He also toured the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Houston. I’m not sure that Ye Olde Political Photo-Op is the best use of a candidate’s time in the 21st century.
Elizabeth Ames Jones delivered the keynote address at the National Energy Services Association meeting in Bastrop. Which is probably good use of her time as Railroad Commissioner, but not effective at campaigning. With Cruz and Leppert campaigning full-time (and Dewhurst getting there), it’s hard to treat Jones as a serious candidate when she seems to put more effort into her day job, especially since she was already trailing so badly in buzz and fundraising.
There will be a Senate Candidate forum in Tarrant County Tuesday night starting 6:15 PM at the Richland Hills United Methodist Church at 7301 Glenview Drive, Richland Hills, 76180. Attending will be Cruz, Leppert, Jones, Glenn Addison, Andrew Castanuela, Curt Cleaver, and Lela Pittenger. Once again, Lt. Gov. Chupacabra will be nowhere to be seen.
And speaking of people avoiding the limelight, this week Ricardo Sanchez…did absolutely nothing. Nattional Journal says that his campaign has gotten of to “a slow start.” Actually, “slow” doesn’t really cover it. Try “glacial.” Is it really that hard to update your Facebook, Twitter and website on a regular basis?
Ted Cruz is the subject of a very favorable Brian Bolduc cover story in the October 17 issue of National Review. (I’ll link to it when it’s actually online.) It doesn’t get much better than that for a conservative candidate.
Cruz was also endorsed by Citizens United (for whom I used to work back in the day).
Blue Dot Blues says that David Dewhurst’s claims of opposing in-state tuition breaks for illegal aliens is “a really disingenuous position for Dewhurst to take,” since he neither campaigned against the issue, nor did anything about it in all the years he’s been in a position to do so.
Dewhurst’s campaign page says that he met with “grassroots leaders” in Corpus Christi, but doesn’t say who they were or what groups they were associated with. Nor can I find mentions of the meeting via news or blog searches. More details, please.
Dewhurst also had a fundraiser in Abilene. Hmmm: Corpus, Abilene. Dewhurst might be making early swings through the smaller cities of Texas, with an eye toward hitting the bigger ones toward the end of the campaign. That sounds like it could be a pretty sound strategy to me.
I think pretty much all the Republican candidates treated Obama’s “jobs proposal” and the pathetic joke it was, so I’m not going to link to individual instances.
This Saturday there’s going to be a Senate candidate forum in either Garland or Plano; the venue link is at odds with the description under it. I’m seeing multiple descriptions of the venue as “Collin County Community College, Spring Creek Campus Living Legends Conference Center, AA135, 2800 E. Spring Creek Parkway, Plano, TX,” so I would go with that. Update: I’ve confirmed with multiple sources that the Plano address is the correct one.
Here’s a write-up on last week’s Kingwood Area Republican Women candidate’s forum.
And once again, this week, Democratic frontrunner Ricardo Sanchez…did absolutely nothing. Maybe he’s practicing for the title role in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
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 had two separate science fiction conventions to go to (Worldcon in Reno, and Armadillocon here in Austin) back to back, plus some personal upheavals, so it’s taking me some time to get back in the swing of things. So here are some quick Senate race updates for the last two weeks:
Another Senate candidate forum, this time in Waco. Cruz earns points for defense of the Tea Party. Other attendees included Elizabeth Ames Jones, Tom Leppert, and “folksy Magnolia mortician” (to use The Waco Tribune‘s phrase) Glenn Addison. Addison seemed to get off the best line, a shot at Anthony Weiner, when asked if he’d resign if caught in a scandal. “The good lord knows I have my struggles, but I don’t struggle with holding cameras different ways.”
Cruz warmed up the audience before Rick Perry’s announcement at Red State.
Ross Ramsey polls the insiders again. Ramsey also consigns Sean Hubbard and Stanley Garza to the ranks of the invisible men, using the phrase “Ricardo Sanchez, the only declared Democratic candidate.” This is what old school journalists used to call “a factual error.” Do they not teach “Accuracy 101” in The George Soros Academy for Left-Wing Journalism?
Is Rep. Mike McCaul considering getting into the race? I don’t see a lot of running room, but McCaul is frequently ranked as the wealthiest member of congress with a reported fortune for $294 million (his wife, Linda McCaul, is the daughter of the founder of Clear Channel Communications). Given that, his willingness to “spend $4 million to $6 million of his own money” seems pretty penny-ante for a Texas Senate seat, especially with David Dewhurst already in the race. Now, if he were to announce he was spending $25 million of his own money…
There was also evidently a candidate forum put on by Congressman Pete Olsen in Ft. Bend County, but I can’t find any mention of it except on Dewhurst’s site. Also watch Jim Bognet refer to himself as “Manager for Governor David Dewhurst’s senate campaign.” Might want to make sure to slip in that “Lieutenant” before “Governor” next time…
Elizabeth Ames jones endorses Rick Perry for President. I see no indication that Perry has returned the favor for Jones’ Senate race…
And finally, as far as I can, over the last two weeks, Ricardo Sanchez…did absolutely nothing.
A few senate race updates for these dog days of summer:
There will be a Clear Lake Tea Party senate candidate forum Thursday, August 11. Expected to attend are Ted Cruz, Glenn Addison, Tom Leppert, Elizabeth Ames Jones, Andrew Castanuela and Lela Pittenger.
Ricardo Sanchez has come out of hibernation to give a speech at UT. The Houston Chronicle story is a bit better, but still long of Democratic party platitudes and short on policy specifics.
There are rumblings that Craig James may jump into the Senate race, but I don’t see it happening; I don’t see him being able to make any headway against Cruz and Dewhurst. (Psssst, Michael O’Brien! Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, Comptroller Susan Combs, and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples aren’t running for the Senate, they’re all eying the Lt. Governor’s and (depending on what happens with Perry and Dewhurst’s respective runs) Governor’s races in 2014.)
The Cruz campaign emailed to say they’ll be sending me the video file of the interview sometime in the next 24 hours, so here are a few race updates to tide you over until then.
Matt S. Dowling has his interview with Cruz up. I haven’t had a chance to watch all of it yet. Expect the setting to seem eerily familiar when you watch my interview…
And speaking on interviews with Cruz, here’s a snippet he did on a radio interview about the debt limit vote, which he was against.
Yet another high-profile national conservative endorses Cruz, in this case Pennyslvania Senator Pat Toomey. Toomey will always have a place in the hearts of conservative everywhere for pushing the odious Arlen Specter out of the party and taking his Senate seat.
I first encountered Ted Cruz in Laredo in 2003. As the state Senate Democrats’ 46-day Albuquerque quorum break ended, they boarded a plane and went to Laredo to attend a hearing on the matter in Federal court. I accompanied them on the plane, and attended the hearing in the Laredo courtroom. Ted Cruz, then the Solicitor General, was the state’s lawyer in court that day. In other words – ironically – he was Dewhurst’s lawyer in the suit. I have never seen a better courtroom performance, before or since. He was articulate, passionate, and flat-out out-lawyered the Democrats’ legal team. By the end of that hearing, not only was I convinced that Cruz had won the day (which he did), but he was so utterly great that I myself had serious doubts as to the merits of the Democrats’ suit. I’ve been a begrudging admirer of Cruz’ skills ever since.
Polifact says that Tom Leppert calling David Dewhurst a “career politician” is false. Because he’s only been in politics since 1998, not “most of [his] working life.” While I’m not sure I agree with that line of thinking, at least it’s less risible than some of the arguments Polifact has made in the last year…
A few tidbits of Texas senate race news for a lazy Friday:
There is a Tour of Texas Senatorial Forum in Austin tomorrow, Saturday July 30th, 2011, from 4:00 – 6:00 PM at the Texas Capitol Extension Auditorium at 1100 N Congress Ave, Room E1.004. I expect to attend, and hopefully should get a chance to interview one of the candidates before the forum, if all goes well.
I’ve actually been looking for Ricardo Sanchez news and not finding any, or rather the only news is non-news: There was a liberal “Texas Labor Rally to Protect Social Security and Medicare” he was scheduled to appear at…and he didn’t even bother to show up.
U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, representing Texas’ 26th Congressional District, endorses Tom Leppert. The 26th runs from south of Ft. Worth up to the Oklahoma border (or at least did before this year’s redistricting), so it’s right in Leppert’s backyard. Though not one of the more prominent members of the Texas delegation, Burgess has an impressive 95% rating from the American Conservative Union, making this really the first notable conservative endorsement Leppert has picked up.
Leppert get’s a mostly flattering profile by Big Jolly Politics’ David Jennings, though Jennings does ding him for his support for Dallas workers to unionize. (Jennings doesn’t mention Leppert’s contributions to liberal Democrat Ron Kirk’s Senate campaign.) Jennings also says he doesn’t have much use for the term “RINO”:
By now, if you have read this far, it should be clear that Mr. Leppert is not some wild-eyed liberal trying to pick the pockets of the taxpayer. You wouldn’t know that if you listened to the self-appointed RINO hunters in the Texas Republican party. Gawd I hate that term.
Hmmm. I may resemble that remark…
Leppert’s communication guy Shawn McCoy is leaving the campaign, being replaced by Daniel Keylin, though Leppert campaign manager Josh Kivett will be handling those duties during a transition period.
Lots of reaction to Lt. Governor David Dewhurst’s long-awaited announcement that he was getting in the Senate race yesterday.
Here’s Dewhurst’s official announcement:
Ted Cruz offers a video response:
That video offers a URL for another Cruz website, https://www.provenconservative.com/, but it’s just a fundraising splash page with a link that leads to the main Cruz website.
In response to the Dewhurst announcement, the Tom Leppert campaign sent me a press release (which doesn’t appear to be online) stating:
“It comes as little surprise to me that David Dewhurst has thrown his hat into the ring. Like other career politicians, he has long expressed his interest in a host of higher offices, and I’m glad he has finally settled on the job he wants next.
“As my Twitter followers know, I have been asking David where he stands on a number of important issues. Now that he’s a candidate he should be ready to tell us whether he will support Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget, fight the NLRB’s attacks on Right to Work, call for an end to Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium and sign the Cut Cap Balance Pledge.
“This election is about which candidate knows how to spur job growth and restore fiscal responsibility to Washington. The career politicians and lawyers have had their chance, and they’ve failed. It’s time to send a real-life job creator to the U.S. Senate. I’ve signed both sides of a paycheck, and I’ve made the tough choices in both the private sector and as Mayor of Dallas to cut spending and balance budgets.
“At a time when families are struggling and Washington continues down the wrong path and ignores the tough calls, Texans will choose a new Senator to represent them. They will have three clear choices – a career politician, a lawyer, or a businessman who brings a unique conservative approach to government. Someone who’s signed both sides of a paycheck, grown a business, and cut wasteful spending in both the public and private sector. Who understands firsthand how decisions made in Washington affect the economy. Only one candidate in the race for Senate has created thousands of jobs and made the hard calls that are so lacking in Washington right now.”
More about the Leppert “lawyer” attack line against Cruz anon (I don’t think it will be successful), but it’s interesting how the Leppert campaign plays up his businessman credentials and never mentions (at least here) that he was Mayor of Dallas for four years.
I can find no online reaction from Elizabeth Ames Jones to Dewhurst entering the race, but she just went from a distant third to an even-more-distant fourth.
Paul Burka is not impressed with Dewhurst’s announcement. Laid-off teachers, yadda yadda, but what’s interesting to me is that Burka says he received a Dewhurst robocall for his announcement. This does not strike me as the optimal strategy for disseminating information in the internet age…
Dewhurst is a billionaire and has proven that he can run and win statewide contests in Texas, which can be a challenging state to run in due to its size, its five or six (depending on how you count) major media markets and slew of mid-sized markets, and its diversity. He’ll be formidable, and may even jump to the favorite slot due to his high name recognition alone. And, he speaks Spanish fluently. I’ve seen him handle interviews with Spanish-speaking media on the fly; he’s a pro.
The Spanish-speaking bit is interesting, but I’m not sure the billionaire part is accurate. Dewhurst is rich, certainly, but I didn’t get the impression that he was that rich.
The Daily Kossacks still seem to regard Cruz as the real conservative in the race: “While Dewhurst has been dithering on the parapets, his chief rival for the GOP nomination, Ted Cruz, continues to cement his position as the movement conservative standard-bearer.”
At least one blogger was underwhelmed by the Dewhurst announcement: “With all the fanfare and enthusiasm of a Baptist funeral, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst announced Tuesday that he’d like to be among the number of people Ted Cruz will pwn next March.”
Other Senate race news:
The Washington Post says that Ricardo Sanchez’s fundraising efforts are off to a poor start.
Over at the Houston Chronicle, Patricia Kilday Hart displays her poor research skills by declaring that “Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez is the only announced candidate in the Democratic Primary U.S. Senate race.” Perhaps Sean Hubbard should take up robbing banks, since he seems to be invisible to vast swathes of the MSM.
Still waiting for Dewhurst to announce his candidacy. (It would be tempting to write a Waiting for Godot parody with Dewhurst in the Godot role, except I suspect the intersection between Texas political junkies and people who would appreciate a good Samuel Beckett parody would result in a fairly small set.) But there’s still plenty of news on the race:
Shortly after the Ted Cruz jumped in, he started garnering an impressive array of conservative endorsements, but opponent Michael Williams started with the very impressive endorsement of South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint and the Senate Conservative Fund. Since then, of course, Williams dropped out of the race. And today, DeMint made things more or less unanimous by endorsing Cruz.
I might be confused, but Tom Leppert’s Q2 fundraising totals are up, and it seems to me that something awful screwy is going on there. Remember, in Q1, Leppert raised $2.6 million, but $1.6 million of that was in the form of a personal loan to his own campaign. Then the Leppert campaign declared that he raised $750,000 in Q2. But you look at his cumulative figures on the FEC page, and his debt is now up to $2.1 million. This would suggest that two-thirds of that $750,000 figure consisted of yet another personal loan to his own campaign, meaning Leppert only raised a paltry $250,000 in contributions. Perhaps I’m wrong, and there’s another explanation, but unless their are similar loans among the yet-to-come Q2 reports of his opponents, not only has Leppert fallen badly behind Cruz, he’s actually fallen behind Elizabeth Ames Jones’s $313,000. It would also validate the Cruz campaign’s contention that Leppert suffers from a very narrow fundraising base. After I post this, I’ll write the Leppert campaign for clarification on his fundraising numbers. Done. See here for an update on those numbers.
