Posts Tagged ‘Florence Shapiro’

A Closer Look at David Dewhurst’s Q1 Donors

Wednesday, April 25th, 2012

I’ve been going through all 767 pages of David Dewhurst’s Q1 FEC report to see if anything leapt out at me. Honestly, this is really more of a sampler, since as the bank in the race, there’s just no end of Presidents, CEOs, Founders and Owners of various oil companies, insurance companies, banks, car dealerships, etc. donating to Dewhurst.

Some notable names among Dewhurst’s individual donors. Unless otherwise noted (or I screwed something up) these are current donations to date and are earmarked for the primary:

  • Retired Republican State Senator Kip Averitt gave $2,500.
  • Clayton Bennett, chairman of Dorchester Capital and chief owner of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team gave $2,500.
  • Frank Camp, founder of the liberal No Texas Teacher Left Behind, gave $1,000. The only other donation I can find on record from Mr. Camp went to Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak, who lost his 2010 Senate race to Republican incumbent Pat Toomey.
  • Phrma head John J. Castellani gave $1,000. Castellani is an example of what’s wrong with Washington these days, spewing money to swells on both sides of the aisle, including Republicans like Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Mike Castle, and Democrats like Chris Dodd, Max Baucus, and Harry Reid. Oh, he also gave money to the “Every Republican is Crucial PAC.”
  • Noted heart surgeon Denton Cooley gave Dewhurst $600.
  • Houston philanthropy diva Carolyn Farb (who you can see with Dewhurst here) tossed in $250.
  • Former UT engineering department Dean Ernest F. Gloyna (who I did some temp work for some two decades ago) contributed $425.
  • Democrat-turned-Republican and current Texas Tech chancellor Kent Hance gave $2,500 (though he listed his current position as attorney with his own law firm, Hance Scarborough and Wright).
  • Ken Hicks, the New York/Connecticut-based CEO of Foot Locker, gave two donations of $2,500 each, and his (I’m assuming) wife Lucille gave $5,000, all marked for the primary, of which $2,500 (if I’m reading the form correctly) was refunded.
  • Tom Love, Frank Love, Greg Love, and Judy Love, all of Love’s Travel Stops of Oklahoma, each gave $2,500 for the primary and $2,500 for the general election.
  • Joseph A. McBride, owner of Austin gun store McBride’s Guns, gave $1,350.
  • Top Austin lobbyist Dean R. McWilliams gave $5,000 ($2,500 each to primary and general funds).
  • Harriet Miers, withdrawn Bush43 Supreme Court nominee, gave $2,500.
  • George P. Mitchell, oil and gas pioneer, gave $5,000 ($2,500 each to primary and general funds).
  • H. Ross Perot, Jr. gave $5,000 ($2,500 each to primary and general funds), and his wife Sarah tossed in another $2,500.
  • Retiring State Senator Florence Shapiro (who considered running for this seat herself) gave $2,500.
  • Former State Senator (and former Waco Mayor) David Sibley gave $3,500, of which $1,000 was transferred to the primary fund.
  • Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon/Mobile, gave $1,000.
  • Power lobbyist and Rick Perry capo Mike Toomey gave $5,000 ($2,500 each to primary and general funds), as did his wife.

    • Now a brief look at the corporate donors. I’m omitting the ones already announced on Dewhurst’s website that I’ve been including in the regular Senate race updates.

  • Bill Miller Bar-B-Q gave $1,000. (There are lots of legendary BBQ places in Texas. Bill Miller is not among them.)
  • Bass Brothers Enterprises Inc. PAC (operated by the wealthy Bass family of Ft. Worth) gave $10,000 (half primary, half general).
  • Cadance Bank PAC of Birmingham, AL gave $2,500.
  • Citigroup PAC of Pennsylvania gave $5,000.
  • Dr Pepper Snapple PAC gave $2,500.
  • Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc. Citizenship Committee of Arizona gave $10,000 (half primary, half general), plus some individual donations from officers.
  • As did the DC-based McMoran Exploration Company Citizenship Committee
  • Humana’s DC-based PAC gave $2,500.
  • Pfizer PAC gave $5,000.
  • As did the PACs of TI, Time Warner, Union Pacific, and United States Steel.

    • Overall impressions: Lots of oil industry people, bankers, real estate developers, lawyers, and, for some reason, a statistically improbable number of dairy owners. And give Dewhurst credit for one thing his campaign team has been emphasizing: The overwhelming majority of individual donor money he’s raised has come from inside Texas.

    A look at the expenses side of Dewhurst’s FEC report when I have time.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for Friday, May 6, 2011: Immigration, the NYT, and Tom Leppert’s SEIU Ties

    Friday, May 6th, 2011

    A small LinkSwarm for a lazy Friday:

  • Mickey Kaus: “Why do these Democrats tell pollsters that immigrants are a burden because they ‘take our jobs’? Maybe because they do. Just a thought.”
  • The New York Times gets the Texas Senate Race, well, not quite right. “So far, only Republicans have declared in the Senate race.” False. Political neophyte Sean Hubbard has declared for the Democratic nomination, and has been filing his campaign financing reports with the FEC. “At least seven Republicans are vying for the seat being vacated by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.” Technically true but incomplete; there are five declared major candidates (Ted Cruz, Tom Leppert, Michael Williams, Roger Williams, and Elizabeth Ames Jones), three declared longshot candidates (Glenn Addison, Andrew Castanuela, and Lela Pettinger), one withdrawn candidate who filed her wind-down report with the FEC (Florence Shapiro) and one undeclared potential frontrunner (David Dewhurst). Saying “At least seven” makes me wonder exactly who you’re counting…
  • The Race to Replace KBH on Senate candidate Twitter antagonists. “Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite them/And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so on ad infinitum…”
  • From the same source we also learn that Leppert asked for, and received, the endorsement of the far-left SEIU.
  • More on Leppert’s SEIU support from the horse-mouth, SEIU Texas political coordinator Shannon Perez in the lefty Dallas Observer:

    “The Republican primary voters of the state of Texas need to know the truth about Tom Leppert.
    When he first ran for Mayor, as a moderate and a supporter of working men and women, he was pro-SEIU, pro-public employees organizing, pro-collective bargaining.
    So committed to these ideals was Tom, that he vigorously pursued SEIU’s endorsement.
    So committed to these ideals was Tom, that he came to our union organizing launch in the Water Department — encouraging folks to join SEIU. So committed to these ideals was Tom, he frequently threw on an SEIU T-shirt and came to our union hall…Tom even signed an SEIU membership card!

    Tom, Tom, Tom, it makes it hard to take your Second-Coming-of-Ronald-Reagan rhetoric seriously when stuff like this keeps tumbling out of your closet. Is it too late for you to switch to the Democratic Primary? You’ve already got a huge lead over Sean Hubbard…

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    Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Texas, unions | 4 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 »

    Still More 2012 Texas Senate Candidate News

    Friday, January 21st, 2011

    Add Republican Rep. Mike McCaul to the list of names of those considering a run.

    Polls show Dewhurst doing the best in polls against potential Democratic challengers, but all named Republicans beat all named Democrats. Given the state of Texas politics, that sounds about right.

    On the Democratic side, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro says he’s not running. Bill White also says no, despite Nate Silver’s pimping. Houston Sheriff Adrian Garcia also says he’s not interested, but his statement (“I have no interest in running for U.S. Senate at this time”) leaves a good bit more wiggle room.

    I keep hearing that John Sharp is going to run, but I wonder if anyone has told Sharp. He was making noises about it last March, and since then has been pretty much invisible. Signs of a Chet Edwards Senate run are even more non-apparent on the web.

    The Texas Tribune lists all sorts of wacky possibilities: Chris Bell (Maybe), George Prescott Bush (Bush41’s grandson, and No), Kinky Friedman (probably not, though he can’t do much worse than many of the other Democratic possibilities), Craig James (Maybe, but hard to see him gaining any traction in the Republican field; try running for the House first), Florence Shapiro (another Maybe, another person who couldn’t find traction in the Republican field), Leticia Van Putte (who?), and Farouk Shami (they actually asked him). Why not see if Phil Gramm or Dick Armey was coming out of retirement while you’re at it? Or some random Bullock or Hobby offspring?

    Not that it probably matters too much; there hasn’t been a Democrat elected in Texas statewide since Bob Bullock won in 1994, and Texas hasn’t sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 (the same year the Dukakis/Bentsen ticket lost to Bush/Quayle). Things are always fluid in politics, but there does not appear to be any instant revival for the Texas Democratic Party over the horizon in the near future…

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