Monday, March 30, 2009

Rick and Kay campaign teams shaping up...

Gardner Selby has a rundown of the campaigns and how they are shaping up (link).

Here is the list... it's very inside baseball, but I figure I might as well throw it out there.

Hutchison's team

(The senator began organizing in January.)

• Rick Wiley, campaign manager, Austin — Has not run a race for governor but was the political director for the Republican Party of Wisconsin when an incumbent GOP governor unsuccessfully sought re-election in 2002. Later became the party's executive director. He worked as deputy political director of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign starting in early 2007.

• Hans Klingler, communications director, Austin — A former Perry campaign aide who recently shifted from his post as political director and communications director of the Republican Party of Texas.

• K.C. Jones, political director, Austin — Also worked in Giuliani's presidential campaign. She also worked for the Texas GOP's victory committee in 2008 and was involved in a Colorado congressional campaign.

• Todd Olsen, general consultant, Austin — A direct mail expert who was once executive vice president of Karl Rove & Co. His firm says it has contributed to direct mail fundraising campaigns for presidential, congressional, gubernatorial and other state campaigns in more than 31 states. Past clients include U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, President George W. Bush, Rick Perry when he was running for agriculture commissioner in 1990 and Gov. Bill Clements.

• Tim Griffin, message development — Arkansas lawyer and public relations consultant hired to work on messaging; he was an opposition researcher for the Bush-Cheney campaign of 2004 and later was appointed the U.S. attorney in Little Rock as part of a challenged effort by the Bush White House to replace select attorneys.

• Jan van Lohuizen, pollster, The Woodlands — Has been described as principal pollster for George W. Bush starting in the early 1990s.

• Scott Howell, TV media consultant, Dallas — Once worked on targeting legislative races for GOP strategist Lee Atwater at the Republican National Committee and for GOP mastermind Karl Rove before starting his own firm in 1993.

• Lindsey Howe Parham, senior adviser, Austin — Has been a Hutchison aide since 1993.

Perry's team

(Perry's campaign doesn't plan to announce specific hires until this summer, but his team pivots around three stalwarts.)

• Dave Carney, general consultant, New Hampshire — Has been with Perry more than a decade, having previously advised Sen. Bob Dole in the 1996 presidential primary season and served as political affairs director for the Bush-Quayle presidential campaign in 1992 after three years as special assistant to President George H.W. Bush in the White House. He started his career as field director for John Sununu's 1980 U.S. Senate campaign, preceding Sununu's win for governor in 1982.

• David Weeks, media consultant, Austin — Once helped Hutchison. Besides Perry, whom he has aided since the governor's last run for the Texas House in 1988, his clients have included state Comptroller Susan Combs, Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples and Michael Williams, a member of the Texas Railroad Commission, and members of Congress, the Texas Senate and the Texas Supreme Court.

• Mike Baselice, pollster, Austin — Clients aside from Perry have included Combs, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Attorney General Greg Abbott, members of Congress, state legislators and Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson.

Selby seems to be leaving people out on both sides. Surely each side has more people on the team by now. There are also a lot of people who will informally work for one side or another without pay or title.

Do you think campaign staffers make a huge difference? I think they definitely can. Part of it is how bad do the staffs want it, how loyal are they to their candidate, and how do the staffs interact with their candidate... from the people I know from each side, their relationships with their respective head honchos seem very different. Their entire organizations seem very different from each other. I'll try to elaborate more on that in the future when I get the opportunity and a little bit more intel.

1 comment:

  1. thats a lot of mouths to feed in the Kay/Hill camp

    ReplyDelete

Hey now, campaign characters. Be nice. I know a lot of you on both sides, so I don't want any overly foul language, personal attacks on anyone other than the candidates themselves, or other party fouls. I will moderate the heck out of you if you start breaking the bounds of civility.