Reminder: I will be liveblogging the Texas Senate debate here tomorrow at 7 PM. Feel free to drop by for insightful commentary, snarky asides, and no doubt a veritable cavalcade of deeply embarrassing typos.
Now this week’s Senate race news:
Ted Cruz decries Obama’s understanding of the constitution over at NRO.
Ted Cruz picks up the endorsement of…Pat Boone? Actually it’s in his role as spokesman of the 60 Plus Association. Like Dewhurst’s many business association endorsements, it won’t hurt, but I don’t actually see it swaying anyone’s vote. Unless hipsters suddenly made Pat Boone cool while I wasn’t looking…
The Cruz campaign also rolled out a new website to attack Dewhurst with, http://www.dewbious.com/. No new revelations there if you’ve been following the campaign closely.
The Houston Chronicleprofiles David Dewhurst. Honestly, it’s less interesting for the Dewhurst coverage than the usual liberal MSM talking points scattered throughout, including the classic “or like Perry, whose budget called for cuts to public education that some have labeled extreme.” And by cuts he means “increase” and by “some” he means “all my fellow liberal reporters.”
The Dewhurst camp dings, quite properly, Cruz-supporter Dick Armey’s reference to Dewhurst being backed by “Daddy’s money.” Dewhurst’s father died when he was three, and Dewhurst spent time in the Air Force and the CIA before making his own fortune in the oil industry. Armey owes Dewhurst an apology, but Cruz does not; receiving someone’s endorsement does not make you responsible for their every dumb statement.
Craig James blasts Cruz for suggesting to him (via text message) he bring up Dewhurst’s constant debate ducking at tomorrow’s debate. A rare misstep for Cruz.
The Ted Cruz campaign announced that they raised $1.3 million in campaign funding in Q1, which is up $200,000 from his Q4 numbers. I was a bit disappointed in his Q4 numbers, thinking he should have had more of a bump from his National Review cover appearance, but his Q1 number is actually more impressive, given how long this campaign has dragged on, indicating that the Cruz campaign is still building momentum.
This is announcement that I will be attempting to liveblog the Texas Senate debate happening this Friday, April 13, at 7 PM CDT.
Some of the things I’ll be looking at most keenly:
David Dewhurst’s performance: As the only one of the four major Republican candidates I haven’t interviewed, I’m interested in seeing how Dewhurst performs; several commentator’s dinged him for slow, hesitant answers the last time he attended one of these.
Ted Cruz hitting Dewhurst over the Payroll Tax: I’m hoping a lively exchange between the two may clarify the “was Dewhurst proposing a state income tax or not” question.
Whether Dewhurst will try to ding Cruz over his law firm work for a Chinese company (weak sauce) or work for George Soros by other members of the firm (non-existent sauce).
Will anyone bring up Leppert playing footsies with ACORN and gay rights organizations while he was mayor of Dallas? Or, for that matter, anything concerning his record as mayor?
Will Craig James bring up more policy specifics than he has before? Not any area of strength for the James campaign so far.
As for Senate debate drinking games, sip every time:
James says “real street.”
Cruz says “proven conservative.”
Leppert or Dewhurst says “businessman.”
Anyone but Cruz says “I’m not a lawyer…”
Chug when:
James uses a football metaphor.
Leppert says “I don’t speak in 30 second sound bites.”
Ted Cruz won the endorsement of Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, which is a terrific pickup for him. He joins Jim DeMint and Rand Paul among sitting conservative Republican senators who have endorsed Cruz.
Rice University political scientist Mark P. Jones says that David Dewhurst is a moderate by Republican standards: “Frequently used his powers of agenda control to help pass legislation opposed by the most conservative members of the Republican delegation. In addition, the best estimate of Dewhurst’s location along the liberal-conservative continuum which dominates voting in the Texas Senate suggests he is significantly less conservative than approximately one-third of the Republican delegation, particularly conservative outliers Brian Birdwell of Granbury and Dan Patrick of Houston….for Republicans located in the party’s centrist and moderate conservative wings, Dewhurst is likely to be ‘just right.'” It’s an interesting statistical analysis, and conforms to my own opinion of Dewhurst: Not a RINO, but not a true movement conservative, either.
The Dewhurst campaign is being more than a bit silly (again) in trying to link Cruz to George Soros because some of the other 1,300 lawyers at the same international law firm have done work for Soros. I’ve already debunked this. It’s actually fairly embarrassing that they’re still trying to make this argument.
After much back and forth with his campaign trying to find a date, I was finally able to interview Texas Senate candidate Craig James on March 21 at the Rudy’s on South 360 here in Austin. This was, alas, not an ideal atmosphere for an interview (it got better when one of his staffers asked Rudy’s to turn off their piped in music for the area, which is something I should have thought of asking for), and the first part of the interview makes it hard to hear. After the first question, I stopped the camera and moved it closer to James so you can hear his answers, so the audio gets much better about 1:35 in, though I seem to have cut off the top of his head in the process. So let me apologize in advance for the less-than-sterling sound and video quality for various parts of the interview, but the vast majority of the interview is intelligible. I filmed this with my Mino Flip camera and did a light edit in iMovie, so the crappiness is 100% my fault (or that of the environment it was filmed in).
Thoughts:
James is a very confident, well-spoken and personable speaker with a lot of natural charisma. He seems to get the big picture of the conservative agenda (a constitutionally limited government, and a commitment to free markets) and obviously comes from a social conservative background.
I like that he would eliminate the Department of Education, but it’s a bit hard to square with his emphasis on vocational training in the second part of the answer. It’s not that I disagree that it’s a good idea, it’s just that after the elimination of the Department of Education, I don’t see any viable (or proper) role for such fine-grained educational policy control at the federal level.
I’m not particularly interested in the Texas Tech question that starts part 2, but since it’s the most famous controversy he’s been involved in, the interview would have felt incomplete without it.
There are a couple of interesting admissions I give him credit for: admitting that Texans for a Better Tomorrow was created as a vehicle for him to explore a role in politics, and admitting that he would root for the New England Patriots (for whom he played in the NFL) were they to meet the Cowboys in the Superbowl, a brave position that’s obviously not pandering to his constituents.
I didn’t like the vagueness of his positions beyond a few policy specifics, and the fact he tried to straddle both sides of some issues (such as PIPA/SOPA in the second half of the interview). Both Ted Cruz and Tom Leppert were occasionally vague on some points, but James is already sounding awfully vague for someone who hasn’t ever held elective office.
The low-point of the interview (about 3:15 into the second part) was finding out that James has never heard of the Posse Comitatus Act. This is not an obscure statute, it’s one of the fundamental laws governing the limitations of using federal troops. I would expect not only anyone with an interest in politics to at least have heard of the Posse Comitatus act, I would actually expect the same of anyone with a basic college education.
I’d like to thank Craig James for taking time out of his busy schedule to speak with me, and his staff for their assistance in setting up the interview.
Now I’ve interviewed all the major Republican Senate candidates but David Dewhurst. If his campaign would get in touch with me to set a convenient date in the next few weeks, I’d like to correct that oversight…
Wednesday night I finally got a chance to interview Craig James, so I hope to have the video of that up next week (though I have to warn you in advance that the technical quality is not as good as it could be, as the location (the Rudy’s on south 360) was less than ideal for filming, sound-wise). I also hope (if he has the time) to post an email mini-interview with Ted Cruz specifically focused on the Supreme Court taking up the ObamaCare case.
Cruz also got a generally fair and balanced piece on his arguing of cases before the Supreme Court by Kate Alexander in the Austin-American Statesman. Of all the MSM reporters covering the race, so far I’d say she’s doing the best job, something I never thought I would say about someone at the Statesman…
And the one upcoming debate Dewhurst is not ducking? Turns out one of the hosts is backing a Dewhurst SuperPac That’s some might fine objective journalism you’ve got going on there, Lou…
Paul Sadler, Addie Dainell Allen and Grady Yarbrough all appeared at a debate in Dallas, the details of which, alas, are hidden behind the Dallas Morning News paywall. But where was Sean Hubbard?
It should be no surprise that Democratic senate candidate Paul Sadler supports the the whole liberal checklist of Obama initiatives. However, what’s surprising is how easily he plays the “Obama’s opponents are racist” card on his fellow Texans:
“If he had an ‘R’ behind his name—and unfortunately, in some parts of this state, if his skin color was different—they would hail him as one of the greatest presidents of this country.”
I’m sure Texans are absolutely delighted to hear they’re racists for opposing Obama’s failed Blue State model of big government, out-of-control spending and higher taxes. The Race Card used to be the last refugee of black liberal scoundrels. Now it seems to be the first refugee of even white Democrats.
Later on he mentions that “fundraising isn’t going too well.” Imagine that.
This is a significant pickup for the Cruz campaign, since David Dewhurst was previously endorsed by the NRA for Lt. Governor. Thus far Dewhurst has gotten a the lion’s share of business group endorsements, split social conservative groups with Cruz, and essentially garnered none of the economic conservative or Tea Party endorsements, which Cruz has been dominating. The Gun Owners of America is a big win for Cruz, since Texas has lots of gun owners. My guess (and it’s just a guess) is that the NRA will either issue no endorsement in the race, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that they could endorse Dewhurst. (How the NRA does endorsements is a somewhat murky area I don’t fully understand, especially when they candidates in question have no legislative record.)
Gun Owners of America is a smaller and newer organization than the NRA, and have been far-stauncher in support of issues like concealed carry that the NRA was initially more cautious on. It’s a good endorsement for Cruz, and one that will solidify his position as the candidate most likely to be in a runoff with Dewhurst.
I’ve made my feelings about district-shopping and carpetbagger bids clear before. Roger Williams’ home of Weatherford is smack dab in District 12, currently represented by Republican incumbent Kay Granger. I can certainly understand not wanting to take on an entrenched Republican incumbent, but that still doesn’t justify district shopping.
That said, I think either Williams would make a solid Republican Representative.
