Rick Perry vs World

01 June 2007

Light reading over the weekend

The desire to boost voter turnout prompted Mr. Perry 18 months ago to open his campaign to four political scientists – including two Yale University professors.

"We fondly refer to them as our eggheads," political director Dave Carney said.

The professors' work, which will evolve into a paper or a book after the election, delves into what kind of contact coupled with which message will motivate which supporters to the polls.

...

The professors and their studies are not involved with the campaign's message. "But they're coming up with ideas to see if they can impact it and make it more positive," Mr. Carney said.

In a five-way campaign with a lot of variables that could tip the outcome, some hard science could help the Perry camp maximize voter turnout. And the professors' chronicle of the effort could help raise the governor's profile among political experts just as another national campaign is getting under way.

What's happening in Texas is radiating through about 16 other states, said Matthew Dowd, chief campaign strategist for the 2004 Bush campaign.

Mr. Dowd was one of the pioneers who meshed consumer habits, public data, and information on lifestyles and applied it to a different kind of consumer – the American voter. The technology has allowed campaigns to determine whether a person is likely to tilt Democrat or Republican and – coupled with polling on issues – to know what topic is likely to propel them into a voting booth.

Dowd may have done excellent work for BushCheney04 but Dowd's book -- written with Ron Fournier and Doug Sosnik -- wasn't very good. Too anecdotal, too much cheerleading about the joys and wonders of microtargeting. As the title of the book suggests, they laud Applebee's...but given the performance of Applebee's recently, it's hard to imagine that they would name their book that again. Plus, micro-targeting doesn't always work. It's no panacea, as a recent academic study suggests that sometimes it has a negative impact.

Anyway, I made a note to check for the paper that came out of The Eggheads research. I've never read their book but am somewhat familiar with their work.

Voila. Here's the paper (in PDF) they presented. Enjoy and kudos to Rick Perry and his campaign team.

Posted by Evan @ 06/01/07 04:35 PM | Comments (0)

14 hour days are my easy days

Dan Bartlett, the longest serving W aide, resigned today. Here's a snippet from the press conference where he talks about the long hours:

Yes, it's -- I usually get to the office between 6:15 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. Since I've had my kids, I've tried to leave the office before 8:00 p.m., and I try to at least see my — see the kids at least once or twice a week before they go to bed.

But what most people will tell you here, it's not as much the actual hours you're in the office. It's more about, you're never be able to turn it off, whether it's the BlackBerry calling, or the matching of stories, or the -- when certain newspapers put their Sunday edition up at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoons, and there goes your evening. It is working with the duty officers and those things. All those things kind of come with it, but more importantly than any of that is you're never able to turn it off.

Sheesh, seeing your kids once or twice per week before they go to bed. Wow.

Still, those long hours sound perversely attractive to me right now. I have too much free time.

Posted by Evan @ 06/01/07 04:04 PM | Comments (0)

31 May 2007

Draft Fred

It looks like he's really gonna do it. Fred Thompson is going to form an exploratory committee to run for president. Back on October 26 of last year, before anyone was talking about Fred, I was hoping that former Senator Thompson would run for president. Back then I wrote, "I'm almost tempted to register a domain name."

I wish I would have!

Posted by Evan @ 05/31/07 01:34 PM | Comments (2)

Kingmakers and stalking horses

Per my post yesterday:

perhaps [Sylvester] Turner is trying to headoff a primary challenge by declaring for speaker. After all, he can't possibly think he has a chance of winning the speakership, can he? Most of the Democrats wouldn't vote for him [I assume], and Republicans aren't going to vote for a Democrat.

Paul Burka speculates:

Let's say he can get to 25-30 supporters. That gives him a chance to be kingmaker, but not king--and we know who he'll be kingmaker for. More likely, this is not a play for speaker at all. It is a play to protect the Craddick Ds from a primary challenge. Turner's candidacy gives the Craddick Ds the opportunity to pledge to a Democrat. This removes the main argument that can be used against the Craddick Ds in the primary.

I guess we're both surprised by the oddity of this move, and trying to read the tea leaves in response. Great minds think alike.

Yet, the idea that Turner is a stalking horse for Tom Craddick seems like awfully quick calculation on Craddick/Turner's part. They decided in one day that it'd be best if Turner became a candidate? Hmm, maybe, but I'm not sure I'm persuaded. Turner certainly didn't sound like a candidate in the interviews he gave a day before where he didn't sound loyal to Craddick but was going to keep his options open.

Plus, it doesn't seem like Craddick would've wanted the news of one of his top lieutenants seemingly defecting. After all, on the face of it, having Turner declare for weakness seems bad for the Speaker.

But who knows? That's what makes politics fun!

Posted by Evan @ 05/31/07 01:26 PM | Comments (0)

30 May 2007

Trial lawyer money

Mikal Watts appears to be the guy Texas Democrats have picked to spend lots and lots of his money trying to unseat John Cornyn. He's opening an exploratory committee on Friday.

Will he spend as much as Tony Sanchez?

Posted by Evan @ 05/30/07 10:32 PM | Comments (0)

Sylvester Turner running for speaker

Speaker Pro Tem Sylvester Turner has filed for speaker, according to Kronberg. He's been one of Craddick's top lieutenants for the past few sessions, so it would appear that Craddick would be unable to win re-election if the entire House were to return in 2009. Too many people smell blood and think they can be speaker.

However, the entire House won't return in 2009. Ay, there's the rub!

Sidenote: perhaps Turner is trying to headoff a primary challenge by declaring for speaker. After all, he can't possibly think he has a chance of winning the speakership, can he? Most of the Democrats wouldn't vote for him [I assume], and Republicans aren't going to vote for a Democrat.

Posted by Evan @ 05/30/07 03:27 PM | Comments (0)

A choked yellow dog?

The Hill reports that Nick Lampson and Henry Cuellar are two of 8 House Democrats trying to get accepted to the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate Democrats who only have 5 spots open.

Reps. Bart Gordon (Tenn.), Zack Space (Ohio), Chris Carney (Pa.), Harry Mitchell (Ariz.), Gabrielle Giffords (Ariz.), Nancy Boyda (Kan.), Henry Cuellar (Texas) and Nick Lampson (Texas) are competing for the five remaining slots. The winners will be announced next week.

The Blue Dogs are a select group. They amended their bylaws earlier this year to limit membership to 47 lawmakers. Lawmakers need to have a sponsor who is already a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, write an essay, and interview before a panel of five lawmakers.

Most of that group is freshmen or sophomores, so I'm not that familiar with them. Obviously, quite a few of those Democrats certainly want to join the group so that they can claim to be Blue Dogs during their next campaign.

One would assume Cuellar would get in. Given what I know of the remainder, I'd give Lampson an outside shot.

Posted by Evan @ 05/30/07 02:08 PM | Comments (0)

It's beginning to look a lot like campaign season, dos

So, it occurs to me apropos my earlier post. If I were to rank Texas House races by most likely to change partisan control, should I divide them by Republicans and Democrats, or by pro-Craddicks and anti-Craddicks?

Posted by Evan @ 05/30/07 12:28 AM | Comments (0)

That sound you hear is me laughing

Glenn Smith brings the funny:

It is my view that the current Republican leadership in Austin and Washington is unalterably opposed to the diffusion of power. It is the concentration power and the wealth it brings them that they cherish most. [sic] Furthermore, this hunger for power has for too long been hidden in the sheep's clothing of "family values" or "government run like a business." Sometimes it's not even disguised. Conservative intellectuals like Judge Richard Posner argue against popular democracy and for elite rule. Posner even worries that increased political participation would distract citizens from their most important duty: buying things to support the consumer economy. (It's in his book, "Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy.")

Yup, Richard Posner is so directly influential on the Republican establishment. [/sarcasm]

Besides, methinks Mr. Smith ought read Judge Posner a bit less formalistically. [You're a law geek if you think that last sentence is funny.]

Posted by Evan @ 05/30/07 12:22 AM | Comments (0)

29 May 2007

The myth of the rational politician, dos

So, last night's post title "The myth of the rational politician" still amuses me. I hope it made the point that my unpublished post would have, as well as being a nod to Bryan Caplan's recent Myth of the Rational Voter (which I haven't read yet, but will soon.)

If Lampson were a rational actor, I'd assume he'd run for Senate. So, he's either not rational, or he's calculating that his running for CD22 increases the aggregated percentages for Democrats in the Senate and CD22 races. The latter would fit with what I've observed from Lampson, who's a pretty slick pragmatic politician.

Posted by Evan @ 05/29/07 10:49 PM | Comments (0)

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