Two pop up videos for Rick...

Pop up video for stump speeches...

Texas Tribune did a pop up video for Kay's Farm Bureau speech (link)...

Very solid effort...

Still seeking the motive for Kay's run...

William Murchison profiles the Rick vs. Kay race in the American Spectator and asks the important question about why Kay would be introducing a serious cleavage into the GOP at a time when unity might help in defeating the Obama agenda (link). Excerpt follows...

What's this thing about, then, the senator's bid to oust Perry, who became governor when George W. Bush resigned to seek the White House?

She sees the coming four years as her turn to be governor: that's what it appears to be about. I'm sorry, to tell the truth, that she sees it that way, because, under other circumstances, she might be an effective and efficient governor. We don't live under those circumstances. The Hutchison candidacy -- let me put it this way -- has potential to rip the Republican Party in twain and restore Texas to at least partial Democratic control. Anyway the Democrats sure hope so.

I think this might be overstating it somewhat... just look at the party switching from D to R... just look at the energy on the Republican side...

I think a lot of people are looking at this race and wondering why we need the blood shed... do we need the blood shed? Is this race going to accomplish anything of meaning?

This is very unscientific, but the latest numbers in the Texas on the Potomac blog show that there is not a whole lot of energy behind her campaign (link)...

Kay's spokesman first out of the gate post Ft. Hood with attacks...

In the wake of the Ft. Hood terrorist attack last week, there was a brief few day period of time when Rick and Kay were not attacking each other.

This morning Kay's spokesman Joe Pounder broke that truce with yet another attack that strains credibility on slickrickperry.com... saying that Rick is waffling on government run health care. This attack is possibly their weakest yet. It is like Hillary attacking Obama for not being sufficiently against the Iraq war despite his speeches opposing the war before the war, an attack her people briefly tried but quickly dropped when they realized just how weak it really was. This attack by Kay's campaign is so lacking in credibility that I am amazed they even used this as their first torpedo after the brief campaign break.

Still no attacks on Kay from Rick yet since the Ft. Hood shootings took place.

Actually come to think of it I have not seen an attack from Rick's peeps in more than a week now... the only hit they have done on her is that she missed a vote a week ago. The only hit before that was October 22 with a video about TARP funds being wasted they posted to their attack web page WashingtonKay.com...

I could be reading way more into this than I should but it appears that Kay's campaign has determined they have to attack daily or more and Rick's campaign has made a strategic decision to cool off a bit on the relentless attacks against Kay.

I think that is smart on the part of both campaigns. Although Kay was sniping at Rick for months and months all throughout the legislative session without nearly any response from Rick, Kay got off without being labeled a negative campaigner. When Rick hired out the pigs and flew the plane with the banner and had the bailout mobile and put out the cat videos and all of that during Kay's kickoff tour he immediately became some sort of mean bully...

Here is what I think is probably going on. When I talk to Rick's peeps, they don't seem like they are trying to convince anyone that Rick is up in this race. They just know it. Everyone knows it. Associations and "the lobby" which are all behind Rick don't endorse unless they have numbers to back it up.

From what I have been able to glean from my conversations with Rick's peeps they have internal polling showing him up by solid double digits... they aren't eager to share it, but they certainly do not deny that Rick is up by a healthy margin. The responses from them are very casual. Very calm and cool. Even when the Rasmussen poll came out showing the race virtually tied with Kay up by 2, they just kind of smirked as if they knew something they wanted to share but weren't going to.

It is the opposite story when I talk to people on Kay's team... they are far from calm and cool about polling. I'll leave that one right there but if you have had the misfortune to bring up that subject with one of Kay's peeps you know exactly what I am talking about...

I think these attacks or lack thereof show that Rick is liking where he is, and Kay is seeing the numbers and realizing that she has to continue tearing Rick down to have any shot. Just like the moderate Charlie Crist is currently doing to Rubio's campaign in terms of trying to pollute the waters about Rubio's credentials, moderate Kay's team is doing their best to make people think Rick is not a true conservative either. The difference is that Crist is still up by wide margins in the polls, while Rick is up over Kay by 12. The Texas primary is also coming up a lot sooner, so the necessity of attacks is more urgent... which is why you see puzzling and sloppy attacks that strain the credibility of those making them.

Rick should not shy away entirely from attacks, and Kay should not stop attacking completely. I am not recommending either of those courses of action. What I am saying is that Rick and his peeps are in a leader position which allows them to choose their attacks more judiciously. Kay is playing from behind and is therefore has to take more risks and more long passes which could lead to more rewards and touchdowns but could also lead to interceptions and 3 and outs. It's only the second quarter though so Rick cannot just sit on the ball and run out the clock. He's still going to need to complete some passes...

Kay votes opposite Big John Cornyn yet again...

Kay once again bucked the bulk of senate Republicans and voted to approve a massive spending bill (link). Texas on the Potomac looks at it from a NASA angle (link). Excerpt follows...

Sen. John Cornyn, R-San Antonio, chairman of the GOP campaign committee working to win control of the Senate in 2010, voted against the spending.

Cornyn backs full funding for NASA, spokesman Kevin McLaughlin said.

But the overall $65.1 billion measure to provide funds for the Departments of Commerce, Justice and scientific agencies such as NASA increases federal funding by nearly 13 percent over last year.

That kind of increase "at this time is not fiscally responsible," McLaughlin says.

Kay just keeps voting for all of these appropriations bills. You might recall that the Club for Growth named names of "Republican Big Spenders" who have voted in favor of all of the spending bills so far... she was on that list (link). Kay keeps getting called out for being a big spending moderate... you would think she would vote against some of these bills that are going to pass anyway but she needs the bills so she can take credit for bringing home the bacon.

I think her insistence on voting for 13% increases in federal spending here, and 15% increases there shows how out of touch she is with the Republican primary electorate. If not for some fumbles by Rick over the years on vaccinating girls against cancer and a few other issues that have beaten like a dead horse and some anti incumbent fatigue that is out there he would probably be up by a lot more than the 12 points he currently leads Kay by... other than that one blog by Texas on the Potomac I have not seen any news coverage about Kay's vote on this one, so I think she may be off scot free...

Kay is definitely good at somehow not letting this series of big spending votes catch up with her... and Rick's team has not yet made the defining "Kay is a big spender" hit that sticks in the minds of voters... I think we will have to wait for television commercials to see that.

The commercials are probably not going to happen before the holidays if they have not happened yet... it is already more than a week into November. Thanksgiving will be here before you know it. Then Christmas and New Year's Day... my guess is that Rick and Kay both go up on television in January. We will all be sick of Rick and Kay advertisements by February. I think it will get nasty just before Valentine's Day which is also the start of early voting. Then it all goes silent in March.

After that the depleted winner will have to regroup and start calling on the donors to the loser to help fund the campaign against Kinky or Farouk or Hank or Tom... or whatever other sacrificial lamb the Democrats present...

About those Bill White rumors... is he dropping senate race to run for governor?

About two weeks ago I began hearing rumors that Houston Democrat Bill White might be eyeing the governor's race instead of the senate race. Shall we say trial balloons were being floated clumsily by a few of Bill White's peeps in the middle of October...

Take this for what it is worth, but I have been hearing from a wide variety of sources that Bill White is beginning to feel slightly exasperated about Kay. Is she running? Is she resigning? Will she resign with enough time for Bill White to run a special election campaign? There are too many unknowns, and not that Bill White is hurting for money, but that the senate race is becoming harder to raise money for because there is more and more evidence that Kay may not even be resigning and therefore there will may not be a senate race until 2012...

These rumors which seemed to fizzle out by late October got hot and heavy this weekend. A friend of mine with a prominent Republican senate campaign relayed second hand information... dangerous because it is like that phone chain game... that Bill White had recently sought and received the blessing of some key players in the trial lawyer community with deep pockets... to switch his focus over to the gubernatorial race instead of the senate race. Another reader emailed in after I tweeted about it to say the exact same thing.

From what I am being told, there is a growing group in the trial lawyer ranks... the ATM machine of the Democratic Party... who don't think any of current Dem candidates have any chance to beat either Rick or Kay, but they like what they see in Bill White. More than that, people are growing weary of Kay's dithering... they don't think she will resign and or that she can beat Rick... which would mean she would just stay a senator until 2013 or longer if she won reelection in 2012... no open senate seat in 2010 in other words...

I asked around some after the initial rumors about the trial lawyers started coming in, and one of my contacts with close ties to a Dem candidate I won't name told me, "Yes, of course, Bill White has been trying to line up union support, but probably just unsuccessfully against Sharp, so he may have asked them a 'what if' question about the governor's race. As for those trial balloons a month ago, those weren't necessarily coming from Bill White himself. It is the worst kept secret in Texas progressive politics right now that some of Bill White's top backers want to see him make the switch to take on Rick Perry, and they are willing and eager to pony up six and seven figures if he jumps."

Bill White addressed the rumors on twitter... saying...

billwhitefortx

@rickvskay Well, the rumors aren't true. Billfrom TweetDeck in reply to rickvskay

Which rumors he is talking about... I can only assume all of them. There are a lot of rumors out there if only because there is so much uncertainty about the future. Sifting through which rumors are completely true, which ones are partially true, and which ones are entirely false is the challenge.

I think we have to wait and see a little bit about what happens, but I take Bill White at his word. Remember that Bill White was the first to declare that he had been told by Kay what she was doing in terms of resigning and when... he may still believe that Kay is going to fulfill what she told him earlier this year.

Ross Ramsey of the Texas Tribune breaks down where this rumor came from (link). Excerpt follows...

The noise lets Perry raise questions about whether Hutchison is serious about the governor's race. The spin from his friends is that White wouldn't do this if he thought Kay was still in the running; if White was making a switch, or even thinking about it, that would be evidence that Hutchison is out.

From the Sharp camp, it simply would remove the most serious Democratic competitor from the race to replace Hutchison in a special election. And the rumor — even without confirmation — is the sort of thing that can be played back for potential supporters to raise questions about whether White is serious about the Senate race.

[update] Sharp says this didn't start with his folks, that he heard it out of Houston — and from another of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates — and made some inquiries, but didn't try to spread the story.

While I don't want to play that game I will say it was coming at me from all sorts of angles including surprisingly high level sources that came out of the woodwork to email me about it...

Burnt Orange discusses the rumor and offers the advice to John Sharp that he not Bill White should switch races (link). Excerpt follows...

With Kay Bailey Hutchison appearing to once again be waffling on her decision to resign from the Senate, some have thought White would rather jump to the governor's race than wait until 2012.

[SNIP]

In this race without an election date, not much has changed since August, although White's financial advantage over Sharp has only widened.

Sharp came extremely close to defeating Rick Perry in 1998. Since then Perry has gone form being George W. Bush's Lt. Gov. to becoming one of the most unpopular governors in Texas history. Despite Perry and Sharp's past collaboration on school finance, if he decided to switch to the governor's race, he would probably be the favorite versus Perry. Democrats would have a strong candidate for governor and Bill White's huge fundraising lead would stay in the Senate race, where he gives Texas Democrats their best chance to win a Senate seat in years.

Maybe... maybe not. I think Sharp has jumped the shark somewhat while Bill White still has upside ahead of him...

Now for my analysis of this situation...

That Texas Tribune poll that came out last week showing Rick up by 12 over Kay also showed that no Democrat in the governor's race had any command of the field, and Bill White could jump in and basically easily take the nomination without the hassle or uncertainty of a special election. Rick and Kay were both leading my healthy margins over the named Dems in the race, but who knows what a matchup against Bill White might look like.

Assuming Kay does resign, triggering a special election for senate, I think Bill White's best move would be to stay in the senate race and hope the several viable Republicans all on the ballot split the vote up and let him slip into a runoff which he could win if Republicans are caught sleeping.

It only really makes sense for Bill White to make the jump to the governor's race if he and his backers know for sure that Kay is not resigning.

Right now I think Kay is in too deep to not follow through now both on resigning and on filing and running, but she has also boxed herself in somewhat by saying she will stay in the senate and fight against health care reform and new carbon taxes. Those things may drag on into next year. The election is only about 60 days into 2010 so that doesn't give a lot of time to campaign in earnest.

Texas Tribune profiles Matt Mackowiak...

Matt Mackowiak has made quite a name for himself, and I can't say it has all been good. The Texas Tribune covers the train wreck and the backlash (link). Excerpt follows...

Matt Mackowiak left his job as press secretary for U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison on April Fool's Day. That means he can call a do-over, right?

“I wanted to take a risk,” he says. “In the downturned economy, I saw an opportunity to build a business and become a political consultant. I also wanted to get involved in the pundit side of things. Op-eds with my own name on them and TV and radio.”

Matt has seen a lot of backlash for his over eager tactics and methods of getting face time. As a self promoter he seems like he is doing a good job, but the question remains about how he is earning a living by providing so much free content for newspapers, radio stations, and television programs.

The Texas Tribune article brings up some interesting points. Matt has ruffled some feathers and annoyed some people quite a bit, including Michael Quinn Sullivan, the Grover Norquist of Texas... Kay's campaign has to be looking at that and wondering why he is antagonizing would be and should be allies... people Kay would want on her team.

What can they really do other than hire him and get him under control, disown him publicly and prominently, or just let him continue. I think the benefits of having Mackowiak constantly out there touting Kay over Rick may outweigh the negatives, but in all reality the negatives are a lot higher than they should be.