Posts Tagged ‘Ron Kirk’

Shuffling Deck Chairs on the BattlegroundTanic

Wednesday, September 16th, 2015

Battleground Texas announced a new advisory board:

The Advisory Board will be made up of Naomi Aberly, Jeremy Bird, former Dallas Mayor and Ambassador Ron Kirk, Congressman Joaquin Castro, Eric Johnson, Austin Ligon, Jennifer Longoria, Brownsville Mayor Tony Martinez, Eddy Morales, Amber Mostyn, Carrin F. Patman, Carrin Mauritz Patman, Marvin Ragsdale, Kirk Rudy, and Lynda Tran. Jenn Brown, who started as executive director for Battleground Texas, is now chairwoman of the advisory board.

Sure, that’s Battleground Texas’ big problem: Not enough advisers.

The real news here, I think, is the demotion-by-promotion of Jenn Brown.

As for the board itself:

  • Jeremy Bird was last seen not defeating Benjamin Netanyahu in the Israeli elections, after his own disasterous stint leading Battleground Texas. He’s now one of the key players behind Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
  • Joaquin Castro is backing Hillary, and his brother is rumored to be Hillary’s top VP pick.
  • Kirk Rudy is a Hillary backer.
  • Moneybags spouse Amber Mostyn is a noted Hillary backer.
  • Ron Kirk might back Hillary (who he’s donated to), or he might back Biden.
  • I think the advisory board may be a move to cement Battleground Texas more firmly in Hillary’s orbit, thus foreclosing the possibility that Bernie Sanders might start picking up activist support in Texas. After all, she still needs to win the primary before getting to the general…

    How Big Will Ted Cruz Win Tomorrow?

    Monday, November 5th, 2012

    I’m pretty confident that Ted Cruz will win the election (and deservedly so). The only question now is: By how much?

    To determine that, let’s look at the recent history of non-Presidential top-of-the-ballot races in Texas:

  • 2000 Senate: Kay Bailey Hutchison 4,078,954 (65%) over Gene Kelly 2,025,024 (32%)
  • 2002 Senate: John Cornyn 2,480,991 (55%) over Ron Kirk 1,946,681 (43%)
  • 2002 Governor: Rick Perry 2,617,106 (58%) over Tony Sanchez 1,809,915 (40%)
  • 2006 Senate: Kay Bailey Hutchison 2,661,789 (62%) over Barbara Ann Radnofsky 1,555,202 (36%)
  • 2008 Senate: John Cornyn 4,326,639 (55%) over Rick Noriega 3,383,890 (43%)
  • 2010 Governor: Rick Perry 2,733,784 (55%) over Bill White 2,102,606 (42%)
  • (I’m throwing out the 4-way 2006 gubernatorial race as not germane. All numbers via Wikipdia, % rounded.)

    In terms of financial resources, Sadler’s fundraising has been very poor, having raised just over $800,000; poorer even than Rick Noriega, who managed to raise over $4 million, or Barbara Ann Radnofsky, who raised about $1.5 million. Then again, money isn’t everything: Tony Sanchez spent $60 million of his own money to garner a meager 40% against Rick Perry in 2002.

    I don’t think Sadler will do as poorly as vanity candidate Gene Kelly did in 2000. I expect Obama to run 4-5 points worse than he did in 2008, and I expect Sadler to probably lose a point or two off Obama’s total. So, I predict: Ted Cruz gets 61% of the vote, and Paul Sadler gets around 39%.

    Texas Senate Race Updates For July 26, 2011

    Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

    I’ve been meaning to do a general Senate Race update all weekend, but things have been hopping:

  • Jim Geraghty has a piece up over at National Review Online on Ricardo Sanchez’s disappointing debut. I get quoted on the race.
  • Ted Cruz wins the endorsement of Rand Paul.
  • Cruz defends Rick Perry’s upcoming prayer meeting.
  • U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, representing Texas’ 26th Congressional District, endorses Tom Leppert. The 26th runs from south of Ft. Worth up to the Oklahoma border (or at least did before this year’s redistricting), so it’s right in Leppert’s backyard. Though not one of the more prominent members of the Texas delegation, Burgess has an impressive 95% rating from the American Conservative Union, making this really the first notable conservative endorsement Leppert has picked up.
  • A report on the candidates forum sponsored by the Denton County Republican Party last week.
  • Leppert get’s a mostly flattering profile by Big Jolly Politics’ David Jennings, though Jennings does ding him for his support for Dallas workers to unionize. (Jennings doesn’t mention Leppert’s contributions to liberal Democrat Ron Kirk’s Senate campaign.) Jennings also says he doesn’t have much use for the term “RINO”:

    By now, if you have read this far, it should be clear that Mr. Leppert is not some wild-eyed liberal trying to pick the pockets of the taxpayer. You wouldn’t know that if you listened to the self-appointed RINO hunters in the Texas Republican party. Gawd I hate that term.

    Hmmm. I may resemble that remark…

  • Leppert’s communication guy Shawn McCoy is leaving the campaign, being replaced by Daniel Keylin, though Leppert campaign manager Josh Kivett will be handling those duties during a transition period.
  • If David Dewhurst wants to convince conservative’s he’s one of us, maybe he shouldn’t have picked the campaign manager for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
  • Elizabeth Ames Jones was on the Mark Davis show on WBAP.
  • Texas Senate Race Spending: A Look at This Point In Previous Cycles

    Monday, July 25th, 2011

    Now that half the fundraising year has passed, I wanted to take a look at how the funds raised this year compare to this point in years past.

    Unfortunately, it’s been so long since there’s been a competitive regular Republican Senate primary in Texas (I’m discounting the special election of 1993 because it’s difficult to compare special elections to regular elections) that it’s hard to find a precedent for that side of the race. John Cornyn had no serious competition in 2002. Indeed, you’d have to go back to Beau Boulter vs. Wes Gilbreath in 1988 for a truly competitive regular Texas Republican senatorial primary. And the main FEC page doesn’t go back before 1999.

    So let’s look at the Democratic side of the race, where there’s a lot more precedent for an open race. While my initial assessment of Ricardo Snachez’s $160,000 was it was about what you’d expect given his late start, it seems disappointing in light of what previous Democratic senatorial candidates were able to raise.

    2008 Senate Race

    For the 2008 race against John Cornyn, trail lawyer Mikal C. Watts had already raised over $3 million by July of 2007, mostly through self-funding. What, you never heard of Watts? That might be because, despite his financial firepower, he dropped out of the race before the primary. Why? Well, it might have something to do with the fact that letters came out showing him pressuring litigation targets to settle by bragging about how much money he had contributed to appellate judges who would hear the case:

    “This court is comprised of six justices, all of whom are good Democrats,” Watts wrote. “The Chief Justice, Hon. Rogelio Valdez, was recently elected with our firm’s heavy support, and is a man who believes in the sanctity of jury verdicts.”

    The letter goes on to name Justices Errlinda Castillo, Nelda Rodriguez, J. Bonner Dorsey, Federico Hinojosa and Linda Yanez, and says his firm also has financially supported them.

    Strangely enough, this was seen as injuring his election chances, and he dropped out in October. Sanchez might take comfort in the fact that eventual Democratic nominee Rick Norgiega, didn’t even file his paperwork until July 11 of 2007, and that he eventually raised over $4 million. Or it would be comforting, if not for the fact that Cornyn raised $13 million and beat him by 12 percentage points despite the Obama wave in 2008.

    2006 Senate Race

    In the 2006 election cycle, eventual Democratic nominee (and yet another trial lawyer) Barbara Ann Radnofsky had already raised $355,218 by April 5, 2005. By July 5, 2005, she would amass a total of just under half a million dollars. By the time the race was done, she would raise just shy of $1.5 million, and, despite it being a Democratic wave election year, Kay Baily Hutchison would raise over $6 million and would wallop her 61.7% to 36%.

    2002 Senate Race

    Eventual Democratic nominee Ron Kirk didn’t even file his first campaign report until December 7, 2001, and still managed to raise over $9 million for the race. Kirk was part of the Democratic Party’s 2002 “Dream Team” along with Tony Sanchez and John Sharp: One black, one Hispanic, and one white all running serious, well-funded, top of the ticket campaigns in a year in which the party out of the White House usually does well. They all lost. Kirk did better than Sanchez (losing to Rick Perry), but worse than John Sharp (losing to David Dewhurst).

    By the way, Tony Sanchez spent $60 million of his own money for the privilege of getting creamed by Rick Perry, who took over 60% of the vote, thus disproving two theories beloved by political consultants (money is everything, and the Hispanic vote will make Democrats in Texas competitive Real Soon Now) in one fell swoop.

    Conclusion

    Ricardo Sanchez’s military background gives him several distinct advantages other Democratic candidates have not had, but quick access to significant campaign funds is not among them. Certainly the pay for Lieutenant (three star) General in the united States Army isn’t chickenfeed (about $143,000 a year), but it’s far short of what he would need to self-finance his campaign. Financially, Sanchez’s campaign is going to suffer from him not being a trial lawyer, or, well, Ron Kirk, who was (and presumably still is) amazingly well-connected in both business and Democratic political circles.

    Ricardo Sanchez is already behind where most recent Texas Democratic senatorial candidates were during this part of the fundraising cycle. And all of them lost.