A few quick updates on the Texas Senate Race:
Posts Tagged ‘Republicans’
Texas Senate Race Updates for July 18, 2011
Monday, July 18th, 2011Senate Race Update for July 13, 2011
Wednesday, July 13th, 2011There’s two big senate race shoes waiting to drop over the rest of July: The announcement (whatever it is) Dewhurst is going to make on July 18, and FEC releasing Q2 fundraising results. In the meantime, here’s a smattering of senate race news
Ted Cruz Picks Up Two More Endorsements
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011The Ted Cruz winning streak continues, with two more key endorsements, namely Peggy Venable, Texas State Director for Americans for Prosperity, and Ernie Angelo, former RNC Committeeman.
Cruz has easily lapped his opponents in the endorsement race. Other than Roger Williams’ endorsement by former President George H. W. Bush, and the departed Michael Williams’ endorsement by Jim DeMint, I can’t think of a single high-profile endorsement for any other candidate. I don’t think Tom Leppert’s handful of pastors really counts (though getting a max donation from Roger Staubach certainly didn’t hurt).
Key endorsements aren’t worth as much winning the fundraising race, but they’re not chopped liver either. The fact that the Cruz campaign has rolled these out at a regular rate of a couple every week suggests to me that he has a fair number in his pocket, and wants to pace them out.
Rick Perry Speech Gets Rave Reviews at the Republican Leadership Conference (with video)
Monday, June 20th, 2011Saturday Rick Perry gave his speech to the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, and he’s getting lots of rave reviews, further fueling speculation that he’ll make a Presidential run:
You can judge the speech for yourself:
You can see why liberals, in their frustration and inability to lay a glove on him, call him “Governor Goodhair”: He looks a lot younger than his actual age of 61.
Other Perry news (several from Iconoclast’s weekend roundup:
The Washington Post Discovers Ted Cruz
Friday, June 17th, 2011Washington Post writer Aaron Blake pays serious attention to Ted Cruz, and his role as Tea Party favorite. It’s a decent write-up for an out-of-state MSM outlet playing catch-up, but there are several statements about which I have at least some minor quibbles.
For example, take this sentence
That’s because he’s emerging as a potential top-tier candidate in the Lone Star state race, posing a real tea party threat to better-funded candidates in what should be one of the most expensive primary races in the country.
There’s two things wrong with that sentence:
- Cruz isn’t “a potential top-tier candidate,” he’s arguably already the frontrunner.
- Saying that he’s “posing a real tea party threat to better-funded candidates” suggests that there are, in fact, better-funded candidates. Leppert only has more money on hand thanks to a $1.6 million loan (discounting loans, in Q1 Leppert pulled in slightly over $1 million, and Cruz pulled in slightly under $1 million), and even then the rest of Leppert’s fundraising relied heavily on max contributions from a limited number of Dallas-area donors. So Cruz is about as well-funded as anyone in the race right now. (Would Lt. Governor David Dewhurst change that if he jumped into the race? If he really wanted to commit a substantial portion of his personal fortune (consistently rumored, without verifiable attribution, to be around $200 million), yes it would.)
Likewise his suggestion that Leppert is one of the “big boys” (outside of Dallas, his profile is no bigger than Cruz’s) seems misguided.
Then there’s this:
Dewhurst is the prohibitive favorite if he gets in, and Leppert has made a big splash early with his fundraising. But many conservatives aren’t waiting for Dewhurst—choosing instead to rally around Cruz.
I think “prohibitive favorite” overstates the case a bit (I would use “formidable”), but the idea that conservatives have ever “waited” on Dewhurst is off-base.
As so many other Republican politicians do, Dewhurst occupies that vast gray area between a RINO (think Arlen Specter before he went The Full Benedict) and a real movement conservative. The phrase “a self-described ‘George Bush Republican'” appears, unsourced, in his Wikipedia entry (and thus is automatically suspect), and sums up the feelings of many conservatives towards Dewhurst. He ran as a conservative, and mostly governed as a conservative, but every now and then he would go off on Big Government tangents that would infuriate proponents of limited government. Despite this, outside the state, Dewhurst is regarded as something of an “arch-conservative” for shepherding through the (constitutionally-required) 2003 redistricting.
I wouldn’t go so far as to compare him to Charlie Crist (as some have), but there’s been real dissatisfaction with Dewhurst among movement conservatives, and it came to the fore with this year’s legislative sessions, where, despite having controlling majorities in both House and Senate, conservative Republicans found their agenda being thwarted in many ways great and small by Dewhurst in the Senate and Speaker Joe Straus in the House. Hence state senator (and possible U.S. Senate candidate) Dan Patrick’s lashing out at Dewhurst for thwarting his anti-TSA goping bill. Dewhurst managed to get the big things done (i.e., getting a budget passed without a tax hike), but there’s a sense among conservatives that he could have gotten a lot more conservative bills passed if he really wanted to, and that he “left money on the table” in the game of legislative poker by compromising when he didn’t have to
So it’s not at all surprising that Dewhurst is viewed as a stanch conservative when viewed from inside the Beltway; by Washington, D.C. standards he is. But there’s a widespread sense among Texas conservatives that they should be able to elect a full-bore movement conservative to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison, and that David Dewhurst isn’t that guy. There was a good deal of debate over whether Ted Cruz or Michael Williams was the preferred choice; with Williams getting out of the race to run for a House seat, the issue has been resolved in Cruz’s favor, as indicated by his impressive array of endorsements.
Still, those quibbles aside, the WaPo piece is a pretty solid look at Cruz, and is well worth reading for those following the Texas Senate Race.
(In the future, Brooks might want to run this sort of piece by Jennifer Rubin, who has a lot better grasp of the nuances of conservative politics than most MSM observers.)
Quick Impressions of the Texas Senate Debate
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011I attended the Texas Tribune Republican Senate Candidate Forum tonight, and thought I would post a few quick impressions before I have to walk my dog.
Three of the four candidates came across as prepared, articulate, polished and effective speakers, and all four tried to portray themselves as tea party conservatives:
Not a lot of policy differences on display. All agreed not to raise taxes under any circumstances (I wondered why moderator Evan Smith didn’t ask any of them “Not even in the event of a World War with China?”), all were on-board with the Ryan plan or an even more immediate cutback in federal spending, all for greater border control measures and against amnesty, all pro-life (one of Jones’ most effective moments), all more national energy exploration, all against earmarks, all slamming Obama.
Enough for tonight. I’ll post more tomorrow if I have the time.
Texas Senate Race Updates for June 2, 2011: Michael Williams to Drop Out?
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011Some updates in the Texas Senate Race, including one big shakeup if it pans out:
Texas Ex-Governor Bill Clements Dead At 94
Monday, May 30th, 2011First Republican governor in Texas since reconstruction. He was, along with John Tower and Phil Gramm, a key figure in changing Texas from a Democratic dominated state to a Republican state.
Not seeing this news story played nearly as large as it should be (for example, as of this writing it’s not up on the front page of Google News). I guess a lot of people are on vacation…
The Ted Cruz Campaign On His Fundraising Quarter
Thursday, May 5th, 2011This 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.