Rick Perry vs World

29 October 2010

Bill White's closing ad: newspaper endorsements

I watched it and thought: hey, I've seen that ad before. Kay Bailey Hutchison ran the same closing ad:

Posted by Evan @ 10/29/10 04:38 PM | Comments (0)

Pete Sessions not to be House Majority Whip?

Playbook today:

House Republican Leader John Boehner appears to have defused a possibly ugly fight for the #3 leadership slot if the GOP takes control. He would be Speaker, and Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia would be majority leader. But the whip spot looked like a fight between NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions of Texas and Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, one of the "Young Guns" and a key recruiter/hand-holder of the incoming freshmen. Perhaps wrongly, it would have been covered as a proxy Boehner-Cantor fight, since Sessions has longer ties to Boehner and McCarthy has longer ties to Cantor. But Boehner gave McCarthy the "America Speaking Out" agenda project that turned into "A Pledge to America," and was pleased.

Look for Sessions to stay at the NRCC. Rep. David Dreier (Calif.) is in line to return as Rules Chair, so don't put too much stock in the rumor of Sessions to Rules chair (either now or in the future). Sessions would have competition to be Rules chair in the future from Rep. Doc Hastings (Wash.), potentially. It's in no one's interests to have a bruising fight for whip. So there won't be one.

That means no Texan in House leadership. A bit disappointing.

Posted by Evan @ 10/29/10 04:12 PM | Comments (0)

Best Dem campaign in last 10 years?

Mark Jones' post about benchmarking Bill White's performance got me thinking about which Democrat ran the best statewide campaign in the last decade.

John Sharp got the highest percentage when he snagged 46% and held Dewhurst to 51.77%, so he'd probably be most people's pick. I guess you could say Chris Bell for losing by only 9% on the top-of-the-ticket, although if you paid attention to that race it would probably be difficult to pick to pick Bell. You might be tempted to pick White, although even if he keeps the numbers in the single digits, I'd argue that he never put together a possible winning strategy, more like a "minimize the margin of deficit" strategy.

Obviously, there's no right answer, but I would actually go with Ron Kirk. He might have lost 55-43, but winning a Senate seat is much harder than winning the gubernatorial mansion for Democrats in a Republican state. He had the polls pretty close until the end,when most of the late-breakers went for Cornyn. He was running in a nearly impossible situation, at the height of W's popularity in Texas and in a Republican year. So even though Sharp lost by less in the same year, Kirk had a much tougher race, so I'd pick the former mayor of Dallas.

Posted by Evan @ 10/29/10 05:02 AM | Comments (0)

Latest PPP poll: Perry 53, White 44

PPP has Perry 53, White 44 with just 3% undecided. 10/26-10/28. 568 LVs, sample MoE +/- 4.1%.

They didn't include 3rd parties, but they did have the poll in the field this week, whereas the newspaper poll includes data from a week ago.

PPP, more or less a Dem polling shop, has shown better numbers for White throughout the cycle than other pollsters.

Posted by Evan @ 10/29/10 12:16 AM | Comments (0)

Campaign like Perry, PJ parties, Q&A with Kay, Cornyn one of few average guy Senators

* John Cornyn is one of the very few Senators who isn't a millionaire.

* Kay Bailey Hutchison fills in the blanks for Esquire.

* Lynn Brezosky, SAEN:

U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, with 28 years in Congress the dean of the Texas Democrats, is in his 15th bid for election and waging what may be the toughest battle of his political career — against a Republican with little clout but one now-famous pair of duck-print pajamas.

He's spent $855,000 so far, lending himself $95,000 this month. He seized on a photo of the pajama-clad Farenthold standing next to a blonde at what he termed an "S&M party" and has stood by its campaign use amid threats of a defamation lawsuit.

This has to be one of the more ridiculous attacks in the past few years. Under Ortiz's definition, anyone who has ever been to a party while in college is disqualified from running for office. And sometimes we wonder why people don't want to run for office...

* Jason Embry in the AAS:

Imagine if White campaigned like Perry.

Maybe he would run an ad featuring the family of a mentally disabled Texan who was forced by the staff at a state-run residential facility to fight other residents. Or maybe he'd feature someone who was sexually abused while locked up at the Texas Youth Commission. Both happened during Perry's tenure.

I think Embry should stick to his day job. If it were so easy to "campaign like Perry," then you think someone would have done it by now.

Posted by Evan @ 10/29/10 12:03 AM | Comments (2)

28 October 2010

Latest Perry vs White poll: 49-37

The latest poll from the newspapers shows Perry leading 49-37.

10/22-10/27, Blum & Weprin
673 LVs, +/- 3.8%
(numbers in parentheses) from 9/15-9/22 B&W poll

Perry 49 (46)
White 37 (39)
libertarian 2 (4)
green 3 (1)
Not Sure 6 (8)
No Answer 4 (2)

Obviously a double-digit lead with a week left is impossible to overcome, barring a scandal, and the trend is in Perry's favor.

The one Democratic hope would be a backlash against this ad, as the time in the field probably doesn't fully capture the effect of that ad. That appears to be White's hope. Unfortunately for him, that ad is likely to move the numbers towards Perry even more, and given Perry's advantage in cash on hand, it will be very difficult to change the course of the campaign.

Posted by Evan @ 10/28/10 11:14 PM | Comments (0)

National profiles, Bill White still talking about being a liberal, Perry's YouTube acct shut down, suggested reading

* The Wall Street Journal profiled White v Perry, so naturally the NYT follows with its own profile today. If you're reading this blog, hay muy poca posibilidad que hay algo nuevo. O sea, nothing new here.

* Bill White is still telling journalists that he's a liberal. This time to the left-wing Texas Observer:

White talks to me about why he supports the Observer's "independent voice" in spite of our criticisms of his campaign, about the challenges of journalism these days, about the future of politics.

"It's an interesting time for progressive politics," he says. "I think there's this new progressivism coming ... but what is it? It's not just that the government gets bigger, it's that the government gets better, it's who the government serves."

He does understand that being a liberal isn't a winning strategy in Texas, right? This would drive me crazy if I worked on his campaign.

* DFW's NBC5:

One of Perry's YouTube channels was shut down for copyright infringement.

Late Wednesday night, videos normally found on the "Liberal Bill" YouTube channel were not working. When users tried to click on the videos, a message popped up saying, "This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement."

* I still get a fair amount of hits from the Teacher Retirement System of Texas IP addresses. None of them care to comment though.

* Abby Rapoport takes a trip out to West Texas for the Texas Observer. Pretty good read, though sometimes I felt like I was watching a National Geographic special to an exotic island.

* Democrats are outspending Republicans $856mm to $677mm so far this cycle. Meanwhile, the party committees have useddifferent spending tactics.

* I wake up and read both the Texas Tribune's Daily Brief and Cory Crow's Noise Machine. Both are pretty good sources of links, frequently non-overlapping.

Posted by Evan @ 10/28/10 02:59 PM | Comments (0)

Benchmarks is a way of saying "It's over"

Rice Political Science Professor Mark Jones puts up a post entitled, "Benchmarks for Bill White on November 2." In other words, sayeth the professor, Bill White ain't gonna win, but what's a moral victory?

46.0 percent. This is the highest percentage won by any Democrat in a statewide race during the past decade. John Sharp (a potential rival in the 2012 Democratic Senate primary) won 46.0 percent of the vote in his 2002 campaign for lieutenant governor. Surpassing this mark would position White in the driver's seat for the Democratic Senate nomination, as well as provide strong support for the case that he would be a formidable rival for whichever Republican wins the party's nomination in 2012.

43.7 percent. This is the percentage won by President Barack Obama in 2008 in Texas. While the overall political context, as well as the composition of the voters participating in the election is distinct in 2008 and 2010, White's 2012 quest for the Senate will be advantaged by the extent to which he exceeds President Obama's vote share.

40.0 percent. This is the percentage (39.96 percent to be more precise) won by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez in 2002. Failing to cross this threshold would be a traumatic blow to White's political future.

I'd add one: 9.24%. Even for the lackluster campaign that Chris Bell ran, he managed to stay within about 9% of Perry. [Even though Chris Bell himself said, "You could be a corpse and get 31 percent as the Democratic nominee just about any office," before winning exactly 29.8% of the vote. Yes, Chris Bell got outperformed by a corpse.] If White doesn't get closer than 9% to Perry, Democrats have to wonder why they got so excited and put so much work into a candidate who couldn't outperform Bell.

As the title says: it's over. No one discusses these sorts of things during the last week of a race that might flip.

Posted by Evan @ 10/28/10 01:06 AM | Comments (0)

27 October 2010

Kinda slow for hump day

* White praised for Katrina, but left headaches is the headline of Jay Root's article. That's a succinct summary.

* Trevor Rees-Jones gets his profile for donating to American Crossroads.

* Perry made the traditional championship wager with...Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, not with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

* El Paso native Raul Vazquez made Fortune's 40 Under 40.

Posted by Evan @ 10/27/10 06:51 PM | Comments (0)

It's Silly Season!

Democratic consultant Ed Martin:

To get Hispanics to the polls, you have to talk about things that are [of] real importance to Hispanic families: how we're going to raise our kids; whether or not in the current environment, a candidate will treat them like first-class citizens.

Must be Silly Season.

Posted by Evan @ 10/27/10 04:17 AM | Comments (0)

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