For those of you whom don’t regard paging through an ex-football player’s tax returns an exciting pastime, here’s the executive summary: James earned earned more than $9 million in the past five years, mostly from capital gains on investments. That means he’s Leppert rich, but not Dewhurst rich. Good for him. It’s always nice to see a professional athlete who saved and invested their money wisely, since there are so many who didn’t. He also seems to have given a fair amount to charities over the years.
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…
While far from chicken-feed, those numbers seem really disappointing to me, especially given that he pulled in $2.64 million in donor contributions in Q3. Those are just donor numbers, and we don’t know much of Dewhurst’s own considerable wealth he tossed in until he tells us, or his official FEC numbers go up (there’s usually a significant lag between the campaign announcement and the FEC putting the numbers up).
As the establishment candidate and presumptive favorite, Dewhurst should be running away in the fundraising race. He’s not.
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 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.
Very soon the candidates should be crowing about how much money they pulled in during Q4. In the meantime, here are few variegated updates for your political junkie pleasure:
Rick Perry gives a boost, in passing, to Dewhurst’s Senate bid in Iowa, with Dewhurst and other Texas officials present. It certainly won’t hurt Dewhurst’s chances, but it’s a bit short of a full-throttle endorsement.
James says he’s living on real street. “Only in politics is it possible for a former football star turned national broadcaster be able to make the claim how connected they are to ordinary people.”
KYFO in Lubbock did a poll asking people if they would vote for James in the Senate race. Right now a bracing 96% are voting no…
A not particularly insightful breakdown of the race. The Craig James-to-Jack Kemp comparison is particularly inapt; Kemp went straight from playing quarterback for the Buffalo Bills in 1969 to running for and winning a congressional seat from Buffalo in 1970. James’ last year of professional football was 1988, and being a cable sportscaster is a level of fame below even a Kardashian sister.
Democrat Paul Sadler gets more love from the Longview News-Journal. Sadler’s hometown of Henderson lies between Nacogdoches and Longview.
The Houston Chroniclealso examines Sadler’s chances. Democrats have pinned their hopes on “a former six-term Texas House member who hasn’t held office since 2003, who has little statewide name identification and whose last race was a losing effort in a runoff election for the state Senate in 2004.” Indeed. But note that writer Joe Holley is incorrect when he says that Sadler “is among six other Democratic candidates,” as there are now only five Democratic Senate candidates. However, I can’t really blame him, as the Texas Democratic Party has never actually said why Eric Roberson and John Morton no longer appear on the list of candidates, nor have they answered my query on the issue.
And here’s another article that mentions Sadler, but none of his opponents in the Democratic primary. It’s almost as if the state’s lockstep MSM outlets have already picked their preferred candidate…
EmpowerTexas will be hosting a senate debate in Austin on January 12. Participants are Cruz, Dewhurst, James, Tom Leppert and Glenn Addison (which is the right five if you’re limiting it to five).
There’s also a Saddle Up Texas Straw Poll event in Houston January 12-14. Cruz, Dewhurst, Leppert, Addison, Lela Pittenger and Dr. Joe Agris are all scheduled to attend, as is Andrew Breitbart. Call me a cynic, but when an event has a list of sponsorship opportunities but no actual sponsors 10 days before the event, as well as $45 tickets (good luck with that), my gut feeling is that the organizers are going to take a serious financial bath. (Indeed, it gives off a whiff of The Ultimate Fantasy, a legendary Star Trek convention debacle I attended which also took place in Houston…)
I try to deal with substantive issues in coverage of the race, but every now and then it’s worth noting good old-fashioned politicking. Take, for example, the way Cruz celebrates every Texas university bowl win (U of H, Baylor, A&M, Texas) on his Facebook page, including team logos. Leppert comes close, but missed the Aggies. Dewhurst doesn’t seem to discuss sports on his Facebook page, despite including the Longhorns among his likes.
