Rick Perry vs World

10 August 2006

The battle of the party switchers

Rick Perry -- elected to the Texas House as a Democrat, he made his name as part of a group of conservative Democrat budget hawks known as the Pit Bulls. In 1989, he switched parties to run for Ag Commissioner. A decade later, he was governor.

Carole Strayhorn -- once a Democrat in the Austin mayor's office (elections are non-partisan), she switched to the GOP to run for Congress. Later she became a railroad commissioner, and then comptroller. Now she's running as an independent.

Kinky Friedman -- once ran for office as a Republican, but only because he was running in a heavily Republican area. Now he's an independent.

Chris Bell -- he's never actually switched parties. Although I guess his wife has, because she once was a Republican. But in 2001 Bell was planning to run for mayor of Houston against Lee Brown as the de facto Republican/centrist opposition. As part of that, he voted for tax cuts and then accepted an award from the Harris County Republican Party. Bell's strategy was foiled when Orlando Sanchez entered the race, but he still went to many, many Republican events in 2001's campaign season. Every GOP event I was at, there was Chris Bell.

Posted by Evan @ 08/10/06 03:26 PM | Comments (4)

Ciro Rodriguez to challenge Henry Bonilla in CD23

SAEN, Greg Jefferson:

Former Congressman Ciro Rodriguez stopped playing coy Wednesday night and said he's in the race for U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla's post.

Last week, federal judges redrew the boundaries for Congressional District 23, pulling in more Bexar County voters — many of them Democrats — and forcing a Nov. 7 open election for the seat. That has moved many ambitious Democrats to look anew at the district, which stretches from San Antonio nearly to El Paso.

But Rodriguez on Wednesday escaped what could have been a strong challenge from a fellow Democrat. Former mayoral candidate and former City Councilman Julián Castro said he'd opted not to vie for the office.

In the meantime, Rodriguez — who's midway through a tour of the far-flung district — said he'll formally announce his candidacy Tuesday in San Antonio.

Monday night, he told several dozen supporters at his West Harding Boulevard headquarters that he'd take the following week to decide whether to run.

He said he'll campaign on beefing up education, infrastructure and access to health care, as well as Bonilla's voting record.

Rick Bolanos is also in the race, but Ciro Rodriguez is clearly the main Bonilla challenger.

Of the voting age population, 33.7% are Anglo, 3.3% black, 61.2% Hispanic, and 2% other. In 2002, the statewide composite index showed the district to be 49.3% Republican, and in 2004, the number rose to 53.7% Republican. Two tweakers to those numbers: in 2002, Tony Sanchez ran for governor, while in 2004 George W. Bush did surprisingly well among Hispanics in Texas.

As I predicted, the court started from scratch in drawing its own plan. In doing so, they certainly did Republicans no favors. Bonilla's 2002 district -- in which now-CD28 Congressman Cuellar nearly beat Bonilla -- was arguably a better district for Bonilla than his new one. In the 2002 election, Bonilla beat Cuellar 51.5% to 47.2%. However, the statewide composite for his 2002 district was 47.5% in 2002 and 56.4% in 2004. As Charles Kuffner has shown, Bonilla would have been likely to defeat Cuellar by an increased margin if the districts had remained unchanged in 2004.

Let's look at money. As of June 30th, Henry Bonilla had $2.2M on in cash on hand. Ciro Rodriguez had $0.05M ($50K). Rick Bolanos had even less. While Rodriguez might get help from the DCCC, he has a short time to raise money while trying to campaign at the same time. Unless the DCCC gets numbers showing Bonilla looking weak, they probably won't have the money to target Bonilla.

Rodriguez's base is on the south side of San Antonio just added to the district, but Bonilla happens to have his own strengths there as well. Not only is Bonilla a former San Antonio news broadcaster, but Bonilla grew up in the new parts of district and went to high school there. Rodriguez has no name ID outside of Bexar County, and Rodriguez's name ID is probably also very low in the northwest Bexar County part of the district that Bonilla has represented for years.

Rodriguez has a pretty liberal voting record, while Bonilla's definitely leans right. As for overall campaigning strength, Rodriguez managed to lose twice to Cuellar in CD28 Dem primaries despite the power of incumbency. He will be without those powers of incumbency in this election.

So it appears that Bonilla should have a pretty good shot at re-election. He starts out way ahead in both money and name ID, and is in a unique position to dig into Rodriguez's base. There's the possibility that multiple Democratic candidates might force a run-off (at least, my understanding is that the redistricting-affected districts are operating Louisiana style), and in run-offs, anything can happen. At Paul Burka's blog, I estimated Bonilla's chances of re-election at 70%, but I think I probably understated them. They are probably closer to 75%. [Burka put them at 60%.] I would put them even higher except for the possibility of a wind at the Democrats' backs this election cycle.

Bonilla is probably strong enough to carry this district through the next few cycles, if he is willing to face a rough campaign every two years. The bigger question is what happens when Bonilla retires or runs for higher office. If it's before the 2012 cycle, then Republicans won't be able to shore up Bonilla's district in redistricting. If they're smart, state Republican leaders will start planning who will run in this seat in the future. If George Antuna can win his seat in the legislature, he'd appear to be an attractive possible choice. And perhaps Bonilla will help Antuna win, now that their districts overlap.

Posted by Evan @ 08/10/06 05:49 AM | Comments (0)

09 August 2006

Perry campaign attacks Strayhorn for using state resources to campaign

RG Ratcliffe:

Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn has been using her state staff to prepare her for public appearances as an independent candidate for governor, according to records released by her office Monday.

Spokesmen for Strayhorn said there is nothing inappropriate or illegal in having the state staff do such work because Strayhorn is a state official even when campaigning for office. But state law says no public money can be spent in connection with a political campaign.

...

But the records show Strayhorn has used her taxpayer-financed research staff to prepare briefing papers for her public appearances whether they were state or campaign related.

Those include background materials for appearances before organizations that range from teachers' groups to the Texas AFL-CIO, from which she sought — but didn't receive — an endorsement in her race. A number of those documents offered critical facts about actions taken by Gov. Rick Perry, the Republican nominee who is seeking re-election.

The papers also indicate Strayhorn's state staff is editing speeches she delivers to these groups. E-mail traffic at the agency shows 18 state employees were involved in coordinating her briefing papers and speech analysis.

Strayhorn's office released about 9,000 pages of documents under the Texas Public Information Act to the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News.

A reader emailed me a video that the Perry campaign put together. The video shows Strayhorn -- at an ostensibly official (non-campaign) appearance -- making rather campaign-type statements.

Posted by Evan @ 08/09/06 07:50 PM | Comments (0)

Perry to campaign for NC state senator

Interesting:

On Saturday August 26th, Texas Governor Rick Perry will campaign for the re-election of State Senator Fred Smith. Governor Perry, a strong fiscal conservative, has held the line against new income, sales, property, and nursing home taxes. He has also protected the state’s Rainy Day fund, signed a balanced state budget and used his line-item veto authority to trim more than $500 million in new spending from the state budget.

Senator Smith said, "It is an honor for my wife, Ginny, and me to have Governor Perry at our home. I first met him at the 2005 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC and have followed his career ever since. He is a fiscal conservative who understands that state government must live within a budget and set priorities."

Posted by Evan @ 08/09/06 07:28 PM | Comments (0)

22:1

After the Supreme Court rejected the appeal to replace DeLay on the ballot, DeLay announced he was withdrawing from the race. He called his move to Virginia "irrevocable." Noble, I suppose, but perhaps he should've previously been more judicious in his speech when asked whether he might run if forced to remain on the ballot. Now Sugar Land mayor David Wallace has decided on a quixotic bid for the seat as a write-in. Of course, Wallace's bid isn't about winning in 2006. It's about winning the 2008 GOP primary for the right to send Lampson back into retirement.

Chris Elam reports that party leadership is hoping to find a write-in candidate to "bless" and then hope that the other hopefuls will withdraw if they are not blessed.

It seems to me that Republicans would've had a better chance to elect the libertarian nominee rather than backing a write-in. Unfortunately, history will record that DeLay somehow managed to find the one way this seat could elect a Democrat. In a 64% GOP seat, the odds a Republican will be elected are longer than 22:1.

Posted by Evan @ 08/09/06 07:01 PM | Comments (0)

New Rasmussen poll

August 3 poll of 500 likely voters, +/- 4.5% MoE (with a 95% confidence interval)
Perry 35% (-5% since 7/13 poll)
Bell 18% (+5% )
Strayhorn 18% (-2%)
Friedman 18% (-1%)

Rasmussen notes that:

Equal numbers of Texas voters have "very favorable" and "very unfavorable" views of Governor Perry. [Excerpt Rasmussen opinion.] Bell is viewed very favorably by 7% and very unfavorably by 12%, very low numbers for a major party challenger. For Strayhorn, the numbers are 14% very favorable and 18% very unfavorable. Friedman’s numbers are 17% and 21% respectively.

Posted by Evan @ 08/09/06 06:48 PM | Comments (0)

06 August 2006

Required reading

If I could make everyone read one blog, it'd easily be Greg Mankiw's eponymous blog.

We used Mankiw's text in my micro-econ class during my first semester of undergrad. My professor (not at Rice; I transferred) was a Democrat who told us several times that Mankiw was also a Democrat. So I was quite surprised when Mankiw accepted a position in the Bush administration. Either way, he's quite bright, and writes clearly. He's back teaching econ at Harvard now.

UPDATE: I didn't intend to post this until I had finished writing it. I had set the post to a future date, and forgotten to finish writing it. Oh well, I guess.

Posted by Evan @ 08/06/06 05:21 PM | Comments (0)

05 August 2006

Strayhorn on switching

While I was doing some background research for my interview with Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes, I happened upon this snippet from the December 2003 issue of Texas Monthly. Editor Evan Smith interviews Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn:

Evan Smith: But you do consider yourself a Republican?
Carole Strayhorn: Oh, yes!

ES: Once upon a time you were a Democrat. Any plans to become one in the
future? Because that's one thing out there in the rumor mill: that
you're going to switch parties again. Any intention of running as
anything other than a Republican?
Strayhorn: Absolutely none.

ES: Okay. Let me go back to 2002 again for a second. When Rick Perry,
David Dewhurst, and Tom Craddick were candidates for office, were you
all on good terms?
Strayhorn: I was always on good terms with everybody. I
learned long ago, during my mayoring days in Austin, that you can
disagree on philosophy or issues, but you charge ahead in the
friendship area.

Posted by Evan @ 08/05/06 07:15 AM | Comments (0)

03 August 2006

It's the end of the road, still I can't let go*

I just read the Tom DeLay replacement opinon by the 5th Circuit panel. This was a pretty big judicial smackdown.

The panel affirmed on both the constitutional question AND the "alternative state law ground".** Moreover, the review was de novo, meaning that the court didn't have to defer to the trial judge's opinion. There was a low standard of review, and they still decided on two different grounds that DeLay would have to be on the ballot.

The smackdown is so clear that it is likely to be the end of the judicial road. The Texas GOP will still file some papers (that's the second half of the post title but you'd already figured that out), but I doubt they'll be effective. The best chance for the GOP would be to focus on standing -- in fact, given the "alternative state law ground", standing is probably the only possible issue to appeal to the Supreme Court -- but the opinion goes to great lengths to establish standing on multiple grounds. An en banc hearing is possible, but seems awfully unlikely, given the unanimity of this opinion.

I'd say that it's now 99% likely that Tom DeLay will be on the ballot in November, unless he withdraws and leaves Nick Lampson without a Republican opponent. But that seems unlikely.

* People of my age will recognize this as lyric from the worst song played as the last slow dance at high school dances.

** In case you haven't noticed, I prefer to put my quotation marks inside of punctuation, and only rarely bow to grammar convention.

UPDATE: Texas GOP lawyer James Bopp appears to be arguing that the constitional question and the state law question are one and the same. It seems to me that because of the way the court issued its opinion, he'd have a higher hurdle.

I suppose it's always possible that the Supreme Court will issue cert to decide the constitutional question. Unfortunately for the Texas GOP, because the 5th Circuit affirmed on state law grounds, it doesn't appear that a favorable constitutional ruling would allow Republicans to replace DeLay. Also, because of the state law affirmation, it might make the constitutional question moot, so SCOTUS won't look at it.

Posted by Evan @ 08/03/06 03:26 PM | Comments (0)

5th Circuit: DeLay on ballot

A panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Tom DeLay must stay on the November ballot as the Republican nominee.

I expect that the TexasGOP will request an en banc hearing. You'd think they'd be unlikely to get the hearing of all the judges on the 5th Circuit, but who knows? I certainly don't: I didn't give Democrats much chance to keep DeLay on the ballot. Generally election law is always construed as loosely as possible to allow voters a choice.

But this was a unanimous opinion, with recent SCOTUS runner-up Joy Clement joining the two Clinton appointees in affirming Judge Sparks' opinion. That seems to bode very poorly for chances of Supreme Court certiori or 5th Circuit en banc re-hearing.

DeLay has indicated that he'll run if the 5th Circuit wouldn't allow the party to replace him on the ballot. This may mean I have to dust off the old DeLay vs World that I haven't really maintained since DeLay quit (or tried to, anyway) the race. I wasn't particularly interested in writing about the legal maneuverings (boring!) or the replacement process (Chris Elam was doing a much better job of covering it than I could have). But if there's a race...

Posted by Evan @ 08/03/06 03:11 PM | Comments (0)

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