Posts Tagged ‘Ted Cruz’
Wednesday, April 27th, 2011
The FEC finally has fundraising totals for all the major declared candidates in the 2012 Texas Senate race. Ranked from most to least, they are:
- Tom Leppert: Raised $2,690,081 (including a $1,600,000 loan) and still has $2,592,219 on hand
- Ted Cruz: Raised $1,013,060 (including a $70,000 loan) and has $965,153 on hand
- Roger Williams: Raised $598,470 (including a $250,000 loan) and has $1,250,300 on hand
- Michael Williams: Raised $418,619 (including $132,160 in loans) and has $369,369 on hand
- Elizabeth Ames Jones: Raised $122,185 and has $128,541 on hand
Despite later starts than their opponents, Leppert and Cruz are clearly setting the pace here. Both seem to be raising money and campaigning hard, and Cruz has generated a significant swell of grass-roots enthusiasm. If they can keep this up, both will be serious contenders to make the runoff in March, with or without Lt. Governor David Dewhurst entering the race.
Roger Williams has raised enough to stay in the game, but despite the endorsement of former President George H. W. Bush (a legendary rainmaker with a well-oiled fundraising machine), there’s no sign that the Bush dynasty has put the full force of their fundraising prowess behind him. He’ll need to knock out Leppert (or Dewhurst, if he runs) to make the runoff, and so far he shows no signs of doing it.
Michael Williams has also raised enough to stay in the game, and probably has grassroots enthusiasm second only to Cruz, but he needs to pick up the pace if he wants to remain competitive. The current pace isn’t going to get it done, and he can’t make the runoff unless Cruz slips.
Ever since I posted on Elizabeth Ames Jones’ paltry fundraising efforts, I’ve been trying to figure out a reason for her to stay in the race. I haven’t come up with one. If there’s any significant enthusiasm for her campaign out among Texas Republicans, it takes more sensitive scientific instruments than I possess to measure. I don’t see her candidacy filling any sort of ideological void, and the sort of people who would vote for her solely based on her sex are not the same people who vote in a Republican primary. While there’s a lot of time left in the campaign, unless she can figure out how to make some serious noise (say, launching a series of non-stop attacks on Leppert for being a secret RINO) she should probably get out of the race.
A few other fundraising tidbits gleaned from the FEC reports:
Sean Hubbard, thus far the only declared Democratic candidate, raised $6,511.
Among the longshots, Andrew Castanuela ($262) and Lela Pettinger ($150) are hardly setting the world on fire, but Magnolia funeral home-owner Glenn Addison (who’s running on a social conservative platform) managed to pull in $20,432 (even if $6,877 was in loans), or about one sixth what Jones, a statewide office holder who has been running for about a year, pulled in over the same period of time. For someone with no real chance of winning the nomination, that’s pretty impressive. Mr. Addison won’t be the next U.S. Senator from Texas, but he might do very well in a local race should he choose to run for one in 2014.
Tags:2012 Election, David Dewhurst, Elizabeth Ames Jones, Glenn Addison, Michael Williams, RINO, Roger Williams, Sean Hubbard, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race, Tom Leppert
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 7 Comments »
Thursday, April 21st, 2011
FEC Reports for the Texas Senate Race continue to be posted for the fundraising period of January 1—March 31. (Indeed, they’re being posted so slowly that I wonder if a single arthritic temp is doing all the data entry.) The reports of Ted Cruz (over $1 million announced) and Michael Williams (over half a million announced) are not up yet, Tom Leppert’s $2,690,081 ($1.6 million of which was Leppert’s personal loan to his own campaign) was already announced, and Roger Williams raised $598,470.
But Elizabeth Ames Jones’ report is finally up, and it’s disastrous: $122,185. Raising less than one-quarter what the other major declared candidates have in the same period of time isn’t going to get the job done. Moreover, it’s a major step back from her previous 2010 fundraising total of $989,765.
Jones already had the most difficult path to victory of the major declared candidates, a path some were already saying was non-existent. Ted Cruz and Michael Williams were battling in the Tea Party Primary for the movement conservative vote, while Tom Leppert and Roger Williams are competing for the “who gets the establishment nod if David Dewhurst skips the race” slot. Jones, on the other hand, has, what? Unless she can magically pick up a disproportionate share of the woman’s vote (which seems doubtful), it’s impossible to see how she remains competitive when she’s been so heavily outgunned in the fundraising arms race. I’m far from an insider, but as far as I can tell, the groundswell for a Jones candidacy has been all but non-existent.
There’s a long way yet to go before the primary, but unless Jones can, at a minimum, quadruple her fundraising totals in the second quarter, she’s toast. She made be toast already.
Tags:2012 Election, David Dewhurst, Elizabeth Ames Jones, FEC, fundraising, Michael Williams, Roger Williams, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race, Tom Leppert
Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 3 Comments »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
Tags:David Dewhurst, Joe Barton, Michael Williams, Republicans, Ron Paul, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race
Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
It’s only a few days after she announced her retirement, but several serious contenders are getting a lot of buzz for Kay Baily Hutchison’s Senate seat:
- Even though he hasn’t announced, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst is considered the presumptive front-runner. Having successfully run for a very powerful (and very prominent) statewide office, Dewhurst would be a formidable candidate. And his intention to jump in just may be deduced from the Google ad that shows up when you search for his name: “Taking the Fight to Washington? Stay Updated Here/www.DavidDewhurst.com”
- Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbot is rumored to to be considering a run. Current Senator John Cornyn made the same jump in 2002.
- Roger Williams, former Texas Secretary of State (not the theologian the Rhode Island university is named for), has picked up a serious endorsement from former President George H. W. Bush. Williams worked on both the Bush41 and Bush43 campaigns and headed the Texas Republican Victory 2008 Coordinated Campaign. It’s a big jump from Secretary of State (which is an appointed, not elected office) to the Senate, but the Bush Machine excels at fund-raising, and if it really throws its weight behind Williams he won’t have any trouble raising money. (Edited to add: I didn’t realize that Williams had already announced his candidacy all the way back in December 2008.)
- A different Williams, Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, gets some serious love from South Carolina Senator (and Senate Conservatives Fund head honcho) Jim DeMint. But the Railroad Commission, while quite powerful, doesn’t have nearly the public profile of Lt. Governor.
- Another Railroad Commissioner, Elizabeth Ames Jones, is already off and running, having evidently announced back in 2009.
- A serious dark-horse contender is State Senator Dan Patrick, who has a lot of name-recognition in Houston for being a former sportscaster. (He might even get false name recognition, since he’s not the other sports-casting Dan Patrick.)
- Other names being bandied about are Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert and former Solicitor General of Texas Ted Cruz.
And that’s just the first batch of names to be floated, and says nothing of random billionaires or old Republican warhorses jumping into the race.
The Democratic names being floated are a far less imposing bunch: San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, ex-Congressman Chet Edwards, and former Comptroller John Sharp. Edwards got trounced in the most recent election, while Sharp was defeated by Dewhurst in his run for Lieutenant Governor in 2002, and it’s hard to treat someone as a serious candidate who haven’t updated their twitter feed in almost a year and who let his campaign website (http://www.johnsharp.com/) lapse.
In related news, Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, of deeply red North Dakota, announced he was declining to run in 2012 as well, which means Democratic chances to hold onto the seat probably just went from slim to none.
Tags:2012 Election, Adrian Garcia, Chet Edwards, Dan Patrick, David Dewhurst, Elizabeth Ames Jones, George H. W. Bush, Gregg Abbot, Jim DeMint, John Sharp, Julian Castro, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Michael Williams, Roger Williams, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race, Tom Leppert
Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 3 Comments »