Kay doesn't believe the polls, says it is dead even...

Kay has responded to Rick's campaign manager's "leak" of Rick's recent poll (link)... and she is saying she doesn't believe the polls (link). Excerpt follows...

AUSTIN, Texas — U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison says she's in a "dead even" Republican primary race against Gov. Rick Perry.

Appearing at an Austin news conference about transportation issues Wednesday, Hutchison discounted widely leaked poll results from Perry pollster Mike Baselice.

The results, contained in an internal Perry campaign memo circulating on blogs and among political operatives, show Perry winning 49-36 against Hutchison, with 10 percent undecided and 5 percent going for another GOP contender, libertarian-leaning Debra Medina.

Hutchison said the campaign is a "horse race" and that people are just beginning to tune in.

Kay may have a good point... it actually may be true that people are just beginning to tune in...

I also think that Kay has to know that she is down and down by a good margin as it stands now. Knowing that I think Kay knows it is time to go negative. She has been running what could be considered positive advertisements for a month now, so that is the traditional time to go negative... maybe after one last week of positive ads to start the New Year...

The only thing about Rick's internal poll being leaked is that there is no reason for anyone to believe it... other than the fact that it is very close to the latest polls which are public and have no affiliation to either campaign...

In the Texas Tribune, Rick is up on Kay by 12 (42-30), but Medina scores all the way up to 7% (link).

In Rasmussen, Rick is up on Kay by 11 (46-35) with Medina at 4% (link).

In Rick's "leaked" internal poll, Rick has 49%, Kay has 36%, and Medina has 5%.

They all seem pretty consistent...

If Kay has done polling of her own maybe she should leak it strategically to the press in the same way that Rick's campaign manager did.

Great blog reemerges...

No not me...

Rick Perry versus The World blog is back... and it looks good so far (link). One blog takes on the controversy about kicking Paul Burka out of the debates (link). Excerpt follows...

It's amazing how Kay Bailey's campaign could so trenchantly encapsulate everything that is wrong with her campaign.

Burka, if anything, is an ally of Hutchison. At this point, though we know Burka thinks KBH has run a ridonkulously bad campaign, I think we have every indication that Burka still plans to vote in the GOP primary, in large part to vote for Hutchison.

If Perry's camp had made this request, they'd be laughed at and accused of threatening the press. KBH's camp will get more of a pass, but it encapsulates everything wrong with her campaign: she has taken people naturally inclined to be allies and given them reason not to support her.

Looks like a good blog to watch for 2010...

Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach fired... how does Rick factor in?

Former Kay staffer Matt Mackowiak made a tweet today that got me remembering something (link). His tweet...

Wait, why did Rick Perry fire Mike Leach??

Mike Leach of course if the Texas Tech head football coach... or was until today... he was fired. Kay's former staffer was actually RT-ing... known as retweeting... something another anti-Rick person TXFrontiersman who strangely uses Rick's campaign manager as his profile picture (link)... he claims his name is Danny Bennett, but Rick's campaign manager is named Rob Johnson... many people have pointed out how weird and stalkerish that is but he persists in using the image of his enemy... pretty odd if you ask me.

I seem to remember Rick tweeting out a picture of himself with Mike Leach at one of his campaign events but I couldn't find it because the twitter search is so bad, and it is hard to go back and look for old tweets manually as well... I am fairly certain I remember this being tweeted though...

I did a few more searches and found the picture from the top of this blog of Rick and Mike Leach together from Flickr (link)... I also found Mike Leach on Rick's finance leadership team list which means that the picture was probably taken at one of Rick's fund raising events (link)...

Back to the original question... a lot of Texas Tech fans are really mad about Mike Leach being fired... knowing Rick and Mike Leach are buds, will politics come into play in the blowback? A lot of people are calling for the Texas Tech athletic director's head right now, but maybe tempers will cool down after a while... football is a big deal though and it currently looks like Texas Tech's A.D. is messing with their big football hero so they didn't have to pay him 800,000 dollars at the end of the year...

By all accounts Mike Leach was the best coach Texas Tech has ever had or could have and he was fired much too hastily even if he did act insensitively toward a player who was injured. Expect major major ramifications for this... as Texas Monthly sez, the pirate is under attack and people are not happy (link). Excerpt follows...

But a pattern of abuse like what Kansas head football coach Mark Mangino is alleged to be guilty of? There is no evidence at all for it. Not only have many of Leach’s former players already come forward to defend him, but testimonials popping up on the Internet are running roughly 100 to 1 in favor of Leach and against his bosses, Texas Tech’s athletic director Gerald Myers and Tech Chancellor Kent Hance. (This estimate is, of course, highly unscientific.)

Based on what I have observed it is more than 100 to 1 now that Leach has actually been fired... maybe more like 5,000 to 1... people think Mike Leach got the shaft and are more than just a little bit angry about it...

Republican Governors Association "accidentally" endorses Rick?

NBC DFW reporter @OmarVillafranca Omar Villafranca tweeted about this...

New email from RGA: "$ we raise will go dir 2 supp our conservative, Repub candidates like McDonnell,Jindal and Rick Perry."

RGA's Barbour suppts #Perry, but has said RGA will remain neutral. This email was from Exec Dir, Nick Ayers. Will follow up...

Here is the full email...

Dear Fellow Conservative, This Thursday, December 31st marks a critical deadline for the GOP Comeback. At that point, we'll report how much money we raised in 2009. It is essential that we raise more money than the Democrats, and we need your help! The money we raise will go directly to supporting our conservative, Republican candidates, and ensuring we elect tax-fighting, job-creating governors across the country like Bob McDonnell, Bobby Jindal and Rick Perry. Moreover, the media will judge our fate by the amount of contributions we report as of December 31st. Please contribute $250, $100, or $50 to our GOP Comeback by donating to the RGA today. By out-raising the Democrats we will prove that Americans are sick and tired of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama's reckless spending and plan to hijack our healthcare system. We know times are tough, but it you contribute $50, $37 or even $25 to the RGA today you will send an unmistakable message to the tax-and-spend Democrats. Click HERE to contribute to the RGA right now! Thank you for your support of the GOP Comeback. It means so much to our conservative governors who fight to kick-start our economy every day. Sincerely, Nick Ayers Executive Director, RGA P.S. There are 37 governors' races in 2010. Consider donating $37 - just $1 for each race - at http://www.rga.org/homepage/initiatives/comeback-fund/ today!

Is Omar reading too much into this? It may have been an accidental slip, or it may have just meant that Rick is a good if not the best example of a Republican job creating governor out there.

This is a very unique situation... Rick was the chairman of this group one year ago... this year he is still the chief fundraiser for the RGA... and never in the history of America has a sitting senator challenged a sitting incumbent governor in a primary...

In fact only 5 senators have ever been elected governor... ever. Not even in the general election has a senator become governor after defeating an incumbent governor...

In other words, the RGA is usually neutral in primaries, but they also have a tendency to support incumbents... two competing things at work here...

Rick has such a big role in the RGA that it would be strange for his buddies to not support him just because someone has declared her candidacy against him... especially since Rick currently has a leadership role where he is hosting RGA national conferences, recruiting candidates to run, and bringing in the big bucks for Republican candidates all around the country...

Makes you wonder just how "accidental" Rick's inclusion in the RGA really was. I was told months ago that the RGA like many other organizations did some polling in Texas over the summer and found that Rick was far ahead...

Months old data still relevant? Or did Rick's campaign manager leaking his 13 point poll lead this week confirm the old numbers and prompt Rick's inclusion in the latest RGA email?

A lot of groups simply try to get behind the likely winner... which explains one of the reasons why Rick has been able to nail down so many organizational endorsements from groups like the Texas Medical Association... most of them wouldn't be endorsing if they didn't believe Rick was up by a solid margin and instead believed the race was a nailbiter based on their polling...

Rick's poll gets "leaked" on purpose? Shows him up by 13... no surprise they would leak it...

Last night, I received a forwarded email that originated from Rick's campaign manager... it looks like it was meant to be leaked on purpose so take it for what it is worth... with a grain of salt...

To: Perry Campaign Leaders

From: Rob Johnson, Campaign Manager

Date: December 28, 2009

RE: Campaign Update


With the new year upon us and early voting just 49 days from today, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for all your hard work and update you on the status of our positive campaign that is gaining more and more momentum every day.

Our positive message is really resonating among all voters in Texas. Through proven and conservative leadership, Governor Perry has always put the people of Texas first. His efforts to embrace fiscal discipline, create jobs for Texans, improve education, secure our border and take a stand against burdensome Washington policies have helped make Texas a successful model of good governance for the rest of the nation to follow.

As the national and global economies struggle to recover from their financial woes, Texas is displaying strength that is built on conservative fiscal discipline embraced by Governor Perry. Back in 2003, we clawed our way out of a $10 billion budget hole by making tough choices to effectively prioritize and cut spending. Six years later, under Governor Perry’s leadership, our state now has billions of dollars in our state’s Rainy Day Fund and our state budget is balanced. Contrast this with the bloated federal government and its culture of deficits, debt and bailouts and I think it is clear that the Texas way is far more effective that the Washington model that has strapped our nation with a $13 trillion deficit.

Because of Governor Perry’s proven and strong leadership, our campaign is hitting on all cylinders. We have more new donors than ever, more volunteers and part time employees than any campaign in Texas history and our endorsements, which are growing everyday, substantially outnumber our opponent’s.

The breadth and depth of our support is growing every day. This fact is evidenced by a recent, confidential internal poll conducted by Baselice & Associates, Inc. Knowing that you are an integral part of this campaign, we wanted to share a brief internal memo that Baselice shared with our campaign (SEE ATTACHED MEMO). It is important to point out that this poll was taken after our opponent spent millions of dollars on television advertising for her campaign. Our opponent’s message has clearly not gained traction or excited Republican primary voters. In fact, it is quite the opposite as you will see in Baselice’s memo.

Going into the new year with a 13 point lead puts our campaign in a strong position toward victory on March 2, 2010. This is great news but we cannot rest on this lead. Governor Perry will continue to aggressively campaign around the state spreading his positive vision for our state. We should also expect that our opponent’s desperate campaign will turn even more negative with a massive onslaught of negativity in the coming weeks. We, as a team, need to stand strong and defend Governor Perry’s positive and impressive record of putting Texas first and creating a successful model for the rest of the nation to follow.

Again, thanks for all that you do to support Governor Perry and your tireless efforts during this campaign. Happy New Year !

Political advertising paid for by Texans for Rick Perry, PMB 217, P.O. Box 2013, Austin, Tx. Dr. Richard A. Box, Treasurer.

The attachment is from Rick's pollster...

---

TEXAS GOP PRIMARY VOTER SURVEY CONFIDENTIAL

Opinion Research for Decision Making

in Politics and Public Affairs

________________________________________________________________________________

4131 Spicewood Springs Road Office: 512-345-9720

Suite O-2 Fax: 512-345-9740

Austin, TX 78759 email: mikeb@baselice.com

TO: Texans for Rick Perry

FR: Mike Baselice

RE: Statewide Survey of Republican Primary Voters

Below are a few results froma telephone survey of N=609 randomly selected Republican primary

voters in Texas that we conducted December 19-21, 2009. The margin of error to the results of

this survey is +/- 4.1% at the .95 test level. I am in town all week to discuss in more detail.

Just as we observed in our survey conducted a few months ago, Rick Perry holds a double-digit

lead over challenger Kay Bailey Hutchison.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

If the Republican primary election for Governor of Texas was held today, and you had to make a

choice, for which one of the following candidates would you vote? (Randomize choices)

49% Rick Perry

36% Kay Bailey Hutchison

5% Debra Medina

1% Other names (volunteered)

10% Undecided / refused (volunteered)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Since Hutchison spent nearly three million dollars on media in the last four weeks, and the Perry

spent about one million dollars, it is not unexpected for there to be more recall of Hutchison’s ads

than Perry’s ads. However, the expenditures by Hutchison have not generated the results her

campaign intended as Perry leads Hutchison by 54% to 36% among those respondents who can

recall television ads about both candidates. Moreover, Perry even leadsHutchison by 46%to 40%

among those respondents who recall television ads only about Hutchison.

---

This looks like a pretty sloppy memo in terms of distribution... which means that Rick's campaign manager likely did it on purpose and sent it to a large list on "accident."

To what end? To hurt Kay's fundraising in these final few days of 2009, which will all be reported in the middle of January? Maybe to prepare the media and Rick's supporters for the negative attacks that are probably coming from Kay... negative attacks which are probably her only chance at catching up to Rick in these final two months. Or maybe the point is to send a signal to Kay that she should reconsider going through with this... since the filing deadline has not closed yet...

If this poll is accurate then it shows that Rick and Kay have been locked in place over the past few months in the polls... Rick may have even gained a bit of ground on Kay even though she has outspent him...

Since Kay spent a lot more on commercials than Rick... maybe 3 or 4 million dollars compared to 750,000 for Rick from what I have heard from my sources and observed on my television and radio... and she still did not gain ground... it means that she either has a lot of money to play with or was hoping to make Rick spend a lot of money early... or maybe she did not have a good second half of 2009 and just gambled a bunch of money away and will now have far less money than Rick for the final stretch.

If it comes out on January 15 that Rick has a lot more money than Kay... will he spend it all against her to crush her silly, or just try to maintain parity with Kay... or even let her spend more... and save his money for the general election?

I think it will be interesting to see how negative Kay gets, and how early. If she goes negative first on television, it will give Rick an opening to wait a week or two then go 10 times more negative on her than she was on him... nuclear option... or... not... that is the advantage of being up by 10 to 15 points... Rick will be able to see how the commercials are moving the dial...

Fact to Ponder this Christmas...

No sitting senator has ever challenged a sitting governor in a primary (link). Excerpt follows...

Interestingly, he notes that "never before has a U.S. senator gone home to take on his or her own party's governor in a primary. As it is, the list of senators elected governor is small; just five have made the move in the past half-century or so: Price Daniel (D-TX) in 1956, Pete Wilson (R-CA) in 1990, Dirk Kempthorne (R-ID) in 1998, Frank Murkowski (R-AK) in 2002, and Jon Corzine (D-NJ) in 2005. But none challenged an incumbent to do so, in a primary or in the general."

Senators are rarely elected to anything else, because they have to take so many stupid votes. Nobody likes senators... Obama lucked out because he had really only served a year or two in the senate before running for prez.

Kay's time with the kids...

Kay has a couple of adopted children and her campaign sent out a picture of Kay playing with them in the snow (link). Excerpt follows...

If you're a mom whose job is U.S. senator from Texas (not to mention the candidate hoping to unseat GOP Gov. Rick Perry) -- and there's a big health care vote coming up, unfriendly-to-flight DC weather threatening and Christmas looming -- what's your schedule like?

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's campaign provided this taste:

SATURDAY:
- Speak on Senate floor, 7:20 a.m. vote followed by press conference.
- All outbound flights are canceled from DC-area airports. Book a flight from New York to Dallas-Fort Worth with a 7:29 p.m. departure
- Take the train to Penn Station (the scheduled 2-hour, 57-minute train trip turns into a 4-hour, 30-minute trip). Grab a cab to La Guardia.
- Sit an hour on the tarmac
- Land at D-FW at 10:30 p.m. Go home.

--SUNDAY:
- Two 8-year-olds in tow, board 10:15 a.m. flight to DC
- Sit on runway until 12:30 p.m.
- Land in DC, sit on tarmac with children for three hours until about 7:30 p.m.
- Drop children off with friends, rush to Senate floor.

This is sweet and everything... and it is obviously an attempt to humanize Kay and make her more relatable to moms... but this schedule raises the question about how much Kay has really been engaged in the health care debate... this is the most important debate in a generation, and she promised to fight with every fiber in her body... but she has not been able to bring over any moderate Democrats, and in fact she made a bad vote of her own...

There is more and more chatter in circles I run in that Kay is too focused on collecting sound bites for her web site and not focused enough on doing the actual work necessary in the senate to delay or stop the health care bill... where is her Jimmy Stewart Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment?

Burka taken out by Kay's campaign manager Terry Sullivan...?

Et tu Terry?

Kay's campaign manager has knifed the highly opinionated Paul Burka... a reporter who takes harsh shots at both Rick and Kay (link). Excerpt follows...

Paul Burka, the dean of Texas political writers, won't be asking questions when the Republican gubernatorial candidates debate next month. He's been banned.

"I didn’t like the idea of it," says Terry Sullivan, campaign manager for candidate Kay Bailey Hutchison. "He's got his mind made up on the race."

Sure sounds like Kay's campaign dictated that Paul Burka could not participate in any debates... an odd move, because it opened up the door for the Texas Tribune to repeat Burka's attacks... not that any Republican voters have heard of the Texas Tribune let alone read it.

• On the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll at the beginning of November: “The results underscore how abysmal Hutchison’s campaign has been. Her handling of her resignation, or non-resignation, from the Senate has made her look weak and indecisive. She comes across as lacking self-confidence. And lacking ideas. To make matters worse, she is down by 12 after a six-week stretch during which Perry was hammered by the media, a time during which she had a chance to gain ground. She continues to pursue a strategy of single-shot criticisms of Perry without giving any definition to her own candidacy. She is now at the same level in the polls that Perry was at the beginning of the race. The problem here is not the campaign. It’s the candidate.”

• After a Rasmussen Poll a couple of weeks later that showed Hutchison behind: "The temptation is to say that the race is over, but I’m going to resist it, because of two factors. One is that the media campaign hasn’t started yet. The other is that Hutchison may yet find a way to enlarge primary turnout, though the constant negative attacks of the two campaigns is more likely to suppress turnout.”

• After seeing her first campaign ad: “If she gets in a TV debate with Perry on Texas issues, she’d better have EMS on hand because she is going to get slaughtered... If this is the best she can do, she ought to quit the race.”

• The next week: “If there was any life to the Hutchison candidacy, it would appear in her first media spot. The spot, of course, turned out to be an utter disaster: no sign of intelligent life here.”

• And, finally, a headline from just before Thanksgiving: “One more sign that the Hutchison campaign is intellectually bankrupt.”

It also makes Kay look weak and petty... why is she afraid to face Paul Burka? He may be harsh against Kay, but he has also been harsh against Rick over time... especially on Kay's key campaign theme... cronyism... it almost seems like the wrong person to nix since he could have been very hard on Rick...

What could Paul Burka possibly ask that would be so bad as to require them to nix him completely?

Wayne Slater blogs (link). Excerpt follows...

Political campaigns are notoriously prickly, and both the Hutchison and Rick Perry camps have demonstrated thin skin in advance of next March's GOP primary. Truth be told, campaigns always try to negotiate details -- including members of the panel, if they can get away with it -- in advance of agreeing to debates. In this case, KERA says its policy is that opinion writers don't quality and Burka is an opinion writer. Hutchison campaign manager Terry Sullivan says he didn't want Burka on the panel. In the magazine and on his blog, Burka has taken aim at Hutchison's struggling campaign -- but he's also been critical of Perry.

The Dallas Morning News and WFAA are among the sponsors of another debate in January. No such problem there, at this point. Stay tuned.

Saying "at this point" and "Stay tuned"? Does that mean Wayne Slater may be knifed also?

Protests of Kay....

The tea party peeps have been fairly quiet, but they came out to protest Kay this week after her ill advised vote (link). Excerpt follows...

A hodgepodge group of about a dozen people gathered outside Kay Bailey Hutchison's Austin office Monday to protest a procedural vote by the U.S. senator that they say helped expedite the disputed health care bill.

Hutchison, who is running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in March, has come under fire from Gov. Rick Perry's campaign since the Friday vote, related to a defense spending bill. Senate Republican leaders had organized a filibuster on an item that included nearly $130 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They had hoped to use the filibuster on that bill to delay talks on the health care bill until 2010.

Sounds like the turnout was not as high as the tea parties in April or July, but I think they made their point abundantly clear, and they had rallies in Houston and Dallas too which is impressive...

There is a youtube channel a reader sent me to that seems pretty biased against Kay but I can't tell if it is pro Medina or pro Rick just yet... or maybe even pro Democrat, considering who sent me the link?

They have some clips from around the state...

I think Kay just needs to fess up and say she messed up on that vote since it was 1 in the morning and she was tired or something... I don't know, make something up better than the tales she has been spinning...

Kay continues taking shots for her bad vote...

Kay's anti Republican vote is not going away...

Major bloggers continue hammering Kay about it. Matt Lewis says her campaign is sinking and rips her a new one (link). Excerpt follows...

Democrats have been attempting to push through health care votes in the middle of the night because they know they cannot afford to let the debate linger past Christmas. To counter this, GOP Senate Leadership has begun a strategy to filibuster votes or have amendments read aloud, in order to delay.

One such filibuster was supposed to be of the massive Pentagon bill being voted on after midnight Friday. The Washington Post wrote, “Democrats emerged from a huddle confident that they would muster the 60 votes needed to thwart the GOP effort at blocking the military spending bill … in order to keep the chamber on a timeline of holding a final health-care vote before Christmas.”

All was a go with the GOP Senate strategy until three Senators — who are known not to be the most conservative members of the caucus — broke their promise and voted with the Democrats to end the filibuster: Olympia Snow and Susan Collins of Maine and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. Their votes effectively shut off debate and forced a final vote the next day, which, in turn, accelerated the process of bringing health care to the floor.

As if the vote wasn’t bad enough, Senator Hutchison’s evolving reasons for doing so have caused a firestorm in Texas from which she may not be able to recover.

There is also another Red State blog about it asking what constitutes a fight (link). Excerpt follows...

When someone says the word “fight,” most of us see images of Ali and Frazier, or perhaps scenes from the movie Rocky. Certainly the fighting of soldiers at Normandy or Iwo Jima come to mind, maybe even a simple fight among high school boys where someone walks away with a bloody nose - or if even talking only about rhetoric, something akin to Patton’s famous speech to his soldiers (the real or dramatized ones).

Senate Republicans are talking a lot these days about “fighting” the healthcare bill. These folks have an awfully loose definition of the word “fight.”

For example, a friend forwarded me an email from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s campaign for Texas Governor, the title of which is “Kay Fights ObamaCare on The First Health Care Vote!” It is followed by a number of statements, including “[She] is fighting tooth and nail against government-run healthcare and actually voted last night to maintain the filibuster of Harry Reid’s bill,” and “Kay is steely in her resolve to do everything in her power to stop this horrible piece of legislation.”

Fight? Steely resolve? She honestly cannot be serious.

What has she done? Specifically?

Best I can tell, the Senior Senator from Texas has talked a lot, and then failed to join 33 Republican colleagues to vote against a politically motivated DoD Appropriations bill, and now is throwing those colleagues who filibustered it under the bus - claiming she is “for the troops.”

And what of her fellow Senate Republicans? More of the same - a lot of talk and forwarded emails…. all necessary, but not that effective without any teeth in the fight. And this total spinelessness represents everything wrong with Washington Republican leadership. They keep talking a lot about “fighting,” but it’s not enough to stamp your feet and whine about how bad the bill is.

Kay is absolutely amazing at camera hawking. She is constantly on television claiming how hard she is fighting against health care, but she goes and votes with the Democrats when she is not chasing the cameras... the shots will keep coming until she resigns or loses I bet... this is as bad as the bailout vote... only this one is more recent. There is no way Kay can win this election after this vote...

Other bloggers talking about this include a blog devoted to firing Andrew Mitchell lol (link). Excerpt follows...

RINO Kay Bailey Hutchison helped Harry Reid expedite health care bill to its passage

A prominent military blog gives a good sequence of events in military style (link). Excerpt follows...

MIDNIGHT VOTE IN WASHINGTON: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison continues to hide the truth from the American people regarding her decision to vote with 60 Democrats and Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe to end a Republican filibuster to delay the passage of health care legislation. On Dec. 19, during an appearance on Fox News, Sen. Hutchison said, “By the time I got to the floor, they had the 60 votes.” SOURCE: 2:32 mark of interview available online at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYMqE_IZMdk&feature=pl…

The facts say otherwise. C-SPAN footage of the vote to end the filibuster clearly shows that when Sen. Hutchison arrived on the Senate floor, the outcome of the vote was still in doubt, and the 60-vote threshold had not yet been reached. (See detailed timeline below; complete footage of vote is available at www.WashingtonKay.com.)

Senator Hutchison is clearly misrepresenting the facts and trying desperately to cover up her decision to side with every Democrat in accelerating the passage of health care legislation, said Texans for Rick Perry spokesman Mark Miner. After promising to fight health care, Senator Hutchison abandoned Republicans and stood with Democrats to ensure health care legislation would pass quickly.

The super liberal Burnt Orange Report is standing up for Kay which makes sense because they were also against filibustering the health care plan (link). They believe Rick has Kay beat already, so they think he is overreaching, which... no offense Phil... is the kind of thinking that gets Democrats zero statewide elected officials in the course of a decade...

Pushing Back the Frontiers of Ignorance blogs his anger about the vote (link). Excerpt follows...

So how did these statesmen of conservatism represent my state in the dark night of legislation?

Cornyn did not vote. Of 100 individuals in the Senate, only 2% opted out of this vote, with my senator representing half of this.

Hutchison, she went one step farther. Rather then attempting to mount a filibuster, rather then trying to fight for one more day in the hallowed halls of legislation that the senate resides in for the liberty of my people, rather then standing for what is right, Hutchison votes to end discussion. She votes to pass the bill. She votes to bring this nation to its knees in the coming decades by taking a meat cleaver to the ankles of a once mighty economy.

The Fox Nation also hammers Kay (link). Excerpt follows...

WASHINGTON - Tea Party groups in Dallas, Austin and Houston are rallying today at the offices of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to protest her breaking ranks with a GOP filibuster aimed at stalling the Democrats’ health care bill.

"We want to let her know that we are not happy," said Dallas Tea Party leader Phillip Dennis. "If we can’t trust her to fulfill her promises as a senator, how can we trust her as governor?"

Other than one blogger who no doubt takes a paycheck from Kay's campaign but it nevertheless very entertaining, Kay has no friends in the conservative blog-o-sphere on this issue. She is getting killed. Had Rick's peeps done what the Burnt Orange crowd is suggesting, he would be missing out on all of the grief Kay is taking on this issue. This issue seals her demise.

This one vote could have sunk her campaign... had it already not been in the trash heap...

Finally... the Christmas blasphemy is over...

The final two sacrilegious days of flip flops and cronyism are done and done... glad that is all over and done with... again, the same commentary pretty much goes for these that goes for the other ones I have commented on... Kay's are sort of kitchen sinky and personal... Rick's are on point and on issues...

Rick hammers Kay for her bad health care vote and flip flop about it...

Kay returns fire with this footage of people asking Rick questions about fundraising...

Rick then zaps Kay for lying about her reason for voting against the bill... Kay said just before the vote that she was voting on a health care bill and the troop funding bill could be heard any other time...

Kay mails it in with this video about openness and honesty...

Comparing and contrasting... Rick and Kay on health care...

Yesterday the Dallas Morning News published an article about Kay's abysmal record on health care (link). Today they did an article on Rick's health care record (link), and it is a huge contrast. Excerpt follows...

In 2002, 65 percent of children were immunized, but that reached 77 percent last year, with much of the growth occurring after Perry signed an executive order prompting the state health agency to improve.

Two of the other areas Perry has stressed in health care achievements were the $250,000 cap placed on medical malpractice lawsuits, making it impractical for lawyers to pursue most lawsuits against doctors.

This achievement was one of the primary reasons cited by the political arm of the Texas Medical Association when it endorsed Perry's re-election last month.

Perry has cited the lawsuit caps as a national model, pointing to the 27 percent cut in malpractice premiums that doctors pay and the 57 percent increase in doctors applying for a Texas medical license.

The article is filled with liberal attacks against Rick. Compare that to Kay's article, which informed readers about how she has been for growing the government's role in healthcare but only inconsistently...

Rick is a real conservative Republican on health care... this much is abundantly obvious.

Kay's horrid vote draws teaparty protests...

Tea Party activists are livid about Kay's really just horrid vote with Democrats on the failed Republican filibuster (link).. Excerpt follows...

The Tea Party movement – a national, loose affiliation of conservatives who gained notice over the summer for well-attended rallies and attacks on moderate Republicans – is led in part by Dick Armey, a former Dallas-area congressman who served as House Majority leader in the 1990s.

Armey has endorsed Hutchison’s bid for governor and there is no indication he is behind the rallies in Texas.

He told reporters in a conference call Monday morning that "grassroots activists in America are intending to remember very clearly who made what votes," and to punish offending politicians in next year’s elections – though he was referring to Democrats such as Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska who provided critical votes as the Senate bill moves toward finalization.

"We obviously are frustrated and disappointed," Armey said.

I think what this also shows is that Dick Armey really has very little to do with the tea party movement. He jumped on the movement to boost his group's standing, but he is not the patron of the tea party movement... nor is the tea party movement beholden what he says... If he had any power over the tea party activists Armey would have called off these dogs from attacking his buddy Kay...

Another interesting feature of these rallies is that the tea party groups seemed to come to this conclusion all on their own, it was not necessarily any of Rick's press releases or videos that prompted them to rally...

The final interesting anecdote is that the Texas Democratic Party leader Boyd Richie is sticking up for Kay...

Texas Democrats offered a partial defense of Hutchison on Monday, arguing that the filibuster of an unrelated, must-pass defense bill was irresponsible and calling Perry "cowardly" for supporting the tactic.

"Rick Perry owes American military men and women an apology for treating them as collateral to his gutless political campaign," said state Democratic Chairman Boyd Richie. "Perry's statement in support of blocking the defense spending bill is Republican primary rhetoric at its worst."

Does this mean they want to face Kay in the primary because they know she is so much weaker than Rick as a candidate? That is not the "common wisdom" that sez that the Democrats want Rick over Kay, but I have had conversations with some Democrats who believe Kay's strengths would be diminished by Bill White while Rick would have a whole different set of people and could win with just his conservative base alone.

Why else would the Democrats take up for Kay in this situation? I guess the other explanation might be that they think defending Kay might actually hurt her... does that make sense?

Niceness...

Peggy Fikac has a fun column about civility (link). Excerpt follows...

As elections kick into high gear in the new year, is there a chance for civility to prevail, especially between Perry and U.S. Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison, whose backers paint it as a race between “Slick Rick” and “Kay Bailout”?

“There's always room for civility. People also want candidates and elected officials who are passionate about their ideas,” said Perry spokesman Mark Miner. “The governor has been very cordial to the senator.”

Hutchison spokesman Jennifer Baker said her candidate will focus on issues and referred to campaign-trail hijinks: “If Rick Perry wants to continue to attack Kay Bailey Hutchison and harass her with childish antics that employ the use of farm animals and planes, he's going to have to deal with the backlash from voters.”

And what of Leach's reference to Perry? “He doesn't have his facts right,” Miner said. “He's a candidate who lost his office and is now in the back of a bus being driven around the country.”

Civility. Is there a chance? Well, it is the season for miracles.

Former Hutchison staffer Matt Mackowiak has been the staunches of her loyalists, so I wondered if he got any blowback when he called her “somewhat needy and demanding” in the New York Times. His response, “The short answer is no. The senator knows I am extremely supportive and feel tremendous loyalty to her.” Mackowiak said his full quote was, “She can be somewhat needy and demanding but she works harder than anyone else and she never asks anyone to do anything that she won't do herself.”

What is that phrase about glass houses and stones... which campaign had its web site banned from google and yahoo for using black hat tactics to smear her opponent and plant rumors that he is gay? Not Rick... it was Kay (link). Kay's negative web ads and white papers are also far more personally directed, make far more personal charges that Rick is personally a bad guy not just making wrong policy choices, and use more footage of Rick making funny faces and things of that nature than Rick's videos and press releases which are almost all issue and vote based with a few exceptions...

Kay was also attacking Rick for several months pretty incessantly before Rick ever launched into her over the summer with those cat videos and airplanes circling her campaign launch events (link)...

For the record incumbents can expect to be attacked, and I believe competition is good when it is on the issues... it makes a party's candidates stronger in the end. Challengers usually have to do the attacking. It's just that a strong majority of Kay's attacks are personal in nature rather than issue oriented, many of the attacks sound like Democrat attacks... on education or "cronyism" or Willingham , and almost none of them explain why she would be a better governor.

Kay's abysmal record on health care...

Kay made a major strategic error in voting with the Democrats on Friday to kill the health care filibuster, but her record over the years has not been very good either (link). Excerpt follows...

Despite her sudden intense interest in the debate raging in Washington, Hutchison doesn't have a long record to point to on health care. She was active on the biggest health care debates of her time in the Senate, but no signature legislation on the topic bears her name. She wins credit from some for behind-the-scenes battling for Texas interests, but that can be hard for voters to appreciate.

Critics accuse her of grandstanding. And her role carries some risk. As of last summer, she had promised to quit the Senate by now to focus on unseating Gov. Rick Perry next year. So now that she has stayed in Washington expressly to battle the Democratic plan, she might come off as ineffectual if it passes.

"I certainly couldn't walk out on health care, because it affects so many Texans," she told a San Antonio radio station this month when she put her resignation on hold. "I just had to make the decision – very tough one for me – to stay and fight health care as long as I have breath."

Hutchison is gambling that either way, GOP voters in the March gubernatorial primary will reward her for resisting what they view as a government takeover of health care. To that end, Hutchison has made a flurry of floor speeches in recent weeks, a half-dozen impassioned arguments to slow down and think again.

The exposure – she's turned up often on cable networks, calling the bill a "monstrosity" – easily eclipses anything she's done previously on health care. But advocacy isn't the same as achievement.

The unceremonious defeat of her motion to send the bill back to committee drew scoffs from Perry, whose aides dusted off her recent boasts that she would "call in every favor, twist every arm" and "lead the fight."

"The senator has had zero influence in the health care debate," said Perry spokesman Mark Miner. "The only thing she's fighting to do is get in front of the cameras."

For me it is not whether she has passed a bunch of bills or been a "leader" on anything.... sometimes doing nothing is better than "doing something." Instead I care about whether she has supported the incremental growth of government health care or if she has done anything to stem that growth and support freedom based alternative measures instead. More from that article...

But for some conservatives, some of her positions show she's in the big-government camp herself. They cite her support for the state Children's Health Insurance Program and for a Medicare prescription drug benefit.

CHIP, which covers children in families with income too high to qualify for Medicaid, was created in 1997 at an initial cost of $24 billion – a pittance compared with the $400 billion initial price tag attached to the Medicare expansion in 2003.

Kay has often broken with the GOP to support bigger government health care programs... while I can't blame her for voting with Bush on that Medicare prescription drug bill since that was a major initiative of Bush's first term and he actually campaigned on it in 2000, but she has voted probably dozens of times... someone check my numbers... to grow CHIP from a poverty safety net for kids into a "public option" style middle class entitlement that is crowding out private insurance for kids for people making good money...

Kay probably lost my vote when she criticized Rick for rejecting federal unemployment dollars with mandates attached. That was never such a major public issue firing up the grassroots. This health care thing is. She is probably losing a lot of votes this weekend due to her misguided health care vote. What was she thinking? Who was with her there in Washington telling her to do that? I really want to know, because they should never work in GOP politics ever again after this is said and done. I know I want to avoid working with the people advising her on that decision... they should go work for Arlen Specter or someone like that, not a Texas Republican senator.

That is how poor this decision was... it was not THE nail in her political coffin, but it was A nail, and a big one at that. Whatever grief she is getting right now from the grassroots she 100% brought on her self.

Regional polls... worthwhile?

There have been a lot of rumors about polls all around the state showing Rick up by huge margins over Kay... political consultants on state rep races and other local races have done polling and they usually as a rule include statewide races as well to help calibrate and make sure it passes the smell test...

I have personally heard of polls in East Texas, West Texas, and Dallas and Houston, all showing Rick up by between 6 and 21 points.

There was a poll out of the very Republican area of Lubbock showing Rick up big... 52% to 37%. Pretty close actually to the statewide polls we have seen...

The Texas Tribune has a couple of blogs about this particular local poll because the local news there reported on it. They are dismissive of the poll in the end, saying it has dubious methodology although they have also been hit for their poll methodology as well (link). Excerpt follows...

Evan Smith sent me this link to a poll in Lubbock County that has Gov. Rick Perry leading Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison 52-37 among Lubbock County voters, with 11% undecided. The video I saw was vague on the details of the poll done by Mike Stevens, who I don’t know. (I’ll try to send him an email — if you see this, Mike, could you please send me more info on the poll, like confirming what the sample is here and MOE?)

Lubbock is obviously a heavily Republican county and a conservative one to boot — Hutchison ran 21 points stronger than her statewide total there in 2006, and Perry ran 5 points stronger. (Don’t read too much into the 21 v. 5 comparison — remember, his was the four-way race, and Kinky Friedman and Carole Strayhorn got about 33 points between them in Lubbock.) In 2008, McCain/Palin beat Obama/Biden there 68-31.

Not many local polls have been made public, but this one confirms the rumor mill: One, Perry’s lead in conservative areas of the state is a few points above what the UT/Trib poll found statewide. And, two, the impression that, as of now, the Hutchison campaign is floundering if they are really trying to peel conservative voters away from Perry in significant numbers.

Not so fast... the Tribune found out about the methodology and doesn't like it (link). Excerpt follows...

The poll’s methodology falls somewhere between unorthodox and dubious.

The pollster is a printer. Michael Stevens is running his busy but offbeat polling operation out of Action Printing in Lubbock (they do some political printing, he says, for candidates on both sides of the partisan line, and also run some campaigns).

He’s got a weird polling method. He gets lists of people who regularly vote and sends them postcards directing them to a polling website that, he says, lets him know exactly who’s responding. (Mr. Orwell? Hello?) For this particular poll, done in advance of the November elections, which included some bond issues in Lubbock, he sent out 18,883 postcards and got 2,087 responses. He says the margin of error on that is +/- 1.89 percent. This particular poll was done October 30 through November 4, but wasn’t released until this week.

He said he included people from four lists: people who’d voted in previous Republican primaries made up the majority of a group that also had registered voters new to Lubbock, people who voted in three elections in the last year, and voters who took part in “Operation Chaos” — a grassroots campaign geared to flood the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries with people who’d vote for Hillary Clinton and against Barack Obama.

He defends the accuracy of his polling, but says he doesn’t have much company in that. “This isn’t accepted by most political analysts yet — they’re skeptical about it.”

A commenter ("txwatcher") on that blog sez...

Ross, Jim's posting wont allow me to comment for some reason. But is he is flat ass wrong.

Based on the info you provided there is no reason to discount that Lubbock mail in survey then an Internet survey or a telephone survey. The reliability will be about the same. All three methods have issues but the Lubbock survey using a combo of mail and the internet is just as reliable as an opt in web based users or one just calling off a voter list. Jim should know better then to trash a poll base on a new concept. More Intel could shed new light on this but the details known to readers so far do not diminish the results of this survey.

Then Professor Henson updates his blog...

This is not a sound sampling method, period.

The sampling method is neither random nor matched, and there is likely significant non-response bias, a classic problem in mail-only solicitation. (In English: That means there might be something about the people that don't respond to your poll — some particular characteristic — that throws off the results and makes the poll unreliable.)

Given the problems in both sampling and response, there is no real margin of error. You might do some calculations that might give you the reported +/- 1.89 MOE, but the methods don't meet the conditions to make such a calculation.

More comments...

• PicklesS wrote on 12/19/2009 8:04 a.m.

  I bow to Mr. Henson as the premier expert on inaccurate polling. His internet polls are a joke - completely disregarded and proven disreputable in the political community. Message to Texas Tribune: get your money back.
  
  The Lubbock poll results should be handled the same way internetpolls results are treated: lift lid, drop into bowl, pull handle down, FLUSH!

• kenecollier wrote on 12/19/2009 1:42 p.m.

  Thanks for checking out the poll. A thoughtful analysis of polling methods is valuable to those of us who take polling seriously. Silly, ad-hominem attacks on polls are better suited for the low road of the campaign trail and middle school playground.

What set this whole string of comments on the Texas Tribune off... I think it was a video which is linked in the original Texas Tribune blog about it... and searching You Tube I was able to find it... however it looks like it was posted by a member of Rick's campaign so it may have been edited... who knows...

We need a new round of statewide polls, but I bet we won't see any new polls until January from Rasmussen or the Texas Tribune unfortunately...