Election day is tomorrow! Now would be a good time to locate your voter registration card…
Posts Tagged ‘2014 Governor’s Race’
Election News Roundup for November 3, 2014
Monday, November 3rd, 2014The Wendy Davis Campaign Prebituaries Are Already Coming In
Wednesday, October 29th, 2014Has there ever been a campaign with as much national hype behind it as Wendy Davis’ that ended up doing so poorly? Maybe Edmund Muskie’s Presidential race in 1972, Ed Koch’s Governor’s run in 1982, or Gary Hart’s abortive 1988 Presidential run. But all those were already major political players before running smack into Nemesis, and Muskie and Koch still had careers after their debacles.
Perhaps McGovern’s 1972 general election campaign comes closest, with one disastrous decision following another and a healthy streak of bad luck to boot. (Which only compounds the idiocy of Nixon’s dirty tricks team monkeywrenching an election that was already in the bag.) But the McGovern 1972 team can rightfully claim to have displayed real tactical brilliance in winning the nomination in the first place. And McGovern was already a Senator.
Davis doesn’t even have that going for her. This was her first (and undoubtedly her last) statewide race. After this horrendous showing, I’m not sure Democrats would even nominate her for the Railroad Commission.
Various media outlets are already busy writing Davis’ political obituary:
And to top it all off, no one is buying Davis’ book:
Despite enormous levels of media buzz, Nielsen BookScan numbers provided to Slate by a publishing source show only 4,317 copies of the memoir, called Forgetting to Be Afraid, have been sold since its Sept. 9 publication.
Nielsen BookScan doesn’t include all book sales, notably sales at many independent retailers, so the actual number of copies sold is probably higher, although still likely below 6,000. As a point of comparison, Elizabeth Warren’s memoir, A Fighting Chance, sold more than 70,000 copies in its first few months on shelves. And David Limbaugh’s book Jesus on Trial, which was published the day before Davis’, has sold about 65,000 copies, including 6,778 just last week, according to BookScan.
In some cases, selling 6,000 hardback books would be a good number. For a first-time novelist, for instance, 6,000 hardbacks would be a pretty good number. (And it’s more than all but one of this year’s Booker Prize nominees sold in the UK.)
But for a book with a $132,000 partial advance? Not so much…
Adventures With Wendy Davis Social Media
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014The fun just won’t stop!
So first the Wendy Davis Twitter account posted this:
Go #GenWendy! MT @Lisa_in_Austin My friends and I just voted for a candidate who stands for ALL Texans! #MyTexasVotes pic.twitter.com/wsjArAKu9d
— Wendy Davis (@WendyDavisTexas) October 21, 2014
Oops!
VRCRs take on Virginia Beach for the @CRFV deployment! pic.twitter.com/e5LRw5QVz0
— VTCRs (@VTCRs) September 20, 2014
.@WendyDavisTexas is cray cray. RT @lyndseyfifield: OH. MY. GOD. pic.twitter.com/85Gv8ZwUFo cc @gusportela”
— Pam Swan (@pjswan) October 22, 2014
Then hilarity ensued.
My friends and I just voted for @WendyDavisTexas!!! #GoWendy @AlexandraCSmith @AJDelgado13 @CRFV pic.twitter.com/iYVwsb5MLl
— Antonio Martinez (@djtechchicago) October 22, 2014
Funny! Some of MY friends voted for @WendyDavisTexas today as well! #tcgov #tcot @WendyDavisTruth pic.twitter.com/C7BOphSgT5
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) October 22, 2014
Anyone can make a mistake. But as of this writing, the Wendy Davis Twitter account still hasn’t apologized for stealing a Virginia college Republican photo and claiming it as their own…
Wendy Davis Puts Down Jackhammer, Revs Up Backhoe
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014You’ve really got to hand it to the Wendy Davis campaign. Every time you think they’ve sunk as low as they possibly can, they break out the heavy construction equipment and start digging.
Now the campaign who asked if the guy in a wheelchair hated the disabled is wondering whether the guy married to a Mexican-American would ban interracial marriage.
The reviews are in, and they’re not pretty:
When I was in TX, it was hard to miss billboards showing Abbott with his Mex-Am wife. Davis’s “interracial marriage ban” attack is crazy.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) October 20, 2014
Then of course there’s the whole attacking Abbott over dildos issue. Look, from a libertarian viewpoint I happen to agree that the state’s rarely-enforced sex toy ban is pointless in the Internet age. However: 1.) Davis still doesn’t seem to understand what an Attorney General’s job is, and 2.) Everyone who would vote for Wendy Davis over dildos was already voting for her, so talking about it wins her no additional votes, and probably loses her a few among older voters.
I’m sure there have been more incompetent campaigns than Davis’, but I’m wracking my brain trying to think of one so high-profile and well-funded that crashed and burned so spectacularly, or that managed to alienate so many people in such a short period of time with such sleazy and counterproductive tactics.
Its almost as if Democrats know her campaign is doomed, and have encouraged this offensive incompetence as a means of distracting attention from their deeply flawed senate race candidates in other states.
“I suspect her candidacy is an elaborate prank pulled on the people of Texas, and she is actually a middle-aged actress from southern California hired by Funny or Die.” [Disagree: There’s precious little evidence the Funny or Die people are capable of coming up with something this funny.]
Maybe she has a secret bet with a billionaire (ala Brewster’s Millions) that she can run a campaign so unbelievably sleazy and incompetent that she can get The Nation to endorse Greg Abbott. Or maybe she’s a Karl Rove plant.
Also this:
Dear @WendyDavisTexas: Unlike the Voting Rights Act of 1964, the DREAM Act was never passed, thus there is nothing to "repeal." @PolitiBunny
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) October 22, 2014
(Would have had this up yesterday, but too much news puffing up…)
Wendy Davis Stops Digging, Gets Out Jackhammer
Tuesday, October 14th, 2014Once again, the Wendy Davis campaign is the gift that keeps giving to conservative pundits. It’s all over but the voting at this point, but Davis’ thrashing, flailing campaign is so ham-handed and tone-deaf that she keeps staying in the news for all the wrong reasons.
First came this amazingly stupid ad:
Reaction was swift and pretty much universally negative.
Fox: “Absolute desperation…catastrophic.”
Even ultra-lefty Mother Jones was appalled: “Wendy Davis just released an ad attacking Greg Abbott, her opponent for governor in Texas, which is, to be blunt, bullshit. It’s offensive and nasty and it shouldn’t exist. She’s basically calling Abbott a cripple.”
MSNBC? “A huge blunder.” “Every Democrat I met down there was appalled.” “She’s gonna get creamed.”
Indeed, the ad is so ill-considered and offensive that it may derail what I thought would be her next gig: a position at MSNBC.
As Hot Air noted: “Perhaps Wendy Davis isn’t familiar with what an Attorney General does.”
Also note that this ad didn’t come from an outside group or SuperPAC, this came from the Davis campaign itself. Her fingerprints are all over it and she has no deniability.
So what did Davis do after this nigh-on universal condemnation? She doubled down on stupid.
"I love cripples! Look at all these fucking cripples! Goddamit I'm a people person!" pic.twitter.com/XCLA5xPmLX
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) October 13, 2014
And this happened:
Holy shit, watch @WendyDavisTexas's personal Hodor drag a disabled person across the stage https://t.co/IgIhVFEsdQ
— L (@OrwellForks) October 13, 2014
And Abbott? He’s just shrugging over the whole thing, and why shouldn’t he? Never interrupt your opponent when they’re in the process of committing suicide. Also note that he eschewed the frequent liberal tactic of calling a press conference to talk about how offended he is. When you’re a front-runner with a comfortable lead and a big money advantage, you don’t need such cheap theatrics.
Politico Names Wendy Davis As One of Worst Campaigns of 2014
Thursday, September 25th, 2014This Politico piece won’t reveal anything new to anyone who has been following the campaign, but it will probably prove quite a shock for out-of-state liberals who might still believe Davis has a chance:
Davis’ June 2013 filibuster against a restrictive anti-abortion measure in the Texas Legislature endeared her to liberals nationwide, with everyone from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to actress Lena Dunham voicing support. All of a sudden, it seemed, Democrats had a high-wattage candidate capable of the seemingly impossible: turning Texas blue.
It’s been all downhill from there for Davis, a candidate for Texas governor.
A Dallas Morning News story in January raised questions about inconsistencies in how she recounted her life story. In March, she had a weaker-than-expected showing against an obscure and underfunded primary opponent. A month later she was dissed by her own party’s governors association. And in June, the state senator shook up her campaign.
Meanwhile, in a conservative state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994, Davis has struggled to demonstrate that she’s focused on more than abortion rights.
A recent New York Times poll showed Davis trailing Republican state Attorney General Greg Abbott by double digits.
And Politico doesn’t mention the poor in-person appearances or the general lackluster nature of her campaign…
Follow-Up On Abbott-Davis RGV Debate
Saturday, September 20th, 2014The Abbot campaign sent around this two minute exchange from the debate as being Davis’ most cringe-worthy performance:
The Houston Chronicle says that Abbott is right on the facts in that exchange:
Shot: Davis said “the only thing right now coming between our children and appropriate funding of their schools is (Abbott).”
Fact: It’s a little more complicated than that. This charge came in the lead-up to her sole question of her Republican opponent, which was whether he would drop the state’s appeal of a judge’s ruling that Texas’ school finance scheme is unconstitutional. Abbott is defending the law passed by the Legislature – as is the job of the attorney general. So while Abbott may get pinned with continuing to legally vouch for the state’s $5.4 billion in cuts to Texas public schools in 2011, he retorted that it was the Legislature that stood between the children and appropriate funding. Abbott also correctly pointed out that the Legislature passed a law last session that limited the attorney general’s ability to settle cases like the one over school finance.
Even a friendly press is saying that Davis “fails to land blows on Republican rival.”
Dallas Morning News: Davis “failed to rattle a poised Greg Abbott…At one point he asked Davis if she were still glad she had voted for the president, whose deep unpopularity in the state is a headache for Democrats. Davis laughed at the question but didn’t answer it.”
WendyBot5000. Will. Continue. Speaking!
Friday, September 19th, 2014Well, if Wendy Davis was hoping the Rio Grande Valley debate would help her catch up to Greg Abbott, she probably should have worked to have a voice other than the pre-programmed monotone she used. She also loses points for the lack of discipline at having answers that extended beyond her allotted time (which I commend the debate hosts for strictly enforcing), and then continuing to talk rudely over their attempts to shut her off.
Abbott won by a comfortable margin. Davis wins points for actually knowing the Mexican Water Treaty of 1944, but loses even more points for flat out lying about Republicans wanting to repeal the Voting Rights Act of 1964, as opposed to ending the preclearence requirements.
I doubt terribly many minds were changed by the debate, except possibly those of donors who previously thought Davis might be worth giving more money to…
Greg Abbott Debates Wendy Davis Tonight At 6 PM
Friday, September 19th, 2014Tonight Greg Abbott faces off against Wendy Davis in the Texas gubernatorial debate. In Austin it should be broadcast here live starting at 6 PM.
Texas Governor’s Race Update for September 12, 2014
Friday, September 12th, 2014Reporting on the Wendy Davis campaign at this point is like reporting on the Titanic 80% of the way into the sinking (“And there goes the second smokestack under the waves!”). But someone has to write a first draft of those epic failures for the historical record, so let’s press on…
Right now polls show Greg Abbott up a comfortable 18 points over Davis, 54% to 36%.
It’s gotten so bad that the Davis campaign “leaked” one of those ridiculous, can’t remotely trust them “internal polls” that shows her a mere 8 points behind Abbott, 38% to his 46%. You know it’s bad when you can’t even pretend to be winning in your own fantasy land poll.
Also, the Abbott campaign filed an ethics complaint against the Davis campaign for using her campaign funds to attend a book signing in New York City. (I wonder if her New York City signing had the same strict conditions as her Austin signing.) Since Davis did have one fundraising event on the trip, I doubt the complaint will succeed legally, but it does further the Abbott campaign’s picture of Davis as a woman who has more supporters in New York and California than in Texas.
The big question at this point is: What’s the floor for how poorly Wendy Davis can do in the general election? I think she can drop below the 39.96% Tony Sanchez garnered in 2002. I don’t see her eclipsing the pitiful low-mark of Garry Mauro’s 31.18% in 1998, much less Chris Bell’s 29.79% in the 4-way Perry-Bell-Strayhorn-Friedman race in 2006. Davis has garnered a lot more fawning media attention than Sanchez ever got, and didn’t have the bruising primary fight Sanchez had against Dan Morales, much less one where her opponent ended up endorsing the Republican nominee, as Morales did. On the other hand, Davis doesn’t have $60 million of her own money to spend on her campaign the way Sanchez did.