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…
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.
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.
Now that redistricting is (mostly) settled (for this year), reverberations are still being felt around the state in various races. First a correction: Candidates have until March 9 to file, not the March 6 date I reported yesterday.
Other tidbits:
Republicans have a list of newly filed candidates, including former winery owner John Yoggerst running against Lloyd Doggett in District 35.
The Democrats don’t have a separate page, but you can sort by date on the main candidate page. So far there are only a couple of new Sheriff filings.
Following yesterday’s roundup, Democrat Pete Gallego is warning fellow Democrat Ciro Rodriguez not to jump into the District 23 congressional race against Republican incumbent Francisco “Quico” Canseco (who unseated Rodriguez in 2010). Rodriguez is currently running against Lloyd Doggett in District 35.
For the second election in a row, Solomon Ortiz has been booted. Ortiz Sr. was defeated by Blake Farenthold in 2010, and now Solomon Ortiz, Jr. is calling it quits from the Texas House because “District 33 has been eliminated.” I was going to make fun of him for exaggerating, but dang, he has a point: District 33 has gone from Corpus to NE of the Metroplex.
The new redistricting maps, that is. Sounds like they haven’t been made final just yet, but most likely will be. If that happens this week, that might mean a late April (rather than May) primary.
Does this mean Maine might actually elect a Republican who actually votes, you know, Republican? I doubt it. Maine is pretty liberal, and even someone like Scott Brown might find it difficult to win there. I think you could still potentially elect a Republican more conservative than Snowe (which is, lets face it, not too hard), but the differences will be more in degree than in kind. But it might be possible to elect someone who wouldn’t vote for Obama’s pork-laden stimulus.
Will this make it more difficult for the Republicans to take the Senate? Maybe, but I still think a Republican takeover is more likely than not.
(Hat tip: Ace, who thinks “there’s something we’re not being told yet.” Illness? Obama making her Ambassador to Canada? Who knows?)
Trying to catch back up with the Senate race after my trip, so some of this may be slightly old news:
The biggest recent news in the Senate race is the newest Texas Tribune/UT poll that shows David Dewhurst leading the race at 38%, but with Ted Cruz up to 27%. Tom Leppert and Craig James are tied way back in third place at 7% each, an outcome that must be discouraging for the Leppert team, given that he’s been running for over a year and James has only been running for two months. Glenn Addison and Lela Pittenger are the only other candidates to get any support at all at 1% each. However, the margin of error is ±5%. Full results in PDF form here.
Dewhurst managed to pull in big bucks from a big donor in Washington. A big democratic donor. “He was doing what he always does: reaching across the aisle. He’s not a Washington insider yet, and he’s already a Washington insider. No wonder the Texas press has so often labeled him ‘bipartisan’…This is a critical race for the Tea Party and for conservatives across the country. If Dewhurst wins, we’ll have yet another squish on our hands – and a squish who is only too eager to rub elbows with the liberal establishment.” (Hat tip: Must Read Texas.)
This Kate Alexander piece in the Austin-American Statesman is pretty interesting, not so much for the information there (BattleSwarm readers will find very little I haven’t already covered), but for the approach. Overall the piece is probably mildly negative on Cruz, but not unfairly negative. Unlike, say, certain of Robert T. Garrett’s pieces in The Dallas Morning News, the issues she raises are generally real and non-trivial, though not ones that most conservatives will find of burning importance.
Cruz womps the field in a survey of the North Texas Tea Party.
The Dewhurst campaign attacks Cruz for “not supporting Sen. John Cornyn for Republican Senate Whip.”
Cruz has previously told reporters it’s more important to elect Senators who would pledge fealty to a divisive challenge to GOP leadership than it is for Republicans to regain its U.S. Senate majority this year. Cruz’s glaring lack of support for Sen. Cornyn, who’s now responsible for Republican efforts to retake that majority, effectively puts Cruz’s personal ambition and interests above conservative attempts to organize and stop the Obama agenda.
So Dewhurst is attacking Cruz for actually wanting to enact conservative ideas rather than just paying lip-service to it while toeing the Republican establishment line. Got it. (Maybe someone on Team Dewhurst might want to take a look at this.)
Scott Haddock interviews Tom Leppert Part 1 and Part 2.
The Texas Tribune did an interview with Craig James:
Glenn Addison gets a profile by the Houston Chronicle‘s Joe Holley. Addison’s evident friendliness with the John Birch society (yes, it’s still around) is not a plus in my book. I am gratified to see that Holley, who I dinged heavily, correctly lists both the number of candidates for each party, as well as their names.
That same TT/UT poll shows the Democratic side of the race virtually tied, with Sean Hubbard at 12%, Paul Sadler, Daniel Boone, and Addie D. Allen all tied at 10%, and John Morton (who the Democrats kicked off the ballot two months ago) at 3%. That’s good news for Hubbard (frontrunner again!) and Allen (whose campaign might be charitably called “low-key”), and bad news for anointed Democratic establishment candidate Sadler and “Gene Kelly 2.0” Boone. But the margin of error for Democrats is even higher at ±6%, so it’s still anyone’s race at this point.
Democrat Addie D. Allen now has a website (though it just has the GoDaddy parking page for now) and a Twitter feed.
University of Texas Democrats endorse Paul Sadler. That should be good for an extra five, maybe even six votes, easy…
Daniel Boone appeared before the Llano Tea Party, which I think makes him the first Democratic senate candidate to take up the repeated Tea Party offers for Democrats to speak. Good for him.
Pro-tip for Boone: Most people put the newest content at the top of their blog, not the oldest.
As far as I can tell, Craig James, Charles Holcomb, Ben Gambini, Joe Agris and Addie D. Allen have not filed Q4 reports with the FEC. Maybe none of them conducted any fundraising in the quarter.
I just got back from a business trip abroad, so it’s taking me a little time to get back up to speed. One thing I did want to note was David Jennings of Big Jolly Politics taking a couple of my senate race posts and running with them.
First, he took a look at that donation chart I did, and then produced several additional interesting charts. He also dug deeper into Dewhurst’s 800+ page Q4 report and noticed something that I didn’t, namely that Dewhurst loaned his campaign $2 million, then the campaign paid off the loan four days later, then loaned his campaign another $2 million on December 31. Which means he spent $2.4 million, not $4.4 million, in Q4. Why he did that I couldn’t tell you, unless there’s some sort of campaign finance reason, or he wants to make it look like he put more money into his campaign than he actually did.
I do, however, have differences with Jennings on interpreting the data. When he says “Much has been made of Dewhurst’s and Leppert’s ability to self-fund,” that’s like saying “Much has been made of Wolfgang Mozart and Antonio Salieri’s composing ability.” Tom Leppert has a net worth of $12 million, David Dewhurst has a net worth of $225 million. Leppert simply can’t self fund to the extent that Dewhurst can, which is probably a big reason why Leppert went from throwing in $1 million in self-funding in both Q1 and Q2 to only half that in Q3 and Q4.
Likewise, his contention that Leppert has slipped into second place relies on taking that internal Dewhurst poll as gospel, which (as I’ve argued time and time again) we can’t do due not only to its provenience, but also the opaque nature of its methodology. And his list of Cruz “stumbles” is mostly much ado about nothing, as I don’t see anything on his list that would cause Republican voters to change their vote.
Still, they’re interesting posts on the race, even if I disagree with some of the conclusions.