Rick Perry vs World

29 August 2005

600k?

The Perry camp woke up to a vivid reminder Aug. 22, when Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn fired off the first wave of broadcast advertising in the race -- radio attack spots that the Perry campaign estimated cost over $600,000.

The ads aired just three days after the Texas Legislature ended its second special session of the summer -- called by Perry -- without passing long-touted education and tax overhauls.

"I stayed silent all during the session," Strayhorn said. "I wanted this governor to succeed for the schoolchildren of Texas. He failed miserably, and now I will not be quiet, and I will be taking this debate all over this state to the people of Texas."

The ad campaign -- Strayhorn aides won't confirm or deny the $600,000 figure -- will probably be a mere down payment on one of the most expensive primaries in Texas history.

Aides say privately that Perry, who has amassed $8 million, is prepared to spend as much as $20 million on the March primary alone. Strayhorn already has more than $7 million in the bank.

...

Taylor, the political scientist from University of St. Thomas, said that if Friedman faces off with a weak Democrat and a battered Republican, he could defy the odds and pull off a Ventura-like upset.

"It sounds kind of crazy to say, but at this point ... I can see the Friedman campaign taking that kind of scenario," Taylor said. "I can see Friedman more likely winning than a Democrat in 2006."

600k seems like a lot to be spending on radio right now, but that's Perry's estimate only.

Taylor is the first pundit that I've seen mention that Friedman might have a better chance than the Democratic nominee, which is beginning to look like a plausible possible scenario.

Much of the part that I didn't excerpt was talk about how Republicans are acting like Democrats did once upon a time in Texas.

Posted by Evan @ 08/29/05 08:30 AM | Comments (0)

28 August 2005

I mentioned on Friday that Chris Bell had gotten an endorsement which seemed to be less impressive than initially appeared. That is, a Chris Bell staffer is an officer of the PAC. However, I didn't read the endorsement.

Kevin did, and this is what he found:

[Chris Bell's] legacy parlayed itself into his mayoral campaign, where once again, he astounded the city by backing out of a run-off race, and endorsing Lee Brown. Rather than put the city through a divisive three-way run-off, Congressman Bell decided to back out and serve elsewhere.

The notion of a three-way runoff is hilarious to me. The notion that Bell decided to back out serve elsewhere is simply factually incorrect. He lost with about 16% of the vote.

Those mistakes will certainly make your PAC look a bit amateur-ish.

Posted by Evan @ 08/28/05 08:21 PM | Comments (2)

26 August 2005

Buy some Kinky Friedman

This won't be news to regular readers, but I'll quote Jay Root's FWST article anyway:

Friedman is marketing his own talking action figure, selling it on the Internet to raise money for his campaign. He's already pulled in more than $90,000, and the dolls aren't even available yet for shipping, officials say.

"How hard can it be?" the Kinky doll says at the push of a button.

"It's much more than I expected, and it's still going, still going strong," Friedman said in a telephone interview from his ranch near Kerrville. "It's gone over the top. It looks like it's going to hit $100,000."

Friedman, a novelist and songwriter, plans to sell the dolls, which utter some of the Kinkster's famous one-liners, for about $30 each or $100 for people who want a signed first edition, if they pledge by Labor Day.

...

He's about to order the first batch of about 15,000 dolls from a Chinese manufacturer. The campaign said it couldn't find a Texas doll maker.

Smart politics for the Kinky campaign to release that it was using a Chinese manufacturer upfront. If they didn't, someone would find out, and if Kinky happens to become a serious contender, then the word would get out.

Posted by Evan @ 08/26/05 01:18 AM | Comments (0)

Critics upset with sale of part of Big Bend State Park

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is considering a proposed sale of about 15% of Big Bend Ranch State Park, or 46000 acres, to Houstonian John Poindexter.

Comptroller Strayhorn makes an appearance:

Republican Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who is running for governor, said that 97 percent of the land in Texas is privately held and that the department shouldn't sell what little land it has for state parks.

But if the agency is determined to complete the transaction, it needs to pursue a more open process, she said. "This is a backroom, behind-closed-doors, secret contract," Strayhorn said.

Many Texans might be skeptical to hear that part of the park is being sold, unless a particularly good price is being offered, regardless of what Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman Lydia Saldana says:

Parks and Wildlife Department spokeswoman Lydia Saldana has said that staff members recommended the transaction in part because there is no public access to the northern area and that the department can use the proceeds to buy other land for the park.

She said the department is well aware of concerns about the proposal.

Since Perry appointed most of this board (nope, I ain't factchecking yet, I'm just assuming), Strayhorn might try to make this a campaign issue.

UPDATE: A few minutes after I posted this, I see:

A hotly contested plan to sell 46,000 acres of Big Bend Ranch State Park evaporated Thursday when the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission unanimously rejected the $2 million deal.

...

The land in question makes up the northern panhandle of the 300,000-acre park, established when the state acquired 222,000 acres in 1988.

The commission explained that it had hoped to use the proceeds from sale of the land to Poindexter at $43.68 per acre to purchase up to 28,000 acres in privately owned pockets of land within park boundaries. Specifically, they wanted to open public access in the southeastern portions of the park.

Interestingly, both articles quote the sale as selling about "1/6" of Big Bend. In fact, 1/6 is about 20% more than the actual figure.

Posted by Evan @ 08/26/05 01:13 AM | Comments (0)

Chris Bell news

The Midland Reporter Telegram covers Chris Bell's recent swing through Midland with the headline "Bell say time right be right for Texas governor." [sic]

Chris Bell announced the endorsement of a PAC of South Asians called Desis for Texas. One of Bell's campaign staffers is the treasurer. Dheeraj Chand, the president of the PAC used to work for that particular Bell staffer, Jason Stanford. Chand has "previously worked for Grassroots Campaigns, a company that handles canvassing and phone-banking strategies for prominent political groups like The Democratic National Committee, MoveOn PAC and The AFL-CIO/Working America, and for Stanford Research." (Desis link)

Posted by Evan @ 08/26/05 01:01 AM | Comments (0)

24 August 2005

Kinky spam?

This morning, while sitting in my first class, I noticed that someone was leaving a run of spam on every succeeding post. They all came from the same IP address in Lubbock but put different names on each comment. Each comment read "www.kinkyfriedman.com"

Strange.

Posted by Evan @ 08/24/05 09:53 PM | Comments (0)

23 August 2005

An interesting catch by today's Blogometer by the National Journal:

DLCers Marshall Wittmann and Ed Kilgore both have written favorable posts focusing mostly or in part on writer/musician/indie TX GOV candidate Kinky Friedman in the past few days.

Posted by Evan @ 08/23/05 05:38 PM | Comments (0)

The Guv likes some new media

From Eileen, there's a Statesman article by Selby about how Rick Perry likes talk radio:

Robert Black, Perry's deputy press secretary, said the governor seeks a general audience by accepting station invitations and initiating calls — sometimes without telling aides ahead of time.

"If we've got a message we want to get out, we'll call," Black said. "There's a relationship built up over the years. Talk radio allows him to get his message directly to Texans, completely unfiltered.

"He enjoys talk radio. Talk radio shows are hometown shows. They're usually pleasant, not that controversial, though they will tackle tough subjects."

As Eileen notes, Perry doesn't seem to fond of that other new media -- blogs.

Posted by Evan @ 08/23/05 01:40 AM | Comments (1)

Online fundraising drives

Chris Elam notes that Chris Bell and Kinky Friedman are both having fundraising drives.

According to Elam, so far Kinky has raised over 86K, and Chris Bell has raised over 7K. Bell's goal is 25K by August 31.

To be fair to Bell, Friedman did start his fundraising drive before Bell's. Still, that's probably why Charles Soechting is thinking about trying to recruit Kinky to run as a Democrat.

In other Bell news, Dem state Rep. Pete Gallego will be chairman of his campaign.

Posted by Evan @ 08/23/05 01:34 AM | Comments (0)

Carole Strayhorn is on the air

Carole Keeton Strayhorn has launched radio commercials attacking Rick Perry for wanting to raise taxes.

"Some politicians think it is easier to tax than to lead," Strayhorn says in the commercial.

"Now, you might expect that kind of thing from a big taxing liberal in Washington, but here in Texas? From a Republican governor?"

Strayhorn says Perry raised state fees $2.7 billion in 2003 and then this year proposed "the largest tax increase in Texas history ... and not one penny for education.

"No wonder our Republican Legislature had to tell him no twice."

Perry re-election campaign manager Luis Saenz said, "It's typical Carole, talking without a solution."

Saenz said Strayhorn is "taking a page out of the Tony Sanchez playbook and attacking without offering a solution." Sanchez was Perry's Democratic opponent in 2002.

Saenz said since Perry has been lieutenant governor and governor, the state has increased education spending by $10 billion. Saenz said many of the fees Strayhorn is criticizing were adopted by lawmakers on her recommendation.

Posted by Evan @ 08/23/05 01:28 AM | Comments (1)

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