Rick Perry vs. The World

24 April 2012

On Tom Leppert and his strategy selection

"Tom Leppert would have a much better chance of being senator if he'd run as a Democrat," mused a friend at lunch the other day.

I guffawed, and then a moment later I realized he was right. Leppert might have had a chance as a Democrat. In the race that he is running, he has chosen a strategy that gives him exactly zero chance to be the Republican nominee for Senate in 2012.

Tom Leppert is trying to run as a Reagan conservative, but he's got only regional name ID and not that much money – compared to Dewhurst. He's chosen a strategy that has exactly zero chance at electing him senator. My guess is that a consultant* told him that he needed to run as a wanna-be Ronald Reagan to win. One small problem: there's not much in Leppert's record to support that.

Tom Leppert is running as a Reaganite, but until he ran for public office he'd donated almost as much to Democrats as to Republicans. He now says he's against both gay marriage and civil unions because it is a "faith issue," yet as Dallas mayor he had a gay chief of staff, marched in gay pride parades, welcomed gay conventions to Dallas, and told a gay reporter that while he hadn't thought about gay marriage much…he could see both sides of the issue. He talks now like a conservative activist but sought the support of ACORN and the SEIU…and he mostly didn't even bother to vote until he ran for mayor. He says he wants to cut federal spending as a Senator yet one of his main focuses as mayor was securing Congressional earmarks for a municipal redevelopment project. I understand the occasional nuance, but I can't thread the needle through all of those. Nor can primary voters.

Here's the thing – your average voter doesn't know any of the preceding paragraph (which was off the top of my head…there's more if you research it) and yet Leppert is still in single digits in the polls. Essentially Leppert is trying to fit in a space that he never had any chance of winning, and which Cruz has now locked up securely.

Currently, Leppert is attacking Cruz thinking that he can peel off votes in order to make it into the runoff. What he doesn't realize is that Cruz’s supporters are much more firmly committed to him than Dewhurst's voters are. So Leppert has essentially painted himself into a corner by trying to be something that the record doesn't really support.

Even if Leppert were to somehow squeeze into a runoff, he would have no chance against either Dewhurst or Cruz in a runoff. If you don't understand why, read again the long paragraph above.

Now there's some pretty small chance Leppert squeezes into a runoff, using the Jesse Ventura technique. Put lots of relatively positive fluffy messages on TV and hope to pick up just enough votes when frontrunners attack each other. Or try to pick up just the right amount of Dewhurst support by attacking him since his support is soft. Both sound pretty unlikely to me, and neither are strategies that will allow victory in a runoff.

But as a Democrat, Leppert might have had a shot. He could have run as a Blue Dog with some establishment support. Could he get through a Dem primary? Not my area of expertise, though I might suggest that Dem primaries are more a collection of interest groups that might have afforded a chance. My guess is that Leppert does actually identify more as a Republican, and that's why he ran as a Republican. But he simply doesn't have the record to run as Ronald Reagan, Jr.

* I don't remember who Leppert's consultant is, so I feel free to be candid.

Posted by Evan @ 04/24/12 01:38 PM | Comments (0)

09 March 2012

Long time no see, dear reader

It's been awhile since I've had time to post here. Not sure that will change much, but I have a week of vacation, so perhaps I'll re-work something I had 90% done in August -- a long examination of our US Senate race.

And then I'll get back to my job search.

Posted by Evan @ 03/09/12 05:50 PM | Comments (0)

24 August 2011

Play to your strengths, ignore liabilities?

I have a post up over at Texas Iconoclast entitled "Dewhurst skipping candidate forums a dangerous strategy"

Posted by Evan @ 08/24/11 06:37 PM | Comments (0)

03 August 2011

Icon post

I'm putting up a daily series of my thoughts on Rick Perry for President 2012 over at the Texas Iconoclast blog. Part 1 is the Elevator Pitch.

I've got 5 or 6 in the series planned, and I'm taking an international flight tonight so I should have some time to write them out.

Posted by Evan @ 08/03/11 10:43 AM | Comments (0)

04 July 2011

Muy feliz cumpleaños America

Because nothing invokes patriotism quite like an Irish band at the Super Bowl:

Posted by Evan @ 07/04/11 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

The national left likes the blog name

TPM, the lefty online publication, opens an article by copying my name:

It's Rick Perry v The World. On Thursday the Texas Governor (and possible Republican presidential player) will face a stark choice:

The actual substance of the article is directly related to the victory Ted Cruz won for Texas in the US Supreme Court in Medellin v. Texas.

Posted by Evan @ 07/04/11 10:46 AM | Comments (2)

01 July 2011

John Feehery said what about Rick Perry?

In Erin McPike's writeup about whether Perry for President is likely to happen:

John Feehery, a veteran GOP operative in Washington, largely dismissed Perry's chances.

"Most people don't know him, and if they do, he comes off as a right-wing rube," Feehery said. "He won't compete in New Hampshire or Michigan. I doubt he would do very well in Florida. Iowa is now [Michele] Bachmann's. He could do well in South Carolina, but I don't know if that would give him enough momentum," he continued, referring to some of the early nominating states in the GOP primary.

First of all, substance. Feehery is as wrong as could be. The schedule of primary and caucus states is very well suited for a Rick Perry presidential campaign. Perry is probably the only candidate that can be reasonably expected to finish in every one of the top 3 in the first round of states. I don't think I could imagine a better calendar for Perry.

Second, and the reason for this post...rube? Feehery was a spokesman for Tom DeLay, so he should know better than to judge people by accents. I'm pretty sure Rick Perry has accomplished more in his life than John Feehery*, so Feehery might want to be careful about who he calls unsophisticated. John Feehery revealed more about himself than it did about anything else.

* Love Perry or hate him, I'm pretty sure that being the longest-serving governor in the history of the 15th largest economy in the world qualifies as an accomplishment.

Posted by Evan @ 07/01/11 01:26 PM | Comments (0)

28 June 2011

Ted Cruz 72 hour push to end the Q2 fundraising period

As I've noted before, I'm supporting Ted Cruz for Senate. The Cruz campaign today announced a final 72 hour push to raise $50k. I've already donated and would encourage you to do the same.

Posted by Evan @ 06/28/11 09:58 PM | Comments (0)

12 May 2011

Ric Sanchez for Senate?

Check out my post on Ric Sanchez for Senate over at the Icon blog.

Posted by Evan @ 05/12/11 05:52 PM | Comments (0)

13 April 2011

Texas Iconoclast

Kevin, Cory and I are launching Texas Iconoclast today. Come swing by and check it out.

The project was born out of some conversations that we had about what we felt was lacking on the Texas corner of the interwebs. I realized that most of my websurfing is to people who aggregate quality content, and we didn't feel that a very comprehensive site existed that does that for Texas politics. Some come close, but we figured we'd pool our resources and tag daily the best Texas politics content, with a bent towards the right.

Right now, we post every weekday morning at 9am, as well as have a sidebar "IconWire" for things that get updated throughout the day. The daily post sometimes gets small updates after that, including on the commentary. We edit each other's commentary, with some favoring snark and others less so, so it is still a little bit of a work in progress, but I've already found that Iconoclast to be on my short list to see what is good in Texas politics reading.

It's likely that most of my writing will migrate over to the Iconblog, where I put a post up on the FEC numbers to date.

Posted by Evan @ 04/13/11 03:37 PM | Comments (1)

05 April 2011

¿Se Postulará para presidente Gobernador de Texas Rick Perry?

En una palabra, no. El gobernador de Texas, Rick Perry, no se postulará en el año 2012 para presidente, a pesar de las opiniones de los periodistas de Texas. Sí, se obsesionan todo los días con la idea, pero no está ubicado en ningún base solido. Ha dicho consistentemente que no tiene ganas nada postularse y que prefiere vivir en Texas que mudarse a Washington, DC. Algunos de sus consejeros políticos más importantes ya firmaron su lealtad a candidatos verdaderos.

Pero bueno, la clase política sigue hinchando. En este posteo, especulemos como se podría si, de hecho, tuviera ganas y como serían los señales que se pasa.

Primero, la campaña de 2012 todavia no se empieza. La ultima vez en 2008, la campaña ya estaba plenamente comenzado, y el Gobernador de Texas tiene bastante responsibilidades hasta el verano con su legislatura. Eso habría sido un gran problema para Rick Perry si hubiera querido postularse... o así fue el pensamiento, pero ahora que ya sabemos que la campaña empieza tarde, Perry no tiene el problema. Hay una apertura que no parecía posible hace unos meses.

Segundo, Perry ya está el líder actual de la Asociacion de Gobernadores Republicanos (RGA). El decidió hacerlo -- es un trabajo que se obliga recaudar fondos mas que nada -- y no puede postularse mientras sigue el líder del RGA. Por supuesto, aunque hace bastantes meses que Perry decidió y asumió el puesto, los periodistas Texanos siguen chismeando que Perry quiere postularse. Pero, igual, puede renunciar facílmente, aunque eso no se vería tan bien. Si realmente él hubiera pensado en postularse, entonces no habría tomado la posición.

Tercer, si sus consejeros decidan renunciar su candidato, es un buen señal que el gobernador cambió su opinion y se postula.

Y si pasó eso, Perry tendría algunas ventajas, pero mas probable que las desventajas las sobrepesan. Las ventajas son que combina valores tradicionales con apoyo a la libertad economica sin estar identificado más con uno que el otro que le da a él la posibilidad a ganar votos de los dos lados mas grandes de la derecha norteamericana. También el sirvió como militar. Los primeros estados de la campaña primaria de los Republicanos se necesita todo esto. El calendario de la primaria le sirve mas a Perry que a muchos otros candidatos. También tiene un red extensivo para recaudar fondos. Pero, tiene la gran desventaja que George W. Bush es Texano. Y aunque la pasión en contra de Bush ya ha tranquilizado bastante, es bastante difícil pensar que el país esta listo para otro Texano. En 2016, sí, pero por ahora, no.

Y eso probablemente es la palabra final de todo. Nadie piensa que Estados Unidos está listo tener otro presidente Texano. Y aun si no fuera la verdad, el hecho que todos piensan que sea verdad...lo hace la verdad.

Finalmente, sería interesante que se postulara Rick Perry. Él esta firme en el tema de la seguridad de la frontera con México, pero lo hace con comentarios en contra del terrorismo y contra los narcotraficantes. No soportó un ley igual a la de Arizona, y de hecho firmó legislación que permite inmigrantes ilegales (o sin documentos, como quiera) que viven en Texas ir a las universidades públicas de Texas por el precio de los Texanos (Norteamericanos de otros estados pagan doble). Algunos piensan que el manejó bien el tema en la campaña de 2010 y puede ser un modelo para el partido Republicano a nivel nacional.

Mil disculpas por todos los errores. Yo sé el Español solo al extento que mi esposa Latina me quiere enseñar. jaja. Les agradezco que me corrigen.

Posted by Evan @ 04/05/11 06:06 PM | Comments (0)

Texas Senate Q1 FEC Fundraising Expectations

So it's now April 5th, and we have yet to hear any of our Texas Senate candidates trumpeting their fundraising results for the Q1, which ended March 31.

Why the wait?
Are they keeping quiet because none had a stellar fundraising quarter, as a friend postulated yesterday? There's certainly the possibility of that. With 5 candidates in the race, it's harder for one person to raise an eye-opening sum. And certainly there are plenty of donors and fundraisers who want to wait and see how much money the candidates could raise on their own. Who is viable and who isn't? And many won't necessarily decide after Q1 numbers, lots will probably wait for the end of the session and/or for Q2 fundraising numbers to determine how vulnerable Dewhurst looks.

Nonetheless, my guess is that the candidates let their staffs rest for the weekend after the fundraising blitz before the FEC deadline. I assume we'll see numbers soon, as the candidates can't hide from them. If they really wanted to bury the numbers, getting them in for Monday's news cycle would have gotten them blanketed under the HB1 coverage.

Things to watch for

1. Who won -- Leppert, R. Williams or a surprise? Out of the five candidates -- Elizabeth Ames Jones, Ted Cruz, Tom Leppert, Michael Williams and Roger Williams -- most people think Tom Leppert is the frontrunner to have raised the most. If not, then probably Roger Wiliams. Roger Williams has been in the fundraising game for a long time, but as former CEO and Dallas Mayor, Leppert should be able to make some easy sales among the Dallas business community.

2. Michael Williams v Ted Cruz. The knock on the former Railroad Commish is that he couldn't raise the money. Can he? Particularly key: if Ted Cruz raises more money than Michael Williams, there are some M. Williams admirers who will hop on the Ted Cruz bandwagon. This is particularly key because Jim DeMint and other national conservatives will be looking at these numbers.

3. EAJ. Most folks I talk to don't think Elizabeth Ames Jones has a path to victory. I don't see one either, and I've heard the least from her campaign by a good margin over the past couple months. Yet she does have two key possible sources of early money: the energy community and San Antonio. As the daughter of a successful wildcatter and after a few years on the Railroad Commission, she should have a pretty solid network of energy explorers. And as the only candidate from San Antonio, she should be in a good spot to tap Alamo Heights.

Getting out of the gate is only part of the horserace

This is just the early money. It largely measures the base of support with which the candidates started the campaign. Future fundraising numbers reflect more deeply the degree to which candidates are able to persuade people to jump on the friends and family bandwagon. Still, these numbers go a long way towards defining the prism through which many will see the race for the next 3 months.

FYI, I had zero contact with any campaigns about their numbers in writing this post.

Posted by Evan @ 04/05/11 12:12 PM | Comments (3)

23 March 2011

Dewhurst must be running for Senate

Christy Hoppe, in the non-gated part of the DMN:

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is not only a graduate of the University of Arizona, he played on the men's basketball team.

So when asked about the oh-so narrow 69-70 victory that his former Wildcats scored over the Texas Longhorns on Sunday night, Dewhurst professed with a big smile that he was hurting.

Listen, he said, his wife graduated from UT and so did most of his family. So he said he was rooting for UT in the NCAA tournament.

Certainly not a sign that Dewhurst might skip the Senate race, as I argued that he should.

Posted by Evan @ 03/23/11 09:01 AM | Comments (0)

22 March 2011

Where Texans live

Paul Burka wrote up the winners and losers of a proposed State Board of Education redistricting map by House Redistricting Chair Burt Solomons.

What interested me most is how starkly it depicted where Texans live. The western half of the state has about 13% of the population.

Solomon map for SBOE districts

Posted by Evan @ 03/22/11 09:47 PM | Comments (0)

04 March 2011

Ted Cruz for Senate

I've decided to support Ted Cruz for Senate. If you take a look at my criteria, I think you'll understand why: Ted is the best communicator, he has the clearest message in the race, and he is best positioned to keep the seat in Republican hands for decades to come. I like quite a few of the candidates in the race, but Cruz stood out as the obvious choice.

I have spent a fair amount of time watching videos of Texas Republican Senate candidates, and I came away struck that Cruz had the clearest reason for why he's running -- to defend free enterprise from the Obama administration. His record winning in the Supreme Court is pretty much unparalleled, including quite a few cases no one thought he'd win. The more I watched the candidates speak, the more I became convinced that Cruz was the right choice to be the next Senator from Texas.

Cruz has risen to the top in everything he's ever done -- whether being a national debate champ, advising W's 2000 presidential campaign on domestic policy, clerking for Chief Justice Rehnquist, or compiling an incomparable record defending the constitution -- all before the age of 40. We know he's smart, we know he works really hard, and we know that he is firm in his convictions. There's no one I'd rather trust to represent Texans and conservatives in the Senate and on the national stage.

Finally, Cruz can stay in the Senate long enough to get things done for Texas. To some that's a bad thing, but basic issues of fairness to Texas require that our senators have seniority: not getting short-changed on highway funding after all the gas tax money we send to Washington DC and not being discriminated against in the tax code because we have a sales tax instead of an income tax. He's young and he can't get distracted by running for president, so he'll be able to follow in the footsteps of Senators who made sure Texas didn't get disadvantaged.

I've donated to Ted Cruz's campaign, and I encourage you to do the same. And because his mom went to Rice, we can forgive him for choosing Princeton over Rice.

Posted by Evan @ 03/04/11 01:03 PM | Comments (0)

26 February 2011

Tom Leppert announces for Senate

Tom Leppert officially announced for the Senate with this video:

Maybe a touch long, but the most effective announcement so far.

hat tip to Big Jolly, who I should link to more often.

Related: The Republican Senate candidates, in their own words.

Posted by Evan @ 02/26/11 02:41 PM | Comments (0)

22 February 2011

What I Want in a Senator

March update: I'm supporting Ted Cruz for Senate.

I've been thinking about what I want in our next US Senator. Here's the criteria I came up with.

1. Ability to lead the charge. Should be an effective spokesman on national issues. All candidates running on the Republican side are likely to be a reliable GOP vote, as they should be for a state that is currently so solidly Republican. So their ability to frame the national debate and make the case on TV is a key feature.

2. Ability to get things done for Texas. I want someone who can hold the seat for at least 4 terms. Cornyn appears likely to do this, we should elect someone else who can and will do this.

3. Ability to hold the seat. This is somewhat of a corollary to the previous point. One can't build tenure if a Democrat beats him/her and resets Texas seniority to zero. Keeping the seat in Republican hands is crucial to building tenure for Texas as well as to maintaining Texas' independent, pioneer spirit.

Related: Texas Republican Senate candidates in their own words.

Posted by Evan @ 02/22/11 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

21 February 2011

Partisanship and turnout by sport

Pretty sure that'll get cut off, and I frankly don't care enough to tinker with the site template so that it doesn't get cut off (hello, lack of social networking tools!), so click the link below.

Partisanship and turnout by sport

This is a bit old, but I saw it again recently. And heck, imageblogging is easy.

Posted by Evan @ 02/21/11 10:36 PM | Comments (0)