Posts Tagged ‘Texas Senate Race’

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Craig James: Not Universally Loved

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

I know this may comes as a shock to some of you, seeing as how I occasionally write about sports for my other blog, but I don’t have cable, and thus have no first-hand experience of Craig James’ ESPN broadcasting prowess.

However, news of James’ possible Senate candidacy has been racing around the worlds of both politics and sports, and from the commentary there, I think it safe to assert that James is not universally loved:

  • I was unaware (or had even forgotten) that all four of Sports Illustrated‘s college football writers names James the worst college football broadcaster. “Craig James and Jesse Palmer…it’s still two ex-jocks glad-handing each other and spewing clichés for three-and-a-half hours” says the normally mild-mannered Stewart Mandel. (Nor does he seem to have moderated his views on the subject.)
  • Awful Announcers has put him on their Mt. Rushmore of awfulness.
  • Matt Hinton is not a fan.
  • Some are hoping he’ll win just to get him off the air.
  • An Ordinary American is not impressed.

    • The same liberal bitterness over any public Republican figure? Maybe, but I’m not getting that vibe reading the comments. And hard-core liberals don’t usually hang out at Big Government.

    More James news:

  • The Statesman asks Could Craig James be a serious candidate for the U.S. Senate? (Texas Iconoclast answers “No. On the other hand, getting crushed in a political race might help downsize the guy’s XXL ego, so that’s a plus.”)
  • This piece argues that James will get his ass handed to him (which I think is correct) and that he’s actually not running to win, but to build name recognition for a 2014 U.S. House seat run. Maybe, but running statewide in a race you don’t expect to win is an awful bass ackwards way to run for a House seat.

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    Posted in Elections, Media Watch, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Craig James to Jump Into Republican Senate Race?

    Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

    So says The Dallas Morning News, citing “sources close to his developing campaign.”

    I don’t know why he would. I don’t see a lot of running room (no pun intended), it will be very hard to raise money, it’s been a long time since James was top of the football heap, and ESPN analyst is probably not a high-enough profile job for the requisite level of fame you’d need to win the race jumping in this late. And he’s not nearly rich enough to self-fund like David Dewhurst (unless the pre-death penalty SMU football program was even more generous with athlete payouts than we’ve been lead to realize).

    If he does get in, he probably hurts Tom Leppert the most, due to the same geographic base in the Metroplex.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Where’s Ricardo? (Plus: A New Democratic Challenger Appears)

    Monday, December 12th, 2011

    There’s some news on the Democratic side of the Texas Senate race.

    First of all, the name of the DNC’s handpicked candidate, Ricardo Sanchez, does not appear on the list of candidates who have filed for the Texas Senate race.

    Well, the deadline is Thursday. No worries. Assuming he wants to run, there’s plenty of time for Sanchez to file for the race.

    But what if he doesn’t?

    After all, even before his house burned down, there was precious little evidence Sanchez was really interested in running for the Senate. His fundraising is abysmal, his media appearances are rare, his campaign stops even rarer (Ted Cruz and Glenn Addison do more campaigning in a day than Sanchez manages in a month), his social media footprint miniscule, and his buzz factor is non-existent.

    Other signs of the moribund nature of Sanchez’s campaign: DSCC chair Patty Murray drawing audible laughs when asked about Democratic chances in Texas. “After being initially hailed as a pick-up opportunity, Texas is off the radar for Democrats. DSCC executive director Guy Cecil suggested as much last month. Murray didn’t even mention Ricardo Sanchez’s name.”

    Sanchez peaked when he announced for the race. Ever since then it’s been a long, painful slog, with his only reward the prospect of being slaughtered by Ted Cruz or David Dewhurst in the general election. Is there a serious non-partisan observer anywhere who looks at Sanchez’s dismal campaign and thinks he can win?

    Is this how Sanchez pictured his retirement? He seems for all the world like someone just going through the motions.

    However, there is one Democratic candidate who has filed for the U.S. Senate race: Daniel Boone! I believe Texans will be favorably impressed with his trackin’ and bear-killin’ skills, and thus might be willing to overlook his Missouri residency and the fact the he’s been dead 191 years.

    Sadly for Democrats, the “rippin’est, roarin’est, fightin’est man the frontier ever knew” is not the one running, but rather a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel (which sets up a nice “flyboy vs. grunt” inter-service rivalry if Sanchez does run).

    He has a website and a Facebook page. His campaign platform is vague Democratic boilerplate.

    But a famous namesake isn’t enough to overcome Ricardo Sanchez, right?

    Think again.

    Remember Gene Kelly? The perennial office-seeker whose only notable attribute was the name of the famous dancing movie star? He won the 2000 Democratic primary runoff for this very Senate seat (then occupied by Kay Baily Hutchison) over former state legislator Charles Gandy with 58.43% of the vote.

    Want to guess what Kelly’s background was?

    Would you believe retired Air Force Colonel?

    It would be tempting to use the “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce” line, but here the first time was farce.

    If Sanchez declines the race, I would say that Boone automatically becomes the frontrunner. And so far Sanchez has run such a lackluster campaign that high name recognition (even misrecognition) might be enough to beat him…

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Retired Judge Charles Holcomb Joins the Senate Race

    Monday, December 12th, 2011

    Looking over the list of Republican candidates who had filed for the Senate race, I was surprised to see the name of former Court of Criminal Appeals judge Charles Holcomb of Wimberley, who was age-limited out of the office. Despite searching, I was unable to find any campaign website for Judge Holcomb.

    So I called him up.

    Judge Holcomb was gracious enough to talk a few minutes about why he was running:

  • He considers himself an “Eisenhower Republican.”
  • He talked over running with some friends and decided “why not?”
  • He has neither a campaign staff nor a website, and said he just filed the required paperwork with the FEC.
  • He’s running to “give people a choice.”
  • He realizes he has a steep uphill fight “against two millionaires.”
  • He promises to serve only a single term.
  • He supports the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan.
  • He believes that there is too much money in politics.

    • BattleSwarm Blog thanks Judge Holcomb for his time.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 3 Comments »

    Dewhurst Contributions: A Lot of Money from Fulbright & Jaworski

    Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

    It takes a while for the FEC to put up the list of individual donations (even longer than putting up the summary reports), so I didn’t think to check out David Dewhurst’s individual contributions until this week. One thing that jumped out at me from the report was just how many donations he got from lawyers at Fulbright & Jaworski.

    Fulbright & Jaworski ranked 52 overall on the Vault list of the top 100 law firms in the U.S., and fourth in the energy sector. The Jaworksi in the name comes from Watergate prosecutor Leon Jaworski. They’re headquartered in Houston but have offices worldwide. They’re generally considered one of the three biggest law firms in Houston, the other two being Baker Botts and Vinson & Elkins.

    From the FEC, here are the donations Dewhurst received from Fulbright & Jaworski employees for his senate race (presented in the same format provided by the FEC, both for authenticity, and because I’m too lazy to reformat them):

  • BELL, JERRY A MR JR AUSTIN TX 78701 09/27/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, L.L.P./ATTOR
  • BODE, JOYCE R MS AUSTIN TX 78701 09/27/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, L.L.P.
  • BRADEN, PAUL MR HOUSTON TX 77024 09/27/2011 250.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI LLP/ATTORNEY
  • CAUDILL, WILLIAM H MR HOUSTON TX 77006 09/19/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, L.L.P./ATTOR
  • DILLARD, STEPHEN C MR HOUSTON TX 77056 09/29/2011 500.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI L.L.P./ATTORN
  • DRANSFIELD, ROBERT D MR DALLAS TX 75205 09/27/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, LLP/ATTORNEY
  • GARCIA, FRANK T MR HOUSTON TX 77024 09/19/2011 500.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, LLP/ATTORNEY
  • GOVETT, BRETT C MR DALLAS TX 75205 09/20/2011 500.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSK/ATTORNEY
  • GRAHAM, JOSEPH M MR JR HOUSTON TX 77056 09/30/2011 300.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, LLP/ATTORNEY
  • HALL, CHARLES W MR HOUSTON TX 77019 09/19/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI L.L.P./LAWYER
  • HETTINGER, GLEN J MR HEATH TX 75032 09/27/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI LLP/ATTORNEY
  • HUGHES, THOMAS MR BAYTOWN TX 77521 09/27/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI/ATTORNEY
  • KOENIG, RODNEY C MR HOUSTON TX 77010 09/19/2011 250.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, LLP/ATTORNEY
  • KONTRIMAS, ANDRIUS MR HOUSTON TX 77010 09/27/2011 2000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI L.L.P./ATTORN
  • KRAUSS, LAYNE E MR HOUSTON TX 77010 09/29/2011 1300.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI L.L.P./ATTORN
  • KRUSE, LAYNE MR HOUSTON TX 77010 09/19/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI L.L.P./ATTORN
  • KUNTZ, STEPHEN A MR HOUSTON TX 77005 09/19/2011 500.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, LLP/ATTORNEY
  • LEGGETTE, L POE DENVER CO 80202 09/27/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, L.L.P./ATTOR
  • MACON, JANE MS SAN ANTONIO TX 78205 09/27/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, L.L.P./ATTOR
  • MCCLURE, DANIEL MEAD MR HOUSTON TX 77010 09/27/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, L.L.P./ATTOR
  • PAKALKA, WILLIAM R MR HOUSTON TX 77010 09/27/2011 500.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI L.L.P./ATTORN
  • PFEIFFER, STEVEN B MR ALEXANDRIA VA 22301 09/29/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI L.L.P./ATTORN
  • POWELL, CHARLES D MR HOUSTON TX 77005 09/27/2011 2300.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI/PARTNER
  • STEWART, KENNETH L MR DALLAS TX 75225 09/27/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, LLP/ATTORNEY
  • TRAUTNER, KEVIN MR HOUSTON, TX 77005 09/19/2011 250.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI LLP/ATTORNEY
  • WOLF, HOWARD MR AUSTIN TX 78703 09/27/2011 2500.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, L.L.P./ATTOR
  • WOLF, HOWARD MR AUSTIN TX 78703 09/27/2011 -2500.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, L.L.P./ATTOR
  • WOLF, HOWARD MR AUSTIN TX 78703 09/27/2011 5000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, L.L.P./ATTOR

    • I actually offer this up as more of a data point than a “gotcha.” While some Fulbright & Jaworski lawyers have been involved in liberal causes (like representing detained terrorists at Guantanamo Bay), 71% of their political donations have gone to Republicans. Fulbright & Jaworski seems to have done a lot of work for Dewhurst’s company Falcon Seaboard. (The Howard Wolf listed above is actually a retired partner for Fulbright & Jaworsk, as he’s currently President and Acting Chairman of Falcon Seaboard, has been appointed to several state boards, and is one of Dewhurst’s closest confidants.) Indeed, Dewhurst’s ties to the company are so extensive that he was he was willing to do this video taking about how awesome they are:

    (I was also surprised to find an old high school classmate in the same video…)

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas, video | 1 Comment »

    A Look at David Dewhurst’s Personal Financial Report

    Monday, December 5th, 2011

    Although they haven’t officially been put up yet, Quorum Report has obtained the personal financial disclosure report the U.S. Senate requires for David Dewhurst, Ted Cruz, Tom Leppert and Ricardo Sanchez. According to the Statesman, Dewhurst’s wealth adds up to some $225 million, quite a formidable amount (I suspect that myself and many of my readers could be quite content for 1/100th of that), but not quite the billionaire some had tagged him as.

    Tom Leppert clocked in at $12 million (nice, but an order of magnitude less than Dewhurst) and Ted Cruz came in at just under $1 million. Ricardo Sanchez had a net worth of $212,009, but that was probably before his recent house fire.

    A little bird was kind enough to provide me a copy of Dewhurst’s report, and I wanted to take note of a few tidbits.

    Under income, Dewhurst lists his salary from the State of Texas at $61,119. The Lieutenant Governor’s base salary, as set by the Texas Constitution, is $7,200, though actual pay varies somewhat depending on which days he acts as the acting governor. I find it ironic that if I wanted to be Lieutenant Governor, I’d have to take a significant pay cut. Still, I bet the benefits are pretty awesome…

    Dewhurst’s biggest wealth comes in the form of holdings in Falcon Seaboard, the energy and investment company he founded and for which he owns (according to the report) 97.38%. His report lists assets to the tune of over $50 million in Falcon Diversified and $25–50 million in Falcon Seaboard Investment Company, plus over $50 million in a blind trust. He also listed a receivable note from them in the $1–5 million range, as well as a promissory note (i.e. loan) from them in the $5–25 million range. Plus various other Falcon Seaboard-related investments and income.

    Next comes Section IIIA, Publicly traded assets and unearned income sources, which lists the companies Dewhurst owns shares of stock in. Among those he has listed as owning shares worth between $100,000–250,000:

  • Applied Materials (as I was an employee of Applied Materials for several years, I own a good bit of their stock myself (though only the shares in my 401K remain), so if he’s held them from any time prior to 2001, I’d just like to offer my condolences to the Lt. Governor for his capital losses…)
  • Baxter International Incorporated
  • Carnival

    • Stocks he holds $50,001-100,000 in are:

  • Boeing
  • Calpine
  • Carmax
  • Comcast
  • Diebold (the liberal conspiracy theorists should have a field day with this one!)
  • ENI (Italian multinational oil and gas company)
  • France Telecom S.A.
  • Nippon Telegraph and Telecom
  • Sanofi-Aventis (French pharmaceutical company)
  • Telecom Italia
  • Total S.A. (French oil company)
  • Unileaver N.V.

    • There are also lesser amounts of stock in Section IIIB, non-publicly traded assets and unearned income sources, which are presumably either in trusts or retirement accounts. (I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant.) I’m not clear if all Mr. Dewhurst’s stock holdings are inside or outside of his blind trust, or some other arrangement. My quick impression is that, blind trust or not, that’s an awful lot of foreign corporations for an American politician to have investments in.

    Other tidbits:

  • Speaking of liberal conspiracy theorists, the fact that Dewhurst is a Vice President for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs will no doubt send many of the Daily Kossacks reaching for their NEOCON bricks. (For the record, Wikipedia lists Dewhurst’s religion as Presbyterian, and the JINSA board includes several other prominent non-Jews, including Connie Mack and Bill White.)
  • As you might expect for someone made of money, he has an Amex Black Card.
  • There has been some controversy over him selling stock in Caterpillar “when he was one of three state officials who approved a $1.175 million state grant to the company to build a facility in Seguin.” Also: “Although the stock was in Dewhurst’s state blind trust, there have long been questions about whether the fund was truly at arm’s length because Dewhurst’s brother Gene was one of the trustees.”

    • That’s not a very blind trust. Indeed, about the trust, the report says “Mr. Dewhurst is the 100% beneficiary of the David Dewhurst Blind Trust which is a grantor trust for tax purposes. The trust is NOT considered a blind trust.” Que?

    I’ll be happy to link to Dewhurst’s report (as well as those of the other candidates) when they’re publicly available.

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    Posted in Elections, Texas | No Comments »

    Another Democratic Party Longshot, Virgil Bierschwale, Joins the Texas Senate Race

    Monday, December 5th, 2011

    Real Estate agent Virgil Bierschwale sent me an email to note that he was joining the senate race; presumably the Texas senate race, although his text-heavy website does not mention our fair state until a good way down the page. (Pro-tip: It helps if you let people know what state you’re running in at the very top of your webpage.)

    Mr. Bierschwale seems to be a disgruntled former Republican upset over free trade, globalization, and Grover Norquist (not necessarily in that order). As Mr. Bierschwale seems to approve of the Occupy Wall Street crowd, it does seem that he’s running in the right primary. Now we’ll see if he has the drive and stamina to zoom past Stanley Garza and challenge Sean Hubbard for second place…

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    Texas Senate Race Update for November 29, 2011

    Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
  • The New York Times discovers Ted Cruz. It’s generally a solid piece, though I do want to quibble with one part, even though it’s an opposition citation: “Mr. Dewhurst’s aides say that unlike Mr. Rubio, Mr. Cruz has been unable to translate the national attention into big increases in fund-raising and polls. While Mr. Cruz has raised $2.8 million to Mr. Dewhurst’s $2.64 million, Mr. Dewhurst has been in the race only since July.” Two points: 1.) Cruz is actually ahead of where Marco Rubio was in at this stage of the 2009-2010 election cycle, and 2.) Cruz’s National Review cover appearance (the most important part of that national attention) was just hitting newsstands at the very end of the Q3 fundraising period, so I wouldn’t expect to see any real fundraising bump until the Q4 numbers are released in January.
  • The Texas Tribune talks about David Dewhurst’s Ivory Tower strategy, which he seems to have gone back to. Dewhurst had this to say in his defense: “I’m not conservative enough, some say. They don’t know me. When they get to know me, they’ll know I am.” With all due respect, Lt. Governor, you’ve been in your current office since January of 2003, and many complaints come from conservatives in Texas. The problem is not lack of familiarity.
  • Cruz gets a nice profile/interview from Big Jolly’s David Jennings in the Houston Chronicle.
  • He also won the Chronicle poll on which Senate candidate readers preferred, beating Dewhurst 53% to 41%,
  • And another greater Greater Houston Council of Federated Republican Women straw poll, 63.4% to 24.4% for Dewhurst.
  • Florida Senator Marco Rubio, to whom Cruz is often compared, has thus far refrained from endorsing any Republican candidates for this cycle.
  • Cruz continues to garner Tea Party support.
  • He also continues to garner hit pieces from the keyboard of The Dallas Morning News‘s Robert T. Garrett, who wonders at length why Cruz actually wants to be a conservative and dares to call out the Republican Senate leadership, rather than being one of those get-along-to-go-along Republicans DSM and other MSM outlets favor. Garrett asks several myopic questions, one of which I’ll actually answer for him: “Won’t opponents David Dewhurst and Tom Leppert say he’s undermining his effectiveness for Texas?” No, because whatever their other flaws, Leppert and Dewhurst both realize they’re trying to win the approval of Republican voters, not Dallas Morning News reporters. These days, approval from those two groups bear an obviously inverse relationship…
  • The Southern Political Report offers up a hefty does of Consensus Opinion on the race. If I had more time, I’d like to dissect the “People With Hispanic Surnames Can’t Win Statewide Republican Races” myth, which is based on precisely one data point: Victor Carrillo’s loss to David Porter in the 2010 Railroad Commissioner race. Even that same year, Eva Guzman beat Rose Vela for Supreme Court place 9. Moreover, it ignores the fact that Carrillo himself beat out the very-anglo-named Robert Butler in 2004. Carrillo lost in 2010 because he ran a very lackluster campaign and because Porter’s answers to the League of Woman Voters survey seemed more conservative, especially given the politically correct nods Carrillo gave to environmentalism and alternative energy in his answers, which was the deciding factor for me personally. However, I do get the impression that one factor did unfairly impact Carrillo’s campaign: the unpopularity of Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor proposal, which, even though the improperly named Railroad Commission had jack all to do with, probably did marginally hurt his candidacy because he was the incumbent.
  • Tom Leppert appears before the Texas Federation of Republican Women.
  • Cruz has another low-budget animation aimed at Dewhurst. I don’t think it’s as effective as the Chupacabra spot, but I think these cheap Internet animations are very cost effective for building awareness.

  • No Ricardo Sanchez news this week, but he’s probably still recovering from his house fire, so I’ll give him some slack this time around.

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    Posted in Elections, Media Watch, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Ricardo Sanchez’s House Burns Down

    Friday, November 18th, 2011

    Democratic Senate frontrunner Ricardo Sanchez had pretty horrible Veteran’s Day, as a fire destroyed his San Antonio home.

    The article linked above states that arson investigators (pace the video) have ruled out foul play.

    I would like to formally extend my condolences to Sanchez and his family for the tragic loss, and relief that everyone got out of the house safely.

    I actually had an inkling of this early in the week, since I had some Google search hits on “Ricardo Sanchez fire,” but was unable to find anything in the news when I searched then, just a tweet linking to a dead Facebook page. In fact, there doesn’t seem to have been anything findable by Google News until yesterday. Either major San Antonio news sources were unbelievably slow in covering an important story about a major public figure, or Google isn’t picking them up for some reason.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | 4 Comments »

    Texas Senate Race Roundup for November 16, 2011

    Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

    Another Senate race roundup

  • Ted Cruz appeared on The Great American Panel:

  • Cruz also appeared on KSKY radio in Dallas-Fort Worth.
  • He also appeared on the Janine Turner Show on 570 KLIF in Dallas.
  • If it seems like I put up a lot of Cruz media appearances, that’s because Cruz makes a lot of media appearances. I try to put up or link to any major state or national media appearance by any of the Texas senate race candidates. It just so happens that the Cruz campaign is very proactive in sending me links to them and making sure they appear on their blog. If the David Dewhurst and Tom Leppert campaigns were to do more appearances and send me the links, I would be putting those up as well.
  • I’d even put up more media appearances by Ricardo Sanchez…if he did more than one a month. And if his campaign bothered to put them up on his empty YouTube page.
  • Dewhurst makes an appearance in an NBC Nightly News Veteran’s Day piece that’s mainly about his father’s service in World War II:

  • And Tom Leppert appeared on Lubbock’s KFYO.
  • Speaking of Leppert, Matt Dowling remains unimpressed with Leppert’s conservative credentials.
  • Cruz named one of the 92 most influential lawyers in the country by Law360.
  • Not a bad roundup of the race from Kate Alexander of the Austin American-Statesman. And the Sanchez campaign must be cringing over this cruelly accurate line “Democrats are barely mounting a fight for the U.S. Senate seat, so the Republican nominee is pretty much a shoo-in.” (One quibble with one of the quoted sources: I don’t think Leppert can drop $20 million on advertising. His fundraising has been solid but not mind-boggling, and he’s rich, but not Dewhurst rich.)
  • Hotline on Call is similarly dismissive of Sanchez: “Ricardo Sanchez has proven to be a non-factor in Texas.”

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