least qualified candidate running for KBH’s vacated seat.” Ouch! But his rating of Dewhurst is even worse: “There is a reason that Dewhurst has been ducking Ted Cruz and refusing to attend any of the previous debates: he’s really, really bad at it…Remember the cartoon Droopy the dog? That’s pretty much exactly what Dewhurst sounded like on stage on Thursday evening. No energy, seemed lost and confused at times. Halting, slow speech.” Double ouch!
In The Dallas Morning News, Robert T. Garrett brings newspaper readers up to speed on the Huckabee/DeMint stuff I covered one to three weeks ago. Though he does manage to add some sneering liberal condescension at Fox News.
The American Jewish Committee and the World Affairs Council of Houston are sponsoring a foreign policy Senate candidate debate on Monday, January 23, at the Omni Houston Hotel. According to an email from the AJC, “12 of the 16 [candidates] have confirmed,” though Dewhurst and Democrat Paul Sadler were not among them.
Speaking of which, maybe I just wasn’t paying attention heretofore, but I don’t recall nearly this many debates for statewide elections in previous cycles. I mean, we’ve already had three times as many Texas Republican Senate debates as there were Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858! Thanks to the Tea Party, Texans are really enjoying a golden age of grassroots democracy…
Dewhurst gets the endorsement of Michael Reagan, AKA “Ronald Reagan’s non-goofy son.” That won’t hurt him, but I also don’t see it swaying any undecided voters.
Glenn Addison gets some attention from his local Community Impact newspaper. (For those unfamiliar with the, Community Impact newspapers are very local (I get the one for NW Austin) free monthly newspapers delivered by mail. I generally find the quality of their stories better than the Statesman.)
He also gets compared to Ron Paul by KVUE. The problem with almost right analysis of this sort is that it would probably take way too much time to list the salient differences between the two than it’s worth expending…
David Dewhurst appeared on the Mark Davis show on WBAP:
I’m sure that if you do any web-browsing at all, you’ve noticed all the Stop SOPA Blackouts (or, in the case of Fark, a white out) in opposition to the ill-conceived, MPAA-backed SOPA IP “protection” bill that would open up roughly, oh 99% of the web or so to frivolous lawsuits and censorship in the name of copyright protection. I haven’t been blogging about it because: A.) I have other fish to fry, B.) Lots of other bloggers are carrying the load there, and C.) I have a innate aversion to jumping on big internet bandwagons that everyone seems to agree with.
But now that Texas Senate Candidate Ted Cruz has climbed aboard the Stop SOPA bandwagon, I have an excuse to do so. This is another example of how quickly the Cruz campaign acts on current events, and seems to get a jump on its rivals when it comes to hot-button issues, as it did on Fast and Furious, and a quick look showed nothing about SOPA up on the David Dewhurst, Tom Leppert or Craig James websites.
SOPA is a bad bill, and while not nearly as big a concern as out-of-control spending by the federal government, it deserves to be killed.
I note that one of the bill’s main backers, Republican Lamar Smith of San Antonio, has not yet drawn any primary opposition for House District 21. Perhaps some San Antonio conservative might rectify that when the extended campaign filing period opens up after the redistricting case is settled…
The latest PPP poll has David Dewhurst still leading the Senate race at 36%, but that’s down five points since their last poll, while Cruz is up 6 points at 18%. Leppert is a distant third at 7% and Craig James comes in at 4%.
Most surprising piece of data: 39% of Dewhurst supporters identify with the Tea Party.
Caveats: The margin of error is +/-4.2%, and PPP is a left-leaning polling company. Still, even at twice Cruz’s support, the Dewhurst campaign can’t be happy with the overall trends…
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.
