29 July 2012
"I don't run negative ads" claims David Dewhurst
A few days ago, David Dewhurst made a shocking claim to an Abilene TV station:
"I don't run negative ads."
When you run as many millions in negative ads as he has, you lose credibility.
Posted by Evan @ 07/29/12 11:25 PM | Comments (0)
28 July 2012
Kids for Cash scandal, Ted Cruz & David Dewhurst's Cash for Kids attacks
Since David Dewhurst refuses to defend his moderate record, he has been forced to sink to increasingly false and desperate personal attacks. With the Cash for Kids attack ads, David Dewhurst has achieved a noteworthy low.
Ted Cruz's work in the case would have helped the victims get more money.
Posted by Evan @ 07/28/12 06:33 PM | Comments (0)
David Dewhurst's dirty tricks: fake Sarah Palin endorsement call
UPDATE: I can only confirm one report of the call. A woman came to a tea party booth at an East Texas event and reported how angry she was to get a Palin impersonator robocall endorsing Dewhurst from a voice claiming to be "Sarah." As far as I can tell, this was the source of the various rumors as I haven't been able to track down other first-hand reports.
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Now that Dewhurst is losing headed into the runoff election day, they are apparently trying a new dirty trick: a call from a Palin impersonator claiming that "Sarah" has endorsed David Dewhurst. On the contrary, Palin has wholeheartedly endorsed Ted Cruz.
When audio is available, it will be posted.
Related: Kids for Cash scandal
Posted by Evan @ 07/28/12 01:07 PM | Comments (1)
27 July 2012
Sarah Palin: David Dewhurst's attacks are disgusting
Aman Batheja writes up Governor Sarah Palin's visit to the Woodlands:
“You know who gave me these boots?” she asked sweetly. “Your governor.”
The crowd cheered. Then Gov Palin delivered the punch line.
“At least in that one case he made a good decision,” she said.
Palin was also quite solicitous about how much she likes Texas.
I thought her best line of the night was "David Dewhurst's attacks are disgusting."
Palin has a unique credibility that specifically allows her to innoculate someone she endorses from attacks. Dewhurst is not going to win this race.
Posted by Evan @ 07/27/12 10:16 PM | Comments (0)
26 July 2012
Dewhurst donor
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Posted by Evan @ 07/26/12 09:37 PM | Comments (0)
David Dewhurst's Record
At last Monday's debate, David Dewhurst said he still runs Falcon Seaboard on a daily basis.
Posted by Evan @ 07/26/12 06:00 PM | Comments (0)
This was a post
[ ]
Posted by Evan @ 07/26/12 07:47 AM | Comments (0)
25 July 2012
Dewhurst supported Obama's Trojan Horse "stimulus" tax hike
When Barack Obama passed his $831 billion "stimulus" bill, he included lots of tricks that were designed to trap state governments into increasing spending and taxes. One of the biggest Obama stimulus tricks was giving away money for unemployment insurance, but with major strings attached. Obama's stimulus bill forced state governments to agree to raise taxes in order to receive federal money.
Check out what Governor Rick Perry said about Obama's back-door big government ruse:
I did reject $555 million in federal stimulus dollars that would have mandated the state of Texas to pay costlier benefits and put higher taxes on Texas employers indefinitely. Even if we had accepted these stimulus funds, Texas would have still seen higher unemployment taxes, bond financing and federal borrowing to keep benefits from the UI Trust Fund flowing.David Dewhurst has been calling himself a fighter during this campaign. So you'd expect that he fought tooth and nail against Obama's attempt to force Texas to raise taxes, right?
WRONG. Under David Dewhurst's leadership, the Texas Senate passed Obama's back-door tax hike.* While Texas liberals applauded, Dewhurst said nothing. As Lieutenant Governor, he could have stopped the bill in a million ways through procedural trickery. Dewhurst did nothing.
But maybe it wasn't that big of a deal? Wrong. Obama's hidden tax increase is a big job killer.
Last week, Nina Easton reported in Fortune magazine about how the provision is killing jobs (hat tip to Push Junction for the link). The piece is called The silent job killer: Our unemployment system
Between 2008 and 2011, $174 billion in unemployment taxes was collected while $450 billion was paid out in benefits, a gap of $276 billion. 34 states blew through their unemployment insurance trust funds and borrowed from Washington -- and 22 of those still owe the feds a total of more than $30 billion, according to the Tax Foundation. The foundation's study concluded that some states will not fully repay those loans for years.Read the full Easton piece to get a full sense of just how bad taking the unemployment money would have been for Texas. Here's a snippet:The new costs of hiring [from Obama's unemployment insurance "stimulus"] come just as the National Federation of Independent Business has published a gloomy survey of small companies showing negative job creation and pessimism about the future. "There was no good news in the June survey" released last week, the trade association said. "NFIB members didn't add a lot of jobs and don't plan to in the coming months."
While South Carolina businesses with no past unemployment claims will see a tax reduction, businesses with a history of layoffs -- about a third of them in this state, where unemployment is still over 9% -- face job-crippling increases ranging from 100% to 600%.Cyclical jobs like manufacturing would have faced huge tax increases for hiring more workers. That was kosher to Dewhurst. Fortunately Governor Perry rejected the Dewhurst Senate's attempt to kill Texas jobs!
Why did Dewhurst fail to do anything to stop Obama's job-killing tax hikes? On May 12, 2010 David Dewhurst sat down for an interview with the Texas Tribune, and he told us why: he supported them!
Transcript:
David Dewhurst: I can make an argument [for or against].Dewhurst goes on to say that it was a "very, very close" decision, even though he would have taken the money.
Evan Smith: But you support the governor's decision in the end to not take the money?
David Dewhurst: I probably would have taken the money.
David Dewhurst had his chance to stand up to all of Obama's hidden taxes and fight for Texas. Instead Dewhurst joined with moderate Republicans like Kevin Eltife and Bob Deuell to pass a bill that would have raised taxes and killed jobs.
How can Dewhurst ask us to trust him to fight Obama and ObamaCare when Dewhurst supported Obama's job-killing tax hikes?
* With Dewhurst's tacit support, moderate Republicans Kevin Eltife and Bob Deuell led the charge to approve Obama's tax hike.
Read more about Unvetted Dewhurst
Posted by Evan @ 07/25/12 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
24 July 2012
Twitter "I voted" mentions as a measure of enthusiasm
Jim Barksdale is quoted as saying:
If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let's go with mine
Previously I've looked at clearly imperfect but interesting proxies for measuring grassroots support and enthusiasm in the Republican runoff.
I counted Twitter for mentions of having voted for either "Dewhurst" (anywhere in tweet) or "Ted Cruz" or "tedcruz."
Today, between 12:01am and 8pm during Tuesday early voting, the results were:
Voted for David Dewhurst: 4
Voted for Ted Cruz: 159
Yesterday in the morning I also counted (between 7am and 1pm on Monday morning) and the count was:
Dewhurst: 3
Cruz: 42
Most interestingly, there were more people who said they voted against Dewhurst without ever mentioning Cruz (7) than actual people mentioning they'd voted for Dewhurst (4). That would support the notion that Dewhurst's attacks are driving up Dewhurst's negatives more than they are convincing people not to vote for Dewhurst.
A note on methodology: searching for Dewhurst should pick up all his support, while if a tweet mentioned only "Cruz," it wouldn't have been counted. As such, if anything my count undercounted Cruz.
Read more about Unvetted David Dewhurst
Posted by Evan @ 07/24/12 08:44 PM | Comments (4)
Dewhurst's business partner
Temporary layaway to the paid archive.
Posted by Evan @ 07/24/12 03:49 PM | Comments (3)
22 July 2012
As I noted on Twitter, it is a strange dynamic for the folks in the Texas legislature: as it continues to look increasingly probable that David Dewhurst will lose the Republican runoff, every legislator has more of an incentive to promote Dewhurst's senate bid because he is more likely to return as Lt Guv.
We have particularly seen this in the last few weeks, as Republican legislators got much more vocal for Dewhurst when they realized Dewhurst was likely to be back for the next session.
Strange incentives, indeed.
Posted by Evan @ 07/22/12 11:04 PM | Comments (0)
21 July 2012
Perry to fundraise for Dewhurst on election eve
Governor Perry is headlining a Dallas fundraiser for David Dewhurst on election eve.
Think about that: rather than try to take his last possible chance to motivate or persuade voters, Dewhurst is going to spend the last night of the election raising money.
Dewhurst cares more about getting his money back ( he has loaned his campaign between 10-20 million) than he does about winning. That is astounding.
Even more importantly Dewhurst is signaling that he doesn't expect to win the primary. If he thought he was going to win, then there would be plenty of time later to get paid back. However, once he has lost the runoff, it becomes much more difficult to convince donors to give.to his federal campaign (which has 5k caps anyway combining the primary and runoff)
Posted by Evan @ 07/21/12 08:00 PM | Comments (0)
20 July 2012
What endorsement will Dewhurst unveil at Monday's debate?
Thursday morning when the King St Patriots debate was announced, I tweeted that Dewhurst's poll numbers must be deteriorating rapidly for Dewhurst to all of a sudden stop dodging debates. Today a poll of DFW came out that had Cruz winning by 10. Most interesting was the data point that 16% of folks who voted for Dewhurst in May were switching to Cruz. What percent was switching from Cruz to Dewhurst? 0%. That's right: ZERO percent.
But after playing hide-the-candidate for so long, my guess is that the Dewhurst campaign is also planning on unveiling an endorsement.
KBH seems like the logical endorsement for Dewhurat to unveil. and like Leppert I have long assumed that she
is likely to eventually endorse Dewhurst. There's certainly some reasons she might not endorse. I am skeptical she would help much even in DFW even if she does endorse.
There are other potential big-name endorsers but this late in the game an endorser needs to elicit a strong emotional reaction to change attitudes.
The only real name Dewhurst could unveil that might move the dial is probably W
(Apologies for typos and terseness as I am typing from my phone)
Update 7/23 1:30pm: If I had to guess, I'd guess Dewhurst releases Dan Patrick endorsement tonight, with KBH second likely.
RELATED: David Dewhurst's record
Posted by Evan @ 07/20/12 10:42 PM | Comments (0)
19 July 2012
Post 1686
[ This post is available in the paid archive ]
Posted by Evan @ 07/19/12 04:48 PM | Comments (0)
18 July 2012
This was post 1685
archived.
Posted by Evan @ 07/18/12 03:49 PM | Comments (0)
17 July 2012
are we human or are we dancer?
Posted by Evan @ 07/17/12 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
14 July 2012
Dewhurst linked
This post has been archived.
Posted by Evan @ 07/14/12 04:47 PM | Comments (0)
13 July 2012
This post is available in the paid archive.
Posted by Evan @ 07/13/12 11:12 AM | Comments (3)
12 July 2012
This post is available in the paid archive.
This post is available in the paid archive.
Posted by Evan @ 07/12/12 07:24 AM | Comments (1)
09 July 2012
To the paid archive
This is available in the paid archive.
Posted by Evan @ 07/09/12 10:37 PM | Comments (0)
08 July 2012
to the archive
Posted by Evan @ 07/08/12 01:33 PM | Comments (0)
07 July 2012
Dewhurst admits that he's a conciliator
30 seconds after saying that he wanted to sit down with conservative groups after the election on the Matt Patrick show, David Dewhurst said:
David Dewhurst: If there's anyone I have said or done that has put someone off, that's not my style. (Matt Patrick Show, July 5, 2012)
Posted by Evan @ 07/07/12 08:51 AM | Comments (0)
06 July 2012
David Dewhurst promises to campaign AFTER the election on the Matt Patrick show
Although David Dewhurst has avoided grassroots events for the entire campaign, Dewhurst yesterday told Matt Patrick that he wants to sit down with people after the election to "just talk."
Matt Patrick: When this is over with, whoever wins this thing....there's going to be a period of time when you or whoever wins this thing is going to have to go out and soothe some ruffled feathers.
David Dewhurst: Well um, I'd love an opportunity if anyone has ruffled, um...feelings...to let me sit down with you, your group. Uh, individually...larger groups. And...just talk.
So during the campaign, Dewhurst has avoided debates, candidate forums, Republican Women's clubs and Tea Party groups that invited him, yet he says he wants to sit down with those groups after the election?
That's a unique style of campaigning. "I'll ignore you during the election, but after the campaign is over, then I will really want to talk...promise!"
Posted by Evan @ 07/06/12 02:16 PM | Comments (0)
05 July 2012
Rob Portman's Texas connection
NYT:
Mr. Portman can deliver a speech in Spanish. He learned the language while living on a ranch near the Rio Grande in Texas during a college break, working alongside illegal immigrants. The experience intrigued him enough that he used it to write his anthropology thesis at Dartmouth.
He recorded radio ads in Spanish during his Senate race and promoted his jobs plan to Hispanic voters. With a light accent and a trill of his R's, he introduced himself by saying, “Soy Rob Portman, candidato para el Senado de los Estados Unidos."
3 months to learn Spanish. Not too shabby.
The Senator from Ohio looks like the choice to me, if I were Romney. But honestly the "who will be the VP pick?" parlor game wouldn't get so much attention if it didn't occur in the slow news months of the summer.
Posted by Evan @ 07/05/12 11:51 PM | Comments (0)
03 July 2012
Dewhurst's muddled messaging
Is it me or is Dewhurst's campaign remarkably messageless right now? Dan Patrick played the role of Dewhurst surrogate on his radio show and got into a heated debate with Ted Cruz. Yawn. That's really what they're pushing hard?
If this were a presidential campaign, we'd be about a week away from the Politico piece where the consultants start blaming each other.
Posted by Evan @ 07/03/12 08:32 AM | Comments (0)
02 July 2012
The Ted Cruz v David Dewhurst supporter enthusiasm gap
One more data point when thinking about the enthusiasm gap between supporters of Ted Cruz and David Dewhurst in the Republican primary runoff.
From Targeted Victory:
1. Ted Cruz had the most views [in all America] with 69,458 and the largest increase in subscriber growth with 20.00%.2. The most watched political video [in the nation] was "Desperate Dewhurst's Amnesty Lies" by Ted Cruz with 47,302 views.
The "Desperate Dewhurst Amnesty Lies" video was in response to the last minute Dewhurst attempt to play the race card, under-the-radar.
So Ted Cruz had double the YouTube views. And, again, that understates the true enthusiasm gap. I've seen many paid Google ads from the Dewhurst campaign which lead to landing pages where the Dewhurst ad plays automatically. I have yet to see the Cruz campaign advertise to get people to watch their videos.
Posted by Evan @ 07/02/12 07:13 PM | Comments (0)