Rick Perry vs World

07 January 2011

Palin: I'll be Marco Rubio's biggest supporter if he runs for president

Just wanted to highlight a post over at Draft Marco Rubio on Sarah Palin saying she will be Rubio's biggest supporter if he runs for president.

Posted by Evan @ 01/07/11 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Presidential probablities

Mike Allen put this in playbook this morning:

PRESIDENT OBAMA’s chance of being reelected: 75%

MITT ROMNEY’s chance of being the GOP nominee: 20%

JON HUNTSMAN’s chance of being the GOP nominee: 15%

I'm pretty sure I said publicly before and after the election that most people were underrating Obama's re-election chances, but 75%? That is puzzling. Intrade has Obama at about 58-59% likelihood of winning re-election, which seems about right, if a few points on the low side. The key factors are 1) economic numbers and 2) quality of Republican nominee.

Meanwhile Romney's chances are probably understated a little bit, whereas I don't even think Huntsman has a 5% chance of being president. 15% is quite high.

Incidentally, Intrade has Marco Rubio with only a 2% chance of even running for president. You've got to take illiquid contracts with a huge grain of salt, and given that Rubio didn't rule out running for president two days ago, I'd say his chances of running are higher than 2%.

Posted by Evan @ 01/07/11 12:51 PM | Comments (0)

Interpreting 2010 for 2012

For the short-view, check out Ronald Brownstein in the National Journal. Very good piece, although focusing so heavily on Colorado is misleading, because rich liberal activists invested millions in interest groups and news-ish organizations (to use Cory Crow's term) in Colorado as a crucible for political spending in the rest of the nation.

To get a fuller picture of how to interpret Brownstein's sliced and diced exit polls, check out Henry Olsen's excellent piece After the Wave in National Affairs.

Posted by Evan @ 01/07/11 12:39 PM | Comments (0)

06 January 2011

South Steps chimes in on Straus and the gain in seats

Apropos of my post earlier today, South Steps agrees:

Consider what Straus did for the freshmen who won a Dem seat: $0 in donations to any candidate who was challenging an incumbent Democrat. His PACs ranked 32nd and 46th in fundraising for Texas in 2010 (pathetic) and disbursed about $2.2 million. $1.5 million went to his officeholder account, and $0 went to a Republican challenger. **Disclaimer: double-check these numbers.

I would credit at least 25 organizations and far more individuals with helping build this majority more than Straus, arguably the second most powerful Republican in Texas, has.

------

Again, let me make clear that I do not care who wins speaker this session. I expect Straus to win, and I take him at his word when he promises better committee leadership.

I find it hard to judge whether I should care. Straus looks pretty likely to win. Most anti-Straus activism seems more noisy than effective. I wasn't terribly happy with the way Straus became speaker (on the other hand, from his perspective, "why not, if they're going to pick someone, why not me?"), but so far most of the anti-Straus groups seem more concerned with how he became speaker than in what he will do this session. Maybe they're right. Maybe they're not. I think the members themselves are likely to be a much better judge of what kind of speaker Joe Straus will be this session, and it looks like most Republicans are willing to give Straus another session.

Personally, I wish the more people would focus on procedural changes to Texas government that will still benefit us in a generation. It triggers less hot-button emotions, but it is substantive.

Posted by Evan @ 01/06/11 12:01 AM | Comments (1)

05 January 2011

Red McCombs bought the Inaugural bbq

Things I didn't know, from the Statesman:

The San Antonio businessman and philanthropist has bought enough meat and sides to feed 10,000 people at the barbecue being held at the Capitol after the Jan. 18 inauguration of Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

The meal tickets were originally priced at $8 apiece, but the billionaire wanted to pickup the tab, he said in a news release.

More Inaugural info.

Posted by Evan @ 01/05/11 09:25 PM | Comments (0)

Straus, Craddick, and the prevailing national winds

¿Me meto en la política de la votacíon para el "Speaker"? Suspiro...bueno.

David Jennings has been firmly defending Straus over at BigJolly Politics (a site to which, incidentally, I should link much more often) by pointing out that under Craddick, Republicans lost 12 seats while under Straus they gained 25 seats.

Not so fast, says EmpowerTexans:

In truth, the Texas GOP’s down-ballot races fell victim to the ’08 national Obama-wave, which brought out many new voters interested in voting for president and stuck on with the Democrats down-ballot. Texas, being one of several states that practices straight-ticket voting, allowed these voters to fill in a single bubble to vote for every Democrat on the ballot, including state and local candidates. These voters, plus distaste for the national GOP ticket, turned out to be a deadly combination for Republicans.

Fast forward to 2010 and the pendulum swung in the opposite direction. National distaste for the president and his party have sent voters flocking to the GOP, bringing their votes to state-wide GOP candidates as well.

I pretty much agree with that. It might be that Craddick engendered some negative coverage by the Austin press corps, and that Straus so far doesn't, but I think that effect is pretty marginal. It could've swung a few seats, or it could've swung zero.

But if he fails to score a point by saying +25, -12, in my judgment Big Jolly does score a point by pointing out that if it was a national election, then, "[that] makes their current argument that the November elections meant that Texans were crying out for a new speaker, um, shall we say…a bit strange?"

Agreed. Texans were largely voting against Barack Obama in November. And back in the primary, Straus wasn't an issue in many campaigns.

Reading any more into the election results is a mistake with regards to the race for the speakership.

Posted by Evan @ 01/05/11 03:27 PM | Comments (1)

Perry 2010 will be a model for GOP 2012

Has there been any candidate for office over the past two election cycles who dealt with the border and immigration as well as Rick Perry? Republicans running for president would be wise to look at Perry 2010 as a case study for 2012.

Posted by Evan @ 01/05/11 01:03 PM | Comments (1)

04 January 2011

Matt Angle speculates on redistricting

Matt Angle, the de facto head of the Texas Democrats (or as some like to put it, the head coach), did a Q&A on redistricting with Hotline On Call:

The Hotline: How do you think Republicans will go about drawing the map? Where will they put the districts?

Matt Angle: I think their starting place will be to try to hold their districts. And they'll do that by keeping the minority percentage the same, but putting in high-voting Anglo-Republicans. High turnout Republicans. What they did this time is they won because you had high turnout among Anglos who vote straight-ticket Republican.

And then they will draw a new Hispanic district in Dallas County and just say that that's a new Hispanic district. Because you can draw it there and not hurt any incumbent. Then they'll draw some kind of Hispanic district, or at least I'll call it a "Hispanic district" from Austin, South. But rather than leave the rest of Travis County for Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D), they'll break up Travis County into three or four pieces.

So Doggett will face a tough race. Either they'll get rid of him by putting him a Republican district or they'll make him run in a Hispanic district. Doggett's been elected in a Hispanic district before; maybe he can do it again. But it keeps Democrats from netting up seats. So then, in effect, what they will have done is created three new Republican districts.

Angle also said:

The real feud between DeLay and Martin wasn't about anything other than DeLay didn't like the fact that so many Democrats held marginal districts in Texas.

Martin Frost's 1991 gerrymander was quite successful. If Democrats had been successful in blocking redisticting in the last decade, the 2008 congressional delegation probably would have been 18 Democrats and 14 Republicans in a state that hasn't elected a single Democrat statewide in 15 years.

Posted by Evan @ 01/04/11 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

Help me get to 100 followers on Twitter

I'm at 98 followers on Twitter right now, so follow me if you are so inclined and help me get over the hump. Thanks.

Meanwhile, Draft Marco Rubio got about 125 new Twitter followers yesterday alone.

Posted by Evan @ 01/04/11 11:56 AM | Comments (0)

More Texas Inaugural Info

On the heels of yesterday's post on the inauguration, they announced the performers for the evening ball of the 2011 Inaugural: Clay Walker, Pat Green, Eli Young Band and special guest Bonnie Bishop. No Ted Nugent this time -- y'all remember what I'm talking about.

Tickets for the nightly portion are $75, available on the Inaugural site. Tickets are free for the BBQ at noon after the swearing-in, but you also need to reserve them online.

Texas Democrats have Robert Earl Keen. We've got Clay Walker, Pat Green, Eli Young and Bonnie Bishop? Fair trade.

Posted by Evan @ 01/04/11 11:50 AM | Comments (0)

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