Rick Perry vs World

02 March 2010

Final predictions

Perry 51
Hutchison 34
Medina 15

No further comments on the Dems, as I'd really not have too much confidence in whatever I wrote.

Posted by Evan @ 03/02/10 12:42 AM | Comments (2)

Rick Connelly has his list of 5 reasons why KBH is losing:

1. The kick-off.
2. The dithering over whether she'd quit the Senate.
3. The endorsements by Sec Baker/HW.
4. The abortion question in the debate.
5. The recent interview she gave to the AP where she said she was surprised at Perry's Washington attacks.
(I paraphrased, for clarity's sake)

For the record, I disagree with number three. By no means do I think those endorsements hurt her, I just think they didn't help much. Not a bad list, but probably not the list I would have made

I would have Kay's "I'm staying in Washington to fight the government takeover of health care" on my list. She was already looking foolish for indecisiveness over the Senate and...that was what she came up with? Who knows, maybe that's really what she felt in her bones, but that's just not who Kay Bailey Hutchison was over almost two decades in the Senate.

As a Senator, Kay never led the fight for or against any issue. To be honest, I can't think of any issue where she is the first Senator who comes to mind. Maybe the Love Field fight? And in that, she was mostly trying to broker a deal between competing factions of an industry. So when delays resigning her Senate seat, it reeked of being artificial.

In my opinion, one of Kay's regrets when this is over will be that she didn't unfilter herself and say what she wanted to say.

Posted by Evan @ 03/02/10 12:25 AM | Comments (1)

Why Kay is unlikely to have a chance even if there is a runoff

Balz, WaPo:

Hutchison says she did not challenge Perry four years ago because she was told that he would not run in 2010. "He said to everyone, 'I only want one more term,' " she said. "So I did step aside when I could have won."

I started this blog many moons ago because I was annoyed that every media account I read declared that Hutchison would trounce Perry in 06. It was obviously wrong then and was likely to be wrong in the future.

So Hutchison is a little divorced from reality. She certainly wouldn't be the first politician to have that happen to her. But it doesn't make me think that KBH is going to figure out how to change the dynamic that is necessary to win a runoff.

Posted by Evan @ 03/02/10 12:11 AM | Comments (0)

01 March 2010

Who will Kay endorse?

It's Election Day Eve, but I'm thinking about whether Kay will endorse Perry against White in November?*

I would assume she'd quietly do the perfunctory-endorsement-in-a-few-months route, but she does seem to have substantial enmity with Perry. She could also just not endorse, which probably wouldn't be a big deal. She could endorse White, but that seems unlikely. If she did pull a Scozzafava (doubt I spelled that right), she'd really just validate everyone that didn't vote for her.

*Truthfully I feel a little guilty asking the question, since Kay still has some strengths that could win her a runoff. However, even if she squeaks into a runoff tomorrow, to win she'd have to figure out how to change the dynamic. And since she's been planning this race for 6 years...

Posted by Evan @ 03/01/10 11:22 PM | Comments (0)

28 February 2010

Will she or won't she

Now she's not resigning after election day...

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said Friday that she is prepared to stay in the Senate for as long as eight more months if Congress is still debating health care reform.

"I have said I am going to leave the Senate. It's the best thing for Texas for me to leave the Senate, sometime this year before the November elections," she told WBAP-AM (820) talk radio host Mark Davis. "I'm going to stay and fight health care. I promised that, so that's my first commitment, and I will do that."

But if she does, Peggy Fikac:

If Hutchison doesn't win the GOP nod and changes her mind about resigning, those who might like to run for her seat may have mixed views. I talked to some (though not Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst; his spokesman said, "We're not going to focus on hypotheticals.")

"I continue to take her at her word, that (resigning) is what she is going to do,” said Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams.

Texas Workforce Commission Chair Tom Pauken, who told me he'll make a quick decision about getting into a Senate race if she resigns, said, "I believe she will (resign), but I think I'm in the minority of people I talk to who believe she will."

A delayed Hutchison departure would be no problem for Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones: "My plans originally from the get-go were to run for the seat in 2012, when my term on the Railroad Commission is up, so that suits me just fine. But if it turns out it's earlier, I'll be prepared for that, too."

Former secretary of state Roger Williams, ESPN analyst Craig James and state Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, also are cited in the mix. State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, will take a look if she resigns.

Anna Tinsley throws Joe Barton and Greg Abbott into the mix as well. And the words John Tower special election strike fear into the hearts of Republicans everywhere right now.

Gillman's take is here, including this classic from Eppstein:

"There's what she [Hutchison] says, and what she means by what she says. Until she does it, she hasn't done it," Shapiro adviser Bryan Eppstein said by phone two days before Hutchison's WBAP comments. "It seems to be a very fluid situation."

He also tells us the money they've all raised:

Roger Williams leads the pack, with $1.26 million raised, not counting loans. Shapiro collected $960,000, edging out Jones by $20,000. Michael Williams lags, with $534,000, but he says that's because "most Republican donors have not engaged yet. ... They're waiting to make sure that there's going to be a race, and they're going to wait and see who the governor likes."

Posted by Evan @ 02/28/10 10:35 PM | Comments (0)

I joked the other day that Bill White's $500K contribution from the DGA could've been trial lawyer money and not from labor unions.

Actually, it probably wasn't from trial lawyers, because then there would have been no need to use the DGA to disguise the source of the money when he's willing to take big money from trial lawyers.

White also got $50,000 each from trial lawyers Thomas Umphrey of Beaumont, Joseph Jamail of Houston and Richard Mithoff of Houston. Here are some other big-money trial lawyer donations: $25,000 each from Russell Budd of Dallas, Domingo Garcia of Dallas and Cary Patterson of Texarkana; $15,000 from asbestos attorney Peter Kraus of Dallas and $10,000 each from Frank Branson and Marc Stanley, both of Dallas.

Of course, Bill White is a trial lawyer by training, so it's not terribly surprising.

Posted by Evan @ 02/28/10 10:27 PM | Comments (0)

More ads

This started out pretty effective but went downhill. Couldn't they have had the candidate sound a little less angry on the "I approved this message" tag line?

The story of a family farm threatened by the TTC. But contrast this ad with Perry's ad below. Perry's ad plays on themes that resonate with Republican primary voters and is consistent with his overall message. This one is "TTC is bad, Perry did it."

Posted by Evan @ 02/28/10 08:21 PM | Comments (0)

This disaster is what happens when a left-wing British newspaper attempts to cover Texas elections.

They include the Populist party that won elections in several states during the 1890s recession and the millions who voted for Ross Perot's presidential candidacy in the 1980s.

The things that get written in international papers about domestic American politics blow my mind.

Posted by Evan @ 02/28/10 05:54 PM | Comments (4)

26 February 2010

Worth remembering that you can break the mold

Embry:

Perry's laserlike focus was fitting for a campaign that has parted ways with some traditional campaign conventions. Perry has not sent any direct mail to voters, yard signs had to be purchased online, and there was no tour around the state to formally announce his re-election bid.

Posted by Evan @ 02/26/10 10:43 PM | Comments (0)

Alberto Gonzales interview

It's fairly Rice-centric, but Gonzales does briefly reflect on his time as attorney general.

Posted by Evan @ 02/26/10 01:31 AM | Comments (0)

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