Cruz also got more love in the form of a fundraising push from Sen. Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund PAC.
A new poll from the Dem-leaning PPP shows Dewhurst with (no surprise) a big lead in name recognition. The poll also shows Dewhurst, Cruz and Tom Leppert all beating Ricardo Sanchez (who, while theoretically running, has been about as scarce on the campaign trail as Dewhurst) and former Congressman Chet Edwards (who isn’t running, and hasn’t been running).
The most surprising thing from the full poll results? Elizabeth Ames Jones edges out Tom Leppert for third place.
Ross Ramsey calls Dewhurst “the Mitt Romney of the Texas Senate race.” Ouch! “There’s the part of Dewhurst that’s like Romney. Both entered their races as presumptive front-runners. Neither is the sort of guy who’d be at the barbecue at 4 in the morning starting the fire and working on the briskets and ribs. They’re business aristocrats. Swells.” Double ouch!
The Leppert campaign has put up the endorsements of Job Creators for Leppert. Of course, it doesn’t really help defend against the charge of his limited regional appeal when some 90% of the names on the list hail from the greater Dallas area…
And speaking of Garland, there was another longshot Republican there I hadn’t heard of before: Curt Cleaver, who seems to be running on a full-tilt Christian conservative platform. He evidently started running in August. I guess I’ll have to update my cheatsheet of candidate’s web pages. I just sent him email to ask why he’s running, as I do not think the Republican side of the race suffers from a dearth of candidates…
And this week, besides appearing as a question in the PPP poll, Ricardo Sanchez…did absolutely nothing, as far as I can tell. It’s been a month since his news page was updated, a month since his Facebook page was updated, and three months since his lone, solitary tweet was released unto the cold, cruel world. Does Sanchez actually want to run for the Senate?
After my interview with Ted Cruz, I was contacted by the Tom Leppert campaign in late August and asked if I wanted to do an interview with Leppert. And they did this despite my very public doubts over several aspects of Leppert’s record. Leppert’s comments on the campaign trail have always been very solidly conservative; my doubts have been over how much Leppert’s actions match his rhetoric. So I agreed to do an interview, after which is was just a matter of finding a date and time when he would be in Austin, which turned out to be Monday, September 19.
From shortly after each of them jumped into the campaign, Cruz and Leppert have been neck and neck in who has the most effective campaign organization, with both seeming very polished and professional. (David Dewhurst’s start was late enough that I haven’t yet collected enough data to make a determination. So far I’m more than little skeptical that the “Ivory Tower” strategy of avoiding the candidate forums is the right choice.) Early on, I sought to get interviews with all of the major Republican Senate candidates, starting in the order they joined the race. I heard absolutely nothing back from the campaigns of Roger Williams, Michael Williams, or Elizabeth Ames Jones, not even the polite “our candidate is really busy but we’ll see if we can work something in” blogger brushoff. By contrast it’s been very easy and hassle free to get information out of the Cruz and Leppert campaigns.
As I mention in the interview itself, this was designed so be a mixture of general and specific questions, as well as mixture of softball and hardball questions.
A few observations:
This was conducted in the atrium of the Renaissance Hotel in the Arboretum, which I thought was the easiest north Austin location to sit down in undisturbed. I think it worked OK, but the acoustics (including some soft background music from hotel sound system) were not necessarily ideal.
Unlike the Cruz interview, which was filmed and edited by their campaign A/V guy, I shot this myself on a Mino Flip camera and did a light edit in iMovie. I think it came out OK, but not spectacularly. Sorry for the tilt and the busy background. Maybe in the long run I need to set up a mini-studio in my guest room for filming interviews and such.
After I finished editing it, I found out that YouTube had imposed a new limit of 15 minutes per video…and removed the button to request lifting the length limit for the videos you post. After I spent an hour uploading it. Thanks a lot, YouTube! That’s why I had to split it into two parts. Plus one part is over 10 minutes, which means you can’t upload it directly from iMovie to YouTube, which is why the aspect ratios of the two may seem slightly different.
I really need to do something about my Jabba the Hutt-like countenance. (I have recently stepped up both diet and exercise efforts, so we shall see.)
Despite my reservations about Leppert, I tried to make this a fair, balanced interview, with some tough questions, but not a piece of “ambush journalism.”
In person, Leppert comes across as a smart, affable politician. He seems more effective in one-on-one retail politics than he’s been at some of the candidate forums. He talks significantly faster than Ted Cruz did.
I had the opposite problem I had with Cruz, when we ran out of time for all the questions I had. Knowing that I only had 25-30 minutes for the interview before Leppert had to go off to his next appointment, I only had 11 questions written down. In fact, he answered the questions fast enough that I got through all my questions and still had several minutes left, so I ended up winging it for the rest of the interview.
Knowing the interview was going to be this short, I couldn’t really follow up on portions of questions, such as those on the Trinity Toll Road Project, and the roles of Lynn Flint Shaw and Willis Johnson.
As Cruz did, Leppert side-stepped some questions, and brought back others to many of his standard talking points. Indeed, “I don’t talk in seven second sound-bites” seems to be Leppert’s favorite seven second sound-bite. As in the Cruz interview, “nothing personnel.” This is what politicians do (indeed have to do) based on the demands made on them by the campaign. Those caveats aside, I think it was pretty successful and interesting interview.
I expect to have more information on Leppert (both positive and negative) in the next week or so.
According to the Texas Tribune. Ogden is my state Senator, and it was something of a surprise that he ran in 2010. House District 52 Rep. Larry Gonzalez sent out a press release saying he was running for re-election to the House, but wasn’t looking to run for Ogden’s seat in the Senate. Conversely, Rep. Charles Schwertner of Georgetown announced he’s running for Ogden’s seat. Given how geographically sprawling and diverse Senate District 5 is, it wouldn’t surprise me to see other candidates jump into the race.
Really interesting piece on George W. Bush, by a historian who’s been bumping into him for a long time. It’s especially interesting in that it details some of the many books he reads, including a lot of interesting history books. (And this is the point at which sneering liberals make My Pet Goat jokes, unwilling to admit that the mental caricature of Bush is wrong. Because it’s so much less of a blow to them to keep losing elections than to deal with a reality in which they’re not automatically smarter and better read than the George W. Bushes and Rick Perrys of the world…)
Michael Totten on divided Jerusalem. It seems like the people drawing theoretical borders haven’t actually walked around there…
Speaking of Totten he also has a piece up on Egypt’s botched revolution. Not only is the military regime still in charge, they’re friendlier with the Muslim brotherhood than an outsider might surmise…
CNN has a piece on the London riots, which includes several interesting facts, including that some 75% of the rioters had previous criminal records, and local crime bosses directed their underlings to do some of the looting.
Mark Steyn on green jobs. Turns out it costs us just shy of $5 million to create every green job. On borrowed money. That’s a lot of green.
Blue Dot Blues brings the amazing news that the Round Rock school district, faced with a surplus, is actually lowering the tax rate. I live in RRISD, which has some of the highest ISD property tax rates in the state. Hacing them lower rates is like Obama trying to shrink the federal government. Enjoy it now, since chances are scant it will ever happen again in our lifetimes…
Cruz has an Op-Ed in the Houston Chronicle calling for a real jobs program of limited government. “Government doesn’t create jobs. The private sector – entrepreneurs risking capital to meet a demonstrated need – creates jobs. But government can kill jobs.”
Tom Leppert had an interview with William Luntz of The Lone Star report.
Leppert was also at a Christian Legal Society luncheon today, but I can’t find a report of it, only photos.
The Texas Tribune says that if Rep. Mike McCaul gets in it could be a game-changer. Maybe. But thus far, The Texas Tribune staff have not impressed me with their deep understanding of inter-Republican Party dynamics.
Elizabeth Ames Jones has an Op-Ed piece up on Real Clear Conservatives.
She also appeared at, um, some sort of dinner for the William Barret Travis Chapter of the Sons of the Republic of Texas. It’s an odd little piece on what sounds like an odd dinner.
Here’s part of a previously mentioned Cruz interview with The Texas Tribune, in which he goes after Dewhurst:
An actual Ricardo Sanchez sighting! (And here you thought he was in a dive bar in Laredo slamming cold ones with David Dewhurst and Fake Ted Cruz.) Granted, it was to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award in Community Service from the National Hispanic Sports Hall of Fame, rather than a campaign appearance. But still…
Addison also participated in a Llano Tea Party meet-and-greet last week. If it seems like Republican longshot Addison is running a harder-working, more serious campaign than Democratic frontrunner Sanchez in every area but fundraising, that’s because he is.
I’m a sucker for wonkish political analysis of voting results, so here are some of the more notable results-scrying for Bob Turner’s win over David Weprin in New York’s Ninth Congressional District after Rep. Anthony “look at my bulge” Weiner resigned in disgrace. A race Weprin lost despite $485,000 of DCCC ad buys and having Bill Clinton and New York Governor Andrew Coumo campaign for him. I’m going to ignore the usual “weak candidate, ran a bad race” blather liberals always trot out when a Democrat loses, because it’s become a tautology that doesn’t explain anything. He lost? Bad candidate that ran a bad campaign. He won? A good candidate who ran a good campaign.
Speaking of incompetence, let’s also dismiss DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz laughable assertion that a district where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 3-1 “is difficult for Democrats.” Even more risible is Wasserman Schultz’s claim that Obama has an “incredibly strong record on Israel.” She truly is the gift that keeps giving to Republicans.
Over at Real Clear Politics, Sean Trende suggests that the win might be seen in light of Obamas slipping popularity with white voters.
Over at National Review Online, Kathryn Jean Lopez thinks Weprin’s support of gay marriage may have done him in. Her theory gets support from, of all places, The Village Voice.
Finally, there’s the theory that Obama is so unpopular that he’s dragging down all Democratic candidates with him, no matter where they run. And who’s floating this particular theory? That would be Weprin himself.
Democratic strategist James Carville says it’s time for Obama to panic, but his advice is on the lines of firing people, find some scapegoats, and return to Ye Olde Big Government Religion. (He also seems to regard a $1.25 trillion budget deficit as “austerity.”) Walter Russell Mead isn’t impressed with the advice: “This President doesn’t do ‘tough’ very well….he isn’t convincing as a Chuck Norris impersonator. Often when he tries to sound tough he comes out tinny. Also, teleprompters don’t work when the goal is to project spontaneous, righteous and passionate rage.”
If NY9 is indeed a bellwether for 2012 (a big if), Democrats are in for some pretty rough storms over the next 14 months…
According to Seeking Alpha last week: “Yields on two-year Greek government bonds reached 46.84% recently. This is roughly comparable to yields on Argentine bonds in early December 2001 – only a month before the country defaulted on its debt.”
Other signs of the Euro crisis: The Euro hit a six month low against the dollar, and a ten year low against the yen.
Now Walter Russell Mead is reporting that markets around the world have a serious case of the jitters due to the possibility of a European meltdown. “Creating a monetary union without a true federal government is looking more and more like the biggest European policy mistake since Britain and France let Hitler have the Sudetenland.”
It’s not just Greece. Investors are now worrying about the potential solvency of French banks.
Last week, Powerline linked to this cheerful piece over at Zero Hedge, which outlines some consequences of a Euro breakup: “Were a stronger country such as Germany to leave the Euro, the consequences would include corporate default, recapitalisation of the banking system and collapse of international trade.” Lovely. Other possibilities: The rise of authoritarian or military governments to contain the crisis, or civil war.
Despite all this, the EU itself, when not pushing for further austerity, denies it’s preparing for a Greek default. Should we be more worried that the Eurocrats running the show are liars or idiots?
Here’s Peter Morici calling Greece to default and abandon the Euro, although comically, he’s saying that it’s Greece that is the exploited nation “at the mercy of Germany and other rich states who exploit European unity to live well at the expense of their poorer brethren.” Of course this is an inversion of the actual situation, with wastrel cousin Stavos living high on the hog off of Uncle Fritz and Aunt Helga’s credit rating.
So, you think gold prices would soar, right? Wrong. “Gold futures slumped as traders cashed out of the perceived refuge asset to cover losses in other markets while Europe’s debt crisis seemed poised to take a turn for the worse.” So it’s gotten so bad that traders need to sell gold in order to cover losses in everything else but gold.
Hang on, folks. We could be in for a very rough ride…
After an unusually active week, here’s a LinkSwarm for a lazy Friday, including a few things I meant to link to earlier and didn’t have the time.
Christopher Hitchens, a fine writer and a formidable intellect, weighs in on the London riots. In the process Hitchens provide a nod to his brother Peter Hitchens’ analysis of the riots (and link to this fascinating debate between the two on the nature of religion, of which I was previously unaware). I’m not entirely convinced by Hitchens argument that there were “bad” areas no one went into long before the riots. I’m sure there were, but did they consist of people who had never held a job in their lives, and would those denizens in past eras have felt a complete lack of compunction over setting other people’s small businesses on fire?
Finally, some good news from the Bastrop fire. Couple with horse farm had to flee with horses, but without tackle. The good news is the tackle (including some very expensive saddles) survived the fire. The bad news is it was promptly stolen. The good news is it took all of nine hours to track down the thieves trying to sell the stuff on eBay. Score one for the good guys.
Pity the pundit forced by duty to watch an Obama speech. Barring a Teleprompter malfunction, there are few events more tedious and predictable. When even uber-Democrat James Carville says that between an Obama speech and a Republican debate, “I would have watched the debate and I’m not even a Republican or even close to being a Republican,” you know you’re in store for some deep hurting.
So how can we assuage the agony of those poor, dedicated souls who will be watching Obama’s jobs speech tonight? Barring an announcement that he’s abandoning Big Government liberalism for budget and tax cuts, the chances for another Obama snoozefest are vast, while the possibility of anything new and substantive are slim. How can we keep their attention focused on the POTUS, and not on the desperate need for another highball or passing a sanity roll?
Simple: With my handy Obama Jobs Speech Bingo chart below! Just print out and place a marker every time Obama trots out one of his stock job speech phrases. Which I’m confident will be pretty darn often.
Which dedicated pundit will be the first to post “Bingo! #ObamaBingo” to Twitter tonight?
Click to embiggen
Edited to add: Welcome Powerline readers! As you can tell from the blogroll on the right, Powerline has long been one of my favorite blogs, so feel free to look around for news from the hot, dusty heart of Texas.
And here’s part two of the Ted Cruz interview. Some interesting thoughts on Victor Carrillo’s loss in 2010, Republican acceptance of Hispanic candidates, and his record studying the Tenth Amendment, among others.
