A testy exchange between Ted Cruz and Tom Leppert at last week’s Texas Republican Assembly Biennial Endorsing Convention Biennial Endorsing Convention on Leppert’s gay rights parade and ACORN baggage that I, Matt Dowling and whoever was behind the now-silent Race to Replace KBH dug up.
Last week Ted Cruz was on the Glenn Beck Show:
Glenn Beck: “There’s no way you’re ever going to get elected. You make too much sense.”
Craig James appeared on WFAA (again, apologies for their crappy, non-YouTube video embedding):
Ted Cruz, Lela Pittenger and Ben Gambini all appeared at the North Shore Republican Women’s forum in Montgomery County.
Craig James is just fine with a later date for the primary. That piece isn’t particularly information, but I thought I would put it up since they do actually manage to mention all the Republican and Democratic candidates filed for the race, a sharp contrast with other news stories I could name…
The Texas Association of Business will have another Senate candidate forum in Austin tomorrow from 200-3:30 PM. Scheduled to attend are Ted Cruz, David Dewhurst, Tom Leppert and Craig James. I’ve been sending email back and forth with the James campaign to try a find a time to interview him while he’s in town, but it doesn’t look like we’ll find one that matches both our schedules. (It’s a busy time for my day job.) So we might end up doing an email interview instead.
The National Association of Realtors endorses Dewhurst. I’m sure this is a shocking turn of events completely unforeseen by anyone following the race.
Texas Sparkle lends her blog to Kevin Jackson so he can make the case for Craig James. His upshot seems to be that James is a tough competitor. Well, great. But getting your chin stitched up without anesthetic is probably a skill that will never be needed on the senate floor, and Mr. Jackson’s piece seems to be devoid of any actual discussion of political positions.
Of them, Paul Sadler gets endorsed by the AFL-CIO. So that’s a second traditional Democratic interest group Sadler has in his corner along with the legacy news media.
Profile of Democratic candidate Jason Gibson. “Gibson considers himself a mainstream Democrat who believes in lower taxes and efficient government and who supports the Second Amendment. He’s pro-labor, he said, with an abiding interest in worker safety, but still is working to fill in the blanks on most issues. Jobs and the economy, he said, are key. He has hired several well-regarded campaign consultants and has said he is willing to spend into the seven figures.”
Here’s an updated list of the declared 2012 Texas senate candidate’s websites, along with any subsidiary pages that change frequently (in-the-news, press releases, etc.), along with their Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and FEC fundraising report pages, plus any additional pages worth noting. (For example, Tom Leppert’s website provides links to his LinkedIn page, and his YouTube and Flickr streams, so I have included those here.) I’ve also tried to be flexible; Ted Cruz doesn’t have links for separate YouTube or Flickr sites, so I’ve included similar pages on his campaign page.
Consider this a one-stop research stop for lazy efficient journalists and bloggers (as well as a handy cheat-cheat for myself, since I’ve been doing extensive coverage of the race).
Where candidates have sign-up splash screens, I have omitted those to go straight to the website (or, for Facebook links, their wall).
Websites for 2012 Republican Senate Runoff Candidates
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.
With all the coming and the going and the filing and the GLAVEN, it’s been a crazy few days keeping up with the Texas senate race. I even went back today to see if their were any stragglers who hadn’t been updated on the Republican and Democratic candidate websites yesterday. There were no additions but, interestingly, there was one subtraction (see below).
Of course, there may be another scramble when the filing period opens up again next year after a Supreme Court decision on redistricting. Keep watching the skies…
I evidently missed this back in October, but the Texas Home School Coalition PAC endorsed Ted Cruz.
Addison also resigned from the Magnolia ISD board to concentrate on his senate race. Given that he stated the board was responsible for his gray hair at one of the candidate forums, maybe it wasn’t a hard decision…
David Dewhurst scoffs at the idea that Craig James’ entry in the race will force him into a runoff. As well he should. He was already headed for a runoff.
Newly minted candidate Paul Sadler gets some love from the Houston Chronicle. Of course, saying he was a big player in state legislative issues in the 1990s is pretty much tantamount to saying “Who?”
Indeed, some are already saying that the Democratic primary is a two man race between Sadler and Jason A. Gibson, ignoring the fact that Sean Hubbard has been running for most of the year, and that Daniel Boone has the tremendous asset of being named Daniel Boone. That article also notes that Gibson is president of the Houston Trial Lawyers Association, which would suggest access to a healthy amount of campaign funding.
A bit more on Sadler, who lost a runoff election to Republican Kevin Eltife in a 2004 state senate race.
Sadler also emailed back to say that he didn’t have a website up yet. “Hopefully, within a week or so.”
One oddity: Remember former Republican turned Independent turned Democrat Eric Roberson, who showed up on the list of candidates late yesterday? Well, his name was gone today…possibly because he also shows as a candidate for Place 11 on the 5th Court of Appeals.
I’ve sent emails to Andrew Castanuela, Stanley Garza, and Virgil Bierschwale, whose names do not appear the filing lists for the Republican and Democratic Senate primaries, to ask if they’ve abandoned their campaigns. I’ll let you know when I find out.
Conversely, if Ben Gambini, John Morton, or Addie Dainell Allen are reading this, you might send a comment or email to let me know who you are and why you’re running for the senate.
First interview with Craig James about his Senate run. My apologies for the crappy WFAA flash video implementation:
Finally, for commentator “John Doe”: No, I’m not going to post an un-sourced, laundry list of lurid accusations against a candidate (not even a Democrat) from an anonymous troll. Try again when you can cite a source for your accusations.