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...