18 November 2013
Wendy Davis cashes in
May as well cash in on her popularity with the far left:
Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator whose 11-hour legislative filibuster of an abortion bill gave her instant fame in the Democratic Party, is about to take the next logical step in her political ascent: writing a memoir.Ms. Davis, a candidate for governor in Texas, has signed with Blue Rider Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House, to write a book about her personal life and career, the publisher said on Thursday.
She's an ardent liberal running in a conservative state whose campaign has been marked by a series of missteps. May as well try to make some money on the deal, I guess.
Posted by Evan @ 11/18/13 12:05 AM | Comments (0)
16 November 2013
Those funny stereotypes
This is what Wayne Slater thinks is "funny and familiar" to Latinos.
As for speaking directly to Hispanics, she can be funny and familiar.
"I still live in the barrio. And if I get lost I can find the gang signs on my way home," she said recently. "The closest gated community to my house is the jail."
Hilarious.
Posted by Evan @ 11/16/13 04:11 PM | Comments (0)
09 November 2013
John Weaver got paid well to mismanage Ben Hall's campaign
When I read in early August that Ben Hall had hired John Weaver to run his campaign*, I knew Annise Parker would be re-elected as Houston's mayor. I said so on Twitter:
Annise Parker looks to be safe for re-election if this is who Ben Hall hires for his campaign team http://t.co/9B4nmzLife #hounews
— Evan PVW (@PerryVsWorld) August 3, 2013
John Weaver has called himself a Republican. He's also called himself a Democrat. While he seems to be calling himself a Republican again now, he spends most of his time criticizing Republicans as if he were still a Democrat. Over the course of Weaver's career, there is no detectable ideological consistency. But the one constant is that John Weaver gets paid. If there is one thing John Weaver is good at, it is finding deep-pocketed candidates. In fact, I said that back in August:
@PubliusTX if there is one thing John Weaver is good at, it is finding deep-pocketed candidates.
— Evan PVW (@PerryVsWorld) August 3, 2013
I took a quick tour through the City of Houston's campaign finance reports this morning. Here are the payments from Hall to John Weaver or to John Weaver's consulting firm*:
7/2 3750
7/3 22470
7/31 10k
8/2 129,515
8/30 10k
9/20 100k
9/30 100k
10/1 10k
10/18 150k
That's a grand total of $535,735. Ben Hall received just 46,775 votes for under 28% of the vote. Hall paid about $11.50 per vote to John Weaver/Weaver's firm for a campaign that was terribly strategized and poorly executed.
To be fair, some of those big payments to Weaver's consulting firm were for media buys. We don't know how much Weaver's firm made on those ad buys. However media buyers often get about 5% of media buys. If Weaver made 5% on the ad buys, then he made $80,000 (and $1.71 per vote) from four months of running Ben Hall's campaign into the ground.
* Mark Sanders' firm was also involved in the race.
** Those were just the payments I found in a quick check of the reports. I wouldn't be surprised if I missed some payments, so the actual amount could be higher.
Posted by Evan @ 11/09/13 02:01 PM | Comments (0)
06 November 2013
From the same playbook
Jason Johnson makes the same points this afternoon that I made in this morning's post.
Posted by Evan @ 11/06/13 06:19 PM | Comments (0)
Early returns on Ted Cruz vs the establishment
Last night's gubernatorial results do not reflect the apocalyptic-style predictions made by some in the GOP establishment about the electoral consequences of #DefundObamaCare.
1. Chris Christie cruised to re-election in NJ. His team looked to be patterning his re-election bid on George W. Bush's 98 effort, but the politician Chris Christie most reminds me of is John McCain. Christie benefited from sucking up to Obama during Sandy, but clearly NJ's solidly Democratic electorate did not hold the R by Christie's name against him.
2. McAuliffe squeaks by Cuccinelli in Virginia. This augurs pretty well for Republicans since 1) McAuliffe was outspending Cuccinelli 25 to 1 on the air, and even 10 to 1 in the closing days (per PoliticoLive last night), 2 liberals bankrolled a libertarian who got 7% by peeling off votes from Cuccinelli, and 3) Cuccinelli wasn't a stellar candidate. And exit polls even showed Virginia voters held Obama equally as responsible as Republicans for the government shutdown.
As for Texas angles:
1. With Wendy Davis and Barack Obama leading the way, 2014 should be a tough year for downballot Democrats.
2. I wonder if John Cornyn regrets his vote to not Defund ObamaCare? Someone should ask him.
3. Those overblown predictions made a few months ago do not look very smart nor perspicacious.
Posted by Evan @ 11/06/13 09:17 AM | Comments (0)