Posts Tagged ‘Roger Williams’

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Texas 2012 Senate Race Information Sources Round 2: Facebook Boogaloo

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

(I know, tired meme is tired. But I just like saying “Facebook Boogaloo.”)

It being the second decade of the 21st century and all, it occurs to me that merely providing links to the individual candidates blogs is probably insufficient to keep up with their latest statements. So, in the interest of providing myself a handy cheat sheet informing my readers of the latest developments, here are the major candidates’ Facebook pages (plus that of the undeclared Dewhurst):

  • Ted Cruz
  • David Dewhurst
  • Elizabeth Ames Jones
  • Tom Leppert
  • Michael Williams
  • Roger Williams

    • Oh, and in case you think numbers of Facebook fans are a serious measure of popularity 11 months before an election (I don’t), here are the number of “likes” for each candidate’s respective pages:

  • Ted Cruz: 57,128
  • David Dewhurst: 21,320
  • Elizabeth Ames Jones: 8,018
  • Tom Leppert: 1,268
  • Michael Williams: 7,871
  • Roger Williams: 6,191

    • Now some more race tidbits:

  • According to an interview with him, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst may not run for the Senate in 2012, opting instead to run for Governor in 2014.
  • Interview with Michael Williams at GOP-Is-For-Me. (Psst: Michael: Twitter and Facebook are fine and all, but I shouldn’t have to go past the News/Blog page of your website to find this.)
  • And speaking of Michael Williams, he raised $500,000 in the first quarter of this year, significantly behind what Cruz and Leppert have announced they’ve raised.
  • Some musing from the new Texas Iconclast blog on what those numbers mean.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Texas 2012 Senate Race Websites (and Tidbits)

    Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

    Note: A more detailed and up-to-date list of Texas Senate Candidate Websites can be found here.

    For today’s 2012 Texas Senate Race coverage, I thought I would provide a handy list of all the candidate’s own websites (listed alphabetically).

    Websites for 2012 Republican Senate Candidates

  • Ted Cruz
  • David Dewhurst has not announced he’s running yet, so here’s his official Lieutenant Governor’s page
  • Elizabeth Ames Jones
  • Tom Leppert
  • Michael Williams
  • Roger Williams

    • Since I’m trying to provide a complete lineup, here are some very, very longshots that have declared for the Republican primary:

  • Glenn Addison
  • Andrew Castanuela
  • Lela Pittenger

    • I’ve seen reports that a Nick Latham is running (he declared in 2009), but it’s hard to take him seriously as even a longshot candidate when all the links on his website are 404.

    Websites for 2012 Democratic Senate Candidates

    Through diligent research, I have finally found an actual, declared candidate for the Democratic nomination. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you your de facto Democratic Senate front-runner, Sean Hubbard. Yes, it’s a Facebook page. I was able to reach Hubbard by email, and he says he’s just waiting for the domain transfer for his actual campaign website to go through. To his credit, that Facebook page has been updated recently, which puts him one up on John Sharp. (Actually, it appears that a few other people have finally posted encouragement on Sharp’s Facebook page, although Sharp himself still hasn’t posted in more than a year.) One problem facing Hubbard is that Texas voters might be a little hesitant to vote for someone who looks like he still gets carded trying to buy a beer…

    As for other Democratic Senate candidates, I sent email to Sharp to see if he was running and received no reply. I emailed Chet Edwards today, but there hasn’t been much time for him to get back to me. I see Chris Bell’s name being bandied about, but his law firm doesn’t have an e-mail address for him, and it seems rude to bug him by phone.

    Supposedly there’s a transsexual bodybuilder named Chris Tina Bruce running as an independent, but I can’t find a campaign website. Given the paucity of Democratic candidates, I’m not sure why Bruce doesn’t just declare for the Democratic primary, as the field is wide open…

    And finally a dollop of Senate race tidbits:

  • Ted Cruz says he has raised (extend Dr. Evil pinkie) one MILLION dollars for his campaign.
  • Tom Leppert says he’s raised $2.6 million…but that includes a $1.6 million loan from himself to his campaign.
  • Ted Cruz gets some serious love from The Weekly Standard.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 4 Comments »

    Video of 2012 Republican Senate Contenders

    Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

    From Rick Perry vs. The World comes this dandy video roundup of various Republican contenders for the 2012 Senate race. I hope to have time to watch all of them sometime today…

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Texas 2012 Senate Race Updates for January 26, 2011

    Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

    A few Texas 2012 Senate Race updates:

  • Evan Van Ness of Rick Perry vs. The World says that people shouldn’t hand the race to David Dewhurst just yet.
  • The Texas Tribune will be interviewing Michael Williams from 7:30–9 AM on Thursday, January 27 at The Austin Club at 110 E. Ninth Street. I won’t be able to make it, but interested readers should go to that page to RSVP. The page also says that people should RSVP by “Thursday, Jan 27, 2011 – 1 p.m.,” which suggests that certain of their readers are in possession of a 1.21 gigawatt 1981 DeLorean…
  • Elizabeth Ames Jones “kicked off” her campaign in Dallas yesterday, despite having announced she was running (and raising money) back in 2009, as noted yesterday. For some reason she’s scrubbed a previous fundraising press release off her website, but since Google still has the cache, here it is for posterity:

    Press Releases
    Elizabeth Ames Jones Reports $563,000 Raised Since Announcing For The U.S Senate

    AUSTIN, TX – Elizabeth Ames Jones’ U.S. Senate campaign today announced fundraising numbers for the 2nd Quarter of 2009. The report filed with the FEC shows that $356,000 was raised between April 1st and June 30th. The campaign has raised more than $563,000 since Commissioner Jones filed to run for the U.S. Senate and the campaign has $443,000 on hand at the close of the quarter.

    “We are very pleased with the 2nd Quarter filing. We not only met, but exceeded our goals and have demonstrated growing support from around Texas. This is further proof that Texans know Elizabeth Ames Jones has the steady leadership needed to be their next U.S. Senator. Her conservative message is clearly resonating with people and this is just the beginning,” stated Alicia Collins, Campaign Manager.

    Last month the Jones campaign announced that Governor and Mrs. William P. Clements will serve as the Honorary Chairmen for Commissioner Jones’ U.S. Senate campaign and Secretary and Mrs. Robert Mosbacher will serve as Honorary Chairman of the Campaign Finance Committee.

    Texas Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones, 52, was elected to the Texas Legislature in a landslide upset victory in 2000. In 2005, she was appointed by Governor Rick Perry to a vacancy on the Texas Railroad Commission and was overwhelmingly elected to serve a six-year term in 2006. Her energy commentaries have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and other major newspapers. Jones is a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.

    ###
    Attachment
    Posted on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 by Project BIG fish

  • The Southern Political Report offers up a roundup of the race with mostly familiar names, but brings up one on the Democratic side I hadn’t heard before: State Rep. Rafael Anchia of Dallas. He seems to have a pretty typical Hispanic Democrat resume, with significant work on illegal alien issues. Oh, he also wants to tax your plastic bags. Can he be nominated? Well, it’s not like the rest of the Democrats are setting the field on fire, and, unlike John Sharp, he seems to be able to keep a website up and running…

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Texas 2012 Senate Campaign Fundraising Reports

    Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

    Just as a modern army runs on gasoline, a modern political campaign runs on money. Several of the Senate candidates have been quite active in that regard, according to FEC documents for the 2009-2010 period:

  • Michael Williams has received a total of $743,458 in donations from 519 individuals. As noted previously, he also received significant support from the Senate Conservatives Fund, and was (if I’m scanning this correctly) the only non-2010 candidate to receive funding from them last year.
  • Roger Williams has received a whopping $1,643,928 in donations from 1335 individuals. Moreover, since Williams was the earliest candidate to announce, he raised $131,000 in the 2007-2008 election cycle, though $100,000 of that was a loan to himself, the rest from 18 individuals.
  • Elizabeth Ames Jones has raised $989,765 from 1051 individuals.
  • I don’t think State Senator Florence Shapiro has a high enough profile to win the Republican nomination, but that didn’t keep her from raising $525,285 for a Senate run. However, there seem to be almost as many refunds as donations listed in her filing, many for people who have multiple entries for the same amount on the same day. I can’t tell whether she refunded people because she decided not to run, or if it was just to offset a data glitch. (I sent off a question, but the address on her campaign website bounces.)
  • On the Democratic side, holy moly! John Sharp may have been invisible on the campaign trail, but he’s already got $3,994,490 in his war chest, having raised money from 722 individuals. However, over $3 million of that comes from a “Candidate Loan.” So Sharp hasn’t been lazy the last year, he’s been in “stealth mode.” But that still doesn’t explain why johnsharp.com redirects to Network Solutions…
  • Though he says he’s not running, Bill White has raised an even larger $6,015,014 for his Senate campaign from 4521 individuals. (As these are federal disclosure forms, my understanding is that none of White’s funding for his Governor’s race would be included here.) But it’s possible the bulk was raised before he switched to run for Governor.

    • I can’t find any Senate fundraising reports on any of the other likely serious candidates. (Democrat Chet Edwards shows up, but only for his unsuccessful attempt to hold onto his House seat.)

    Keep in mind that these are very early figures, only go through 9/30/10 for most candidates, and several potential candidates haven’t started raising funds yet. I have little doubt that, should David Dewhurst jump into the race as expected, he would easily be able to amass somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million by year’s end.

    We’re not even at the starting line yet, but contestants are already starting to mosey out to the track…

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 4 Comments »

    2012 Senate Races Already Heating Up (In Texas and Elsewhere)

    Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

    It’s only a few days after she announced her retirement, but several serious contenders are getting a lot of buzz for Kay Baily Hutchison’s Senate seat:

    • Even though he hasn’t announced, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst is considered the presumptive front-runner. Having successfully run for a very powerful (and very prominent) statewide office, Dewhurst would be a formidable candidate. And his intention to jump in just may be deduced from the Google ad that shows up when you search for his name: “Taking the Fight to Washington? Stay Updated Here/www.DavidDewhurst.com”
    • Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbot is rumored to to be considering a run. Current Senator John Cornyn made the same jump in 2002.
    • Roger Williams, former Texas Secretary of State (not the theologian the Rhode Island university is named for), has picked up a serious endorsement from former President George H. W. Bush. Williams worked on both the Bush41 and Bush43 campaigns and headed the Texas Republican Victory 2008 Coordinated Campaign. It’s a big jump from Secretary of State (which is an appointed, not elected office) to the Senate, but the Bush Machine excels at fund-raising, and if it really throws its weight behind Williams he won’t have any trouble raising money. (Edited to add: I didn’t realize that Williams had already announced his candidacy all the way back in December 2008.)
    • A different Williams, Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, gets some serious love from South Carolina Senator (and Senate Conservatives Fund head honcho) Jim DeMint. But the Railroad Commission, while quite powerful, doesn’t have nearly the public profile of Lt. Governor.
    • Another Railroad Commissioner, Elizabeth Ames Jones, is already off and running, having evidently announced back in 2009.
    • A serious dark-horse contender is State Senator Dan Patrick, who has a lot of name-recognition in Houston for being a former sportscaster. (He might even get false name recognition, since he’s not the other sports-casting Dan Patrick.)
    • Other names being bandied about are Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert and former Solicitor General of Texas Ted Cruz.

    And that’s just the first batch of names to be floated, and says nothing of random billionaires or old Republican warhorses jumping into the race.

    The Democratic names being floated are a far less imposing bunch: San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, ex-Congressman Chet Edwards, and former Comptroller John Sharp. Edwards got trounced in the most recent election, while Sharp was defeated by Dewhurst in his run for Lieutenant Governor in 2002, and it’s hard to treat someone as a serious candidate who haven’t updated their twitter feed in almost a year and who let his campaign website (http://www.johnsharp.com/) lapse.

    In related news, Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, of deeply red North Dakota, announced he was declining to run in 2012 as well, which means Democratic chances to hold onto the seat probably just went from slim to none.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 3 Comments »

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