Who didn't see this coming? Kay breaks promise, announces she is staying her entire term...

Kay has resigned (link)...

Just kidding. She is going to serve out the rest of her term. Who didn't see that coming?

I blogged it here many many times... Kay should have resigned about a year ago if she was serious about becoming governor... and when she did not resign by late summer I predicted over and over that Kay would not only serve out her whole term after losing but actually entertain a reelection run in 2012...

Chris Cillizza has a good blog about Kay's decision (link). Excerpt follows...

Hutchison's decision comes roughly one month after she was badly bested by Gov. Rick Perry in a primary fight that was once seen as hers to lose. During that campaign, Hutchison repeatedly pledged that she would resign her seat in the aftermath of the primary -- win or lose.

Smart political operatives, however, were always skeptical that Hutchison would step aside if she lost and, as primary day drew closer and it became more and more apparent she would come up short, conventional wisdom congealed around the idea that she would ultimately go back on her word for two reasons.

First, resigning her seat in the wake of a loss would be an unsatisfying end to a political career that some believed might ultimately end in the White House. Hutchison entered the race against Perry as the most popular politician in the state but left it with much of that shiny veneer rubbed off. She can now use the next two years to rebuild that image and burnish her legacy.

Second, if Hutchison did resign, Perry would have the ability to choose an interim successor who would then almost certainly have a leg up in the special election to serve out her remaining two years. The idea that the person who had just all-but-ended her political career would also be able to pick her replacement was an unsavory one that Hutchison almost certainly wanted to avoid.

There are a few other ways to see this.

First... this prevents an expensive open primary that would drain resources from Rick as he tries to build up his war chest for November, and force party peeps to throw down cash that could also be going toward taking back the U.S. Congress, or toward picking up seats in the state legislature before redistricting commences next year... the NRSC gets to save some money rather than defending a seat this summer or next year or whenever the resignations was alleged to have taken place...

Second... this prevents Rick from making an appointment... which is probably good news and bad news for him. It is bad news in the sense that he does not get to play king maker and does not get to appoint someone like Michael Williams who would generate a lot of buzz... it is good news in the sense that David Dewhurst and all the others don't have to be mad at him now for not appointing them... Rick has to work with Dewhurst next year to cut a lot of spending... to redistrict... and to solve some serious infrastructure problems that look far away time wise but are really pretty close...

Third... this forces Rick to play nice with Kay... as a sitting senator she has a lot of power and influence still... and Rick has to court her before the election in November... had she resigned she would have immediately become irrelevant... now Rick almost has to partake in building Kay back up to avoid having her work behind the scenes against him... a rare situation following campaigns... usually the vanquished has to suck up to the conquerer not the other way around...

Fourth... this gives Kay two years to build her reputation back up and run again in 2012... I know "sources" are saying she has no intention to run again for the senate in 2012 but come on... she absolutely plans on making that happen... get real if you don't think she and her team... and her husband Ray... are already plotting this course toward a comeback and a victory in 2012... if she is truly ready to call it quits at the end of this term I think we will see evidence of that in the next few months... signals to other candidates that they are good to go for a primary in 2012... otherwise she totally plans on staying...

I think Kay's ultimate justification for this is flimsy and weak... she should be staying to avoid more division and bloodshed and expense within the GOP... what she is saying however is that she is the only person capable of fighting Obama and the Democrats and that she is doing it despite her own best interests... that her staying is a big chore and a burden that we should all be thankful for... which is stupid...

Kay will continue to vote the right way most of the time but side with the squishy senators from Maine and the Democrats on far too much... and as her voting proved over the past year when some light was shined on it she was not good at fighting Obama and in fact probably aided and abetted him on a few key agenda items...

Kay should stop playing the victim who is sacrificing herself role and instead should just be up front about why she is staying. She was elected to serve a 6 year term. She took a year or more off to run for governor... she said she was resigning because that was the only way to win the governorship... and now she is staying to fulfill her term and prevent a messy primary battle in which a popular moderate well known name brand Democrat John Sharp could sneak in and win...

Where are they now? Kay's staff lands in new roles...

It has been more than three weeks since the disastrous primary for Kay... and some of my contacts who were at Kay's campaign are emerging as they seek new employment. Some of them who seemed to even cut me off have made nice again whether they realize who I am or not... I get the feeling that they have no idea I am rickvskay when they open up to me, and I have some insider details from them I hope to be able to share some day but if I did now it might be obvious who I am...

I have heard through the grapevine that Rick has hired a few of Kay's peeps since the election, but nobody high level.... just field peeps and advance team kind of campaign workers...

I also came across this today, which made me throw up a little bit in my mouth. Joe Pounder who was possibly the worst spokesman I have seen in all my years in Texas politics is now taking a job with Marco Rubio in Florida. I saw this on Joe Pounder's twitter (link).

POLITICO has a couple of details (link). Excerpt follows...

Joe Pounder, the relentless former McCain aide who spent the winter with Kay Bailey Hutchison's bid for Governor of Texas, has moved on to the next hot GOP primary: Florida.

A GOP source tells me Pounder will be Marco Rubio's Deputy Campaign Manager for Communications, working with Alex Burgos who has been down there since June 2009.

What? What is wrong with people? This guy is completely awful at his job. There are plenty of talented and experienced people who would have loved to work for Rubio.

Rubio now leads Crist by a huge margin in the polls, so I doubt even Joe Pounder could mess that up, but did word not get out? Joe Pounder was terrible and overpaid to say the least. His quotes were always stupid. His "relentless" email made him the butt of every joke in the Texas press corps. The mocking at his expense was what was relentless. He was caught in lies and distortions which undermined his credibility on his first month on the job, and he never quite recovered.

Joe Pounder apparently never informed or educated himself on Kay's record, because he said things often that directly contradicted her... his little web videos were bad. His paper pushing accomplished nothing other than clutter up inboxes. He did no outreach with bloggers or alternative media sources. His attacks on Rick were personal not issue based...

Joe Pounder was like some kid who was given the keys to a high powered sports car at age 12... he just wasn't ready for it... maybe he learned something during his disastrous performance on Kay's campaign... maybe he didn't... but let's hope he did... I don't get why Kay hired him in the first place, and I don't get why Rubio is hiring him now... even if he is now working for peanuts... he was making 6 figures for Kay...

In any other field this guy would be looking for a job for a long time... and he would be forced to take a major demotion and pay cut when he finally found one... I have to say I really lost some respect for Marco Rubio with this move. Did they not witness what happened in Texas? Pounder was a disaster in Texas. I hope he is kept on a leash in Florida... because I am rooting for Rubio...

As far as many of the other Kay staffers, I am glad to see some of them land on their feet... whether with Rick's campaign, or other spots in Texas or back where they are from... but Joe Pounder really demonstrated a complete lack of effectiveness in his role for Kay in Texas.

Even Ron Paul joins letter from Texas Congressmen asking Kay to stay...

All Texas Congressional members in the Republican delegation are urging Kay to stay in Washington (link). Excerpt follows...

The 20 Republican members of Texas' congressional delegation have signed a letter to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison urging her not to resign her Senate seat – something she pledged to do during her unsuccessful bid for governor.

A few of these endorsed Kay for governor... I think this whole letter looks like it may have been written by a Kay staffer and then signed by these peeps...

I guess color me surprised that Ron Paul would even sign on to this letter... then again Ron Paul is a big hypocrite when it comes to pork barrel spending... he is a porker just like Kay despite his image...

Todd Gillman obviously wants Kay to fulfill her promises... his take (link). Excerpt follows...

A cynic might suspect that a campaign is underway to provide her political cover to do something many suspect she wants to do anyway -- shelve her promise to resign from the Senate after the health care debate. Certainly, many GOP strategists (including Cornyn) hope she stays, to avoid having to defend the seat. Letters of this sort are meant to become public; after all, the House members could convey their advice privately easily enough.

House members who crossed the governor (by endorsing his rival) may not be keen to get left out to dry now.

The bankers and the Farm Bureau are also urging Kay to stay... this is far too organized not to be organized by Kay herself (link).

I think the only argument for Kay staying that makes any sense at all is that we just went through an expensive gubernatorial primary, so it is not time to go through an expensive special election to fill her seat and potentially leave it vulnerable to a folksy populist rural Democrat like John Sharp...

Otherwise every argument for staying is thin. She is not a good legislator. She is ineffective at articulating an argument against Obama's agenda. Kay votes with Democrats far too often. Fighting health care was a bust... she even voted the wrong way on a procedural vote related to health care... I am just kind of done with Kay I guess which is a big turn around from one year ago when I was up in the air about Rick or Kay.

Health care has passed, Kay did nothing to stop it... now will she resign?

Kay's campaign got bogged down by a few things... one of them being when or if she would resign. In all honesty I am fairly over the whole thing... and I don't expect Kay to resign before the end of her term. In fact I expect her to try to run again for senate in 2012... and she will definitely face one or more primary opponents. In the meantime questions will continue from reporters about whether or when she will resign. So will she? (link) Excerpt follows...

She hasn't said, and so far today, aides aren't responding to email and phone messages seeking clarification.

Is she standing by her oft-stated stance that she will resign when the health care fight ends, or has she changed her mind? Does she contend that the fight isn't over and, if so, what would mark the end of the fight if not a presidential bill-signing ceremony?

Hutchison said more than a year ago that she intended to resign in the course of running for governor. In July she said that resignation would come by December 2009. In October, she told WBAP's Mark Davis Show that, with health care legislation still pending, she wasn't ready to set a date. "I want to stay and fight with every bone in my body against a government takeover of health care," she said.

In mid-November, she told GOP activists in Galveston, and at least one Republican candidate hoping to succeed her in the Senate, that she would resign after the March 2 primary, win or lose.

Four days before the primary, she was back on WBAP, backing away from the win or lose part, at least as a short term step, but reaffirming that "I am going to leave the Senate. It's the best thing for Texas for me to leave the Senate, sometime this year before the November elections....I'm going to stay and fight health care. I promised that, so that's my first commitment, and I will do that."

Kay you might remember voted the wrong way on HCR a week before Christmas (link) (link) (link) (link) (link) (link) (link) (link). Her wrong vote on healthcare probably cost Kay any chance of being credible... her first advertisement was all about how she was fighting Obama... but she voted with Democrats... it was really a gift for Rick's peeps...

Not only did Kay vote the wrong way... her entire rationale for staying was that she and only she had the seniority and knew all the parliamentary tricks to help put an end to the Obama health care plan... a "n00b" would not know all the tricks of the senate rules...

What does Kay get us other than pork with her seniority? She voted against earmark reform yet again recently a week after the primary election (link)... did she learn nothing from her election drubbing? Cornyn voted the right way... but Kay again voted with Democrats... it is crazy how wedded to earmarks she is...

It is time for fresh blood... let someone else start building seniority if you are leaving anyway... the only real reason to stay at this point is a possible planned 2012 reelection run... or just to avoid an expensive and risky special election. Or maybe she just likes having that staff and travel paid for...

Kay knew she was doomed... felt betrayed by George W. Bush...

Wayne Slater has some after the fact gossip from the campaign trail about Kay's mood in the final few days of the campaign (link). Excerpt follows...

Traveling with Kay Bailey Hutchison in the final days of the primary campaign, I knew one thing was clear: Hutchison expected to lose the primary but was hoping for a sufficient showing against Rick Perry to somehow win the runoff. Aboard her campaign bus, Hutchison expressed frustration at the trajectory of her campaign (basically, down) and her failure to get the endorsement of former President George W. Bush (he stayed publicly neutral).
She indicated that Bush 43 was in her corner, as evidenced by the Bushies supporting her (Karen Hughes, Karl Rove, Margaret Spellings, Barbara and George Bush 41) "That was the signal," she said. Hutchison stood with Bush 43 in October 2009 to her political peril. Bush lobbied his fellow Texan to vote for the Wall Street bailout, she did -- and Perry pounded her for it. Didn't Bush owe her something, a reporter asked? "I know, I know," Hutchison said, shaking her head. She never got the endorsement
As further evidence the Hutchison camp had a sense their campaign was doomed, the Austin American-Statesman's Politifact quotes Hutchison campaign chairman Jim Francis of Dallas saying the senator was ready to abandoned the race even if she made the runoff. Francis said Hutchison had decided to concede if she trailed Perry by 20 percentage points or so -- and she did.

Kay has still maintained a certain cone of silence since the election... and there is no word on if or when she will resign as promised... and I have heard absolutely nothing about any reconciliation tour between Rick and Kay. I have really not seen or heard from Kay's peeps hardly at all since the election. Rick's peeps are running around the Austin scene like they own the place, and rightfully so...

I have also seen some evidence of fences mending between Rick's peeps and Kay's peeps... and I have heard about some overt magnanimous gestures from Rick's peeps toward Kay's peeps... but you have to wonder how serious that stuff is...

Top Ten Races Within The Race... Why Rick Beat Kay... 1 of 10...

1. Conservative versus RINO.

I think it is exceedingly difficult to call Kay a true RINO in the Arlen Specter mode before he switched parties. She has lifetime ratings above 90% conservative from nearly every ranking. That fact makes it fairly incredible that Rick and his peeps successfully painted her as essentially a Republican in name only. That being said Rick and Kay did differ on enough issues to draw distinctions in the minds of voters. Kay started to lose me when she criticized Rick for rejecting federal unemployment insurance stimulus dollars. Kay also broke ranks with nearly all other Republicans and voted for things like the Lilly Ledbetter Act, which only drew a handful of Republican supporters and was Obama's first bill signed into law. Rick was never out flanked on the right, and Kay couldn't quite figure out whether to play to moderates or try to paint herself as to the right of Rick.

At times Kay landed some punches... people across the state were able to recite TTC HPV and all the other acronyms... and some things like Rick's support of Al Gore back in the 1980s or Kay's support from Dick Armey and Dick Cheney as proof that she was the real conservative and he was the pretender... but in the end he enlisted Citizens Against Government Waste to explain how her earmarks were especially bad and it was a pretty dominating effort from Rick over Kay.

WIN... Rick 4-2.

Top Ten Races Within The Race... Why Rick Beat Kay... 2 of 10...

2. New guard versus Establishment

Rick is already the longest serving governor in Texas history. He was also the anti establishment candidate. I still don't quite understand how they pulled this off, but it does speak to Kay's strategy backfiring on her. Bringing in Cheney, the elder Bush, Henry Kissinger, and others played right into Rick's strategy of painting Kay as a Washington insider.

Rick however had endorsements every day from some obscure Austin based group like the Podiatrists or the Texas Lumberjacks Association... which underscored that he had been governor for a long time and had all the Texas insider support...

Rick also had incumbency working against him and sometimes acted a little like an arrogant incumbent... in the first debate for example his demeanor was sort of "this is so below me" and the responses from voters reflected that. Kay and Debra Medina both bashed Rick as having cronies and all of that... in many ways those charges stuck.

WIN... Rick 4-3.

Top Ten Races Within The Race... Why Rick Beat Kay... 3 of 10...

3. David Carney and team versus ?Karen Hughes and Karl Rove? and team...

In the weeks leading up to the election, the Come and Take it blog, painfully obviously written by Kay staffers, seemed almost obsessed with David Carney, Rick's consigliere of sorts. For them the race appeared personal. They really hated Carney. In the days following the election Carney has been mentioned many times as deserving credit. I don't know exactly how much Carney was actually involved although I imagine quite a bit, and I don't quite know how much Karen Hughes and Karl Rove were involved for Kay... they were not paid afterall... but I think you have to attribute some of the credit and blame to high level consultants and staff.

David Weeks may produce ads that lack artistic originality or creativity but he still ran circles around Scottie Howell... Howell created some very clever and creative ads, but Weeks produced the kind of simple and straight forward ads that worked...

I think Kay's campaign manager Terry Sullivan who said in January or February that the race was lost in the first 6 months of 2009 matched up poorly with Rick's campaign manager Rob Johnson who had years and years of experience in Austin under Lt. Governor David Dewhurst.

Johnson not only knew Texas politics better than Sullivan, but he seemed to run a tighter ship... looking at Kay's campaign finance reports they seemed to spend a lot of money at places like The Dubliner in Washington, D.C.... and a lot of money on salaries in the 130 grand a year range after taxes taken out for Jen Coxe Baker and 100 grand a year range for James Christoferson... plus far too much for Keats Norfleet (115 grand), Eric Woomer, Yonnick Hammond and Hans Klingler... and entirely too much for Lindsey Parham (over 150 grand) despite her role as the real boss pulling the strings... and don't get me started on Joe Pounder who may be one of the worst spokesmen in modern Texas politics... or Gill Stevens a.k.a. GRStev... plus a salary for Terry Sullivan's wife...

I haven't even mentioned all the money down the drain paid to direct mail group Olsen and Shuvalov which may be the biggest waste of money of the entire campaign...

This also brings up one of David Carney's big themes he sounded in the press... Rick's tea party Republicans versus Kay's elitist country club Republicans. Even Kay's top level consultants and staffers seem like they were incredibly over paid and entitled...

Carney did have some slip ups including his use of the word "retarded" on a conference call with Kay's peeps... which was used against Rick when Sarah Palin came to town for Rick.

I think Kay was more of a micromanager which explains her bipolar seeming campaign strategy and messaging... while Rick by all accounts let his staff do the managing for him... he provided the talent for their direction, lighting, writing, and production.

WIN... Rick 4-2.

Top Ten Races Within The Race... Why Rick Beat Kay... 4 of 10...

4. New media versus old media

Rick and his peeps showed a serious level of disdain for the old media... newspapers... they announced they would not let Rick sit down in front of any editorial boards... they were specifically not seeking newspaper endorsements. Kay meanwhile sought and won just about every newspaper endorsement in the state and used them all in her final television commercial. Rick's peeps did a lot with social media and bested Kay in every category... more twitter fans, more facebook friends, a more active email list, and on and on... Rick's peeps hosted a very cool looking blogger summit I still wish I would have gone to after seeing the pictures from it... Rick had a text message system that cranked out relevant messages... Kay's team responded a few times weakly...

Kay sent me about a zillion pieces of direct mail. I got call after automated call from her on my answering machine at home... Rick's peeps claim that they did none of that. Rick's campaign videos were a hundred times superior to Kay's campaign videos. More funny... more well put together... more creative...

Rick had peeps flooding every web site with comments. I know the blogger out reach was much better from Rick's end than Kay's end. At one point I was on some kind of Kay media distribution list... "for immediate release" then Kay changed staffers and suddenly I was dropped... and a lot of her new peeps were not interested in talking to me in real life either...

On the other hand Rick's social media blog management team was all about sending personal messages and information... gently correcting things I got wrong... even giving me exclusive information every once in a while...

The difference between the online campaigns was night and day...

WIN... Rick 4-1.

Top Ten Races Within The Race... Why Rick Beat Kay... 5 of 10...

5. Texas versus Washington

This has been hashed and rehashed and discussed and rediscussed ad nauseum but Rick's peeps early on noticed that they had something going with the anti Washington message. By the end of the campaign Kay was apparently almost yelling at her own supporters who told her "welcome back to Texas." Part of it was Rick needing to step out from the shell of the fatigue that voters felt against him personally as well as incumbents more generally... and he set to work defining Kay as a creature of Washington while wrapping himself in the flag of Texas almost literally. If you were for Texas you were for Rick... if you were against Rick you were against Texas... if you were for Kay then you were for the way things are done in Washington...

Even the choice of WashingtonKay.com as the name of their attack site branded Kay as Washington... while Rick's final advertisement had a giant Texas flag behind him...

I think you can also look at this from the perspective of Rick's official office in Texas and Kay's official office in Washington... both made mistakes... Rick's office handled the Willingham case poorly and was slow to respond to situations at times... Kay's office was clueless and let her vote with the Democrats to kill the Republican block on health care... they let her miss key votes on things like ACORN... they let her vote with Democrats on confirming Hilda Solis, with Democrats on Obama's big community organizing kick back plan... for bailouts... against earmark reform... she just had a really vulnerable record and her DC office deserves a big part of the blame.

WIN... Rick 4-1.

Top Ten Races Within The Race... Why Rick Beat Kay... 6 of 10...

6. Loyal operatives carefully assembled over the years versus a high powered "Dream Team" cobbled together.

Rick had loyal long time operatives on his side... they had institutional knowledge of Rick. Many of them had institutional knowledge of Kay too having been on her staff years ago.

Kay cobbled together a "Dream Team" type of staff largely from out of state... although they did have a few long time Texans including at least a couple who had worked for Rick in the past. Kay's team did seem to lack certain institutional knowledge... especially Joe Pounder who said certain things about Rick that were just astonishingly hypocritical if he did actually know Kay's record. Either that or he just didn't know Kay's record very well...

It seems to me that Rick's team was hungrier... more full of true believers in a cause... more devoted to defending their turf... while Kay's team seemed more mercenary... brought in for a paycheck and because they were supposedly good at what they did.

Even Rick's young staffers seemed more loyal, better at what they did, and harder working... they weren't all chosen because they were hot ticket peeps... they seemed to be chosen for their Texas connections... for example Rick seemed to hire half of the YCT which is a small but amazingly influential organization in Republican politics... he hired an actual Texas blogger to do his new media stuff... he hired peeps who knew Texas and had relationships with Texans... even Rick's non Texan staffers have worked in Texas for years while Kay hired a bunch of hot shots who came in like they owned the place and quickly lost credibility with actual Texans in the grassroots... in the media... and among bloggers...

WIN... Rick 4-2.

Top Ten Races Within The Race... Why Rick Beat Kay... 7 of 10...

7. Washington Kay versus Slick Rick Perry

Rick and Kay both set up "attack" sites against the other side. WashingtonKay was many times better than SlickRickPerry... ironically SlickRickPerry was slicker looking... probably far more expensive with all the customized animation... Washington Kay was less slick but far better in terms of the information and the content that was provided... Kay's campaign treated SlickRickPerry like a platform for their traditional negative press releases. Rick's campaign treated WashingtonKay as something an independent blogger might write... providing unique content... being a little edgy... providing a consistent but not overwhelming flow of information. I still can't get the Earmark Queen out of my head... or the Fergie song they used...

Shame on them for taking those sites down... I understand the need to make amends and all of that but I would love to go back and analyze the sites more... unfortunately both Rick and Kay took down the attack sites... when really they should be archived and preserved for posterity... and academicians... and political practitioners looking for how to and how not to do an attack site...

WIN... Rick 4-1.

Top Ten Races Within The Race... Why Rick Beat Kay... 8 of 10...

8. Jim Lee, Tom Hicks, and Gene Powell versus Jim Francis, Pat Oxford, and John Nau...

Kay came out of the gate with a lot more money than Rick, and it wasn't until the bitter end that Rick surpassed her... she was buoyed by a transfer of 7 or 8 million dollars accrued over the years from her federal account to her state account... she also was able to raise money for the first six months of 2009 while Rick was prohibited from raising money because he was a state office holder already... so Kay had plenty of money the entire time to compete with Rick... had she not made that transfer or had that big head start of time she probably would have run out of money and or been convinced to drop out...

Rick and his peeps did a "money cannon" that raised more than 1.3 million dollars in a single day just days before the election. They did a great job during that one week in June they were able to raise money... but one thing Rick's fundraising team probably could have improved on was getting more small individual donors... or if they did have lots of small donors they could have done a better job publicizing that...

Rick paid his fund raisers a lot more than Kay did... proving that incentives work... although he may have just had better peeps than she did... in reality Rick outraised Kay by a whole lot when looked at head to head...

WIN... Rick 4-3.

Top Ten Races Within The Race... Why Rick Beat Kay... 9 of 10.

9. Perry Home Headquarters versus the Kay Network...

Rick and Kay both unveiled certain programs that were designed to gather support and mobilize it during critical times... Kay's system seemed more elegant and comprehensive... you could set up a page like "rick.forkay.com" or "comeandtakeit.forkay.com" but nobody used it so it seems...

Rick's system was kind of clunky and totally separated from his main web site but seemed well used... Rick and his peeps are claiming huge numbers of "HQ" members signed up and turned out...

Without diving into the systems I can't really say how they performed... but the results made it seem like Rick's system worked while Kay's system however impressive did not deliver.

Like many things Kay had the resources... her peeps and her just didn't know how to drive the car home...

WIN... Rick 4-3.

Top Ten Races Within The Race... Why Rick Beat Kay... 10 of 10...

10. Rick's Spanish website versus Kay's stuffy Hispanic parties...

Rick destroyed Kay in heavily Hispanic areas... El Paso, Corpus Christi... South Texas... I mean he just really dominated her.

Early polling I saw showed Kay beating Rick by a lot amongst Hispanic Republican voters... but late in the game Rick took the lead in the polls and seemingly slapped Kay around amongst Hispanic voters and voters in Hispanic areas.

I think Rick must have had some sort of underground Hispanic outreach that nobody wrote about or noticed during the entire campaign. I know Kay did some Hispanic outreach breakfasts, dinners, and lunches throughout the campaign... she had lists of Hispanics who supported her... Rick did almost nothing publicly that I know about... no big Hispanic meetings or outreach parties or anything...

The four things I can see that may have helped Rick beat Kay among Hispanics was that he was speaking their message... jobs... while Kay's message was all over the place and never really talked about jobs. Hispanics are proud Texans too... and they love the "opportunity" message. Rick even had a Spanish text messaging system that used the Spanish word for opportunity. The other part of Kay's messaging that hurt her was that she was strongly anti immigrant or so it seemed... She bashed Rick for being weak on immigration and for favoring tuition breaks for illegals... Rick stressed his strong record on the anti drug anti crime part of border security and kind of left it at that...

The other thing is that Rick had a Spanish language version of his web site and Kay had nothing like that. Did Rick promote that site secretly, or do some other behind the scenes stuff with regard to Hispanics? I can't find much evidence of that...

Another thing is that Rick appointed Eva Guzman and other prominent Hispanics... maybe there was a big blitz with that... I am not sure.

The final thing is their personalities... Kay is just so stuffy and prim and proper and white... Rick is full of energy and masculinity and blue collar appeal... he might as well grow a mustache, change his name to Ricardo, and run for president of Mexico...

Without the total annihilation amongst Hispanics I don't think Rick would have avoided the run off...

WIN... Rick 4-2.

American Gothic versus the Marlboro Man...

Nice blog accompanies these photos (link).

Top Ten Races Within The Race... Why Rick Beat Kay...

I have been pondering the campaign somewhat and I am going to unveil the top 10 races within the race... the battles that won Rick the war... one at a time over the next few days...

I am also going to assign rankings like a best of 7 basketball series... so winning 4-0 is a sweep... winning 4-3 means it might have been a little closer...

I think there are more than 10 ways in which Rick beat Kay, but this list will only be 10...

Post election rehash with Mike Baselice and Matthew Dowd...

The Texas Tribune put this on... a must watch for Rick vs. Kay junkies...

TribLive feat. Matthew Dowd and Mike Baselice from texastribune on Vimeo.

Top 10 Reasons Why Bill White Has No Chance...

I have really enjoyed writing blogs at Rick vs. Kay for the past year. The whole thing started out as a way for me to sort through the issues and find a candidate to support. I am in business in Austin, and Texas government touches my life in all kinds of ways. I have also been active in political campaigns in Texas before there even really was a legitimate Republican presence here.

I also knew and still believe that Bill White has no chance despite what polls may show between now and November, Rasmussen included...

Here are the top ten reasons Bill White has no chance, and why I find it unnecessary to rename and repurpose this blog into Rick vs. Bill. Rick is going to stomp Bill White, and these reasons are independent from anything positive about Rick or the political climate which also favor Rick. These ten things are strictly where Bill White will fail.

1. Bill White loves to write and talk at length. He thinks he is really smart, and he is well-known for writing really long letters with a lot of issue specificity. He also happens to think he can convince people on issues, so he tends to reveal a lot of what he believes. What he believes is not especially popular in Texas or the nation right now. If Scott Brown can win in Massachusetts, imagine the uphill battle Democrats face in Texas with a candidate who has all kinds of long and detailed letters and speeches and public meetings, many espousing liberal ideas that Texans reject, floating around out there.

2. Bill White has marched in gay pride parades. He said he voted against the Texas measure keeping gay marriage out of Texas. While Texans are far more tolerant of gay people than they were 10 years ago, they still like traditional marriage, and Bill White can be painted easily on this one by Rick's allies... maybe not Rick himself or his peeps directly. The panhandle and rural parts of Texas... where Kay performed fairly okay against Rick... they aren't going to go for Bill White.


3. Bill White signed on to an aggressive liberal gun control pact with Mayor Bloomberg and others. Texans like their guns. To win in Texas, White needs to dominate among independent voters. In Texas, independent voters like their guns. So do conservative Democrats like Rick's dad whom he mentioned in his speech on election night. Gun control from a big city liberal is not a winner especially this year when tea parties are still very much in vogue.

4. Houston. We have a problem. White left Houston with massive debt. His fiscal record in Houston is ripe for exploitation. Bill White has made a lot of claims about Houston that are just not true... his stewardship left a fiscal mess in the Houston city government... he also made Houston a sanctuary city for illegal aliens. His Houston record is going to make it very hard for him to win state wide.

5. Bill served under a Democrat president... in Washington. He was probably considered a moderate by Washington liberal Democrat standards but he was involved in some controversial anti-industry decisions during his tenure. He was a federal bureaucrat. A regulator. Anti oil and gas. Bill White has praised the California green energy system that has turned out to be such a disaster. And he is from... Washington. Yes. Washington. Beholden to greens who would kill a lot of Texas jobs with their environmental/energy engineering. Bill White even drives a Prius, which may endear him to Austin and Montrose and college campuses but that won't play in Peoria as they say. In Texas there are dozens of fairly good sized Peorias... Lubbock... Midland... Odessa... Tyler... Amarillo... Abilene... the list goes on and on. Did I mention that Bill White was a Washington liberal bureaucrat in the 1990s? Washington is broken. The television said so.

6. Bill White is a bald, white Obama without the charisma, wihout the speaking skills, and with the baggage ironically of Obama. It won't be all that difficult to paint Bill White as an Obama guy. Bill White has bragged about being an advisor to Obama on policy issues. He endorsed Obama. He won't be able to run from the lead weight of Obama without forcefully disavowing Obama. He won't do that. He once ran an ad calling himself the Hope to Obama's change. Texas gave Obama a double digit loss in the best year in forever for Democrats. Bill White will lose by double digits. Mark my words. I really don't care what any poll says between now and then. It will be low double digits.

7. Bill White by background is a trial lawyer. He was and is against tort reform that is so popular in Texas. Most of his campaign money is from personal injury ambulance chasing trial lawyers. Now that the primary is over expect Texans for Lawsuit Reform to launch resources against Bill White. Big city trial lawyers are not the kind of peeps who win over the counties that Kay or Medina won. He is not in touch with the values of rural Texas or even the suburbs really.

8. Bill White is fired up. In a bad way. His whole schtick is that he is allegedly this moderate, slow talking guy who gets along so well with the other side of the aisle. However in this campaign he has already referred to Rick and his peeps as the "forces of darkness." That makes him sound a little bit off his rocker. He is already running a negative, liberal, partisan campaign and is undermining his carefully cultivated image of this business man who loves and gets along with everyone.

9. Bill White sounds just like Kay on issues. Granted we are dealing with a new universe of voters. Granted Kay was bipolar in going for moderates on some days at least. However, Bill on the stump sounds just like Kay on the stump. They use many of the same statistics. The same talking points. The same flawed or misleading numbers. The same trite talking points. The same bad mouthing of Texas that got Kay into trouble. Rick in many ways is already vaccinated against a majority of the attacks coming his way. Because he has powered through them they are almost less credible this go around. I think Bill White runs a lot of risks of alienating voters who are fatigued and exhausted by the most intense election in modern Texas history. Even more intense than Hillary Clinton versus Barack Obama. People don't want to have to think about politics for a while. This gives Rick plenty of time to consolidate Republican support. Kay is even willing to help Rick. Rick can spend the next few months raising money, raising hell, and building up his grassroots effort which seemed to work so well on March 2. He doesn't have to engage daily with Bill White. The reporters will want a break. The voters will want a break. Yet it seems like Bill is itching for a brawl early and often. Big mistake. It will make voters see him just as another Kay but male and Democrat.

10. Bill White is overhyped. He likes to tout his successful elections in Houston, but the truth is that Rick out performed Bill White in admittedly apples to oranges comparison elections on Tuesday as well as over the years... getting far more votes in the same political district than Bill White. Rick had had tough competitors and has overcome huge odds against Jim Hightower in 1990, John Sharp in 1998, a full stable of peeps in 2006, and the most popular politician in Texas plus a Ron Paul lady in 2010. Who has Bill White faced of note? Orlando Sanchez in a city election? Rick is seasoned, battle tested. Bill White getting a high percent in Houston against no name peeps does not translate state wide. Houston is where Rick performed best in the primary... I don't think that was an accident...


Did I mention that Bill White is a liberal trial lawyer who loves Obama, hates guns, and practically bankrupted Houston city government as its leader? He is Chris Bell all over again. By the time Rick and his peeps are done with him Bill White is going to wish he had stayed in the nonexistent senate race. I am sure there are lots of issues that Rick's peeps have been digging up and waiting to use.

Yes, Bill White has no chance. That is why Rick versus Kay the blog will soon come to a conclusion... with maybe a few more wrap up blogs if the spirit moves me. I just don't see this as the epic battle that Rick vs. Kay was shaping up to be in early 2009. I see it as a normal R vs. D campaign in an R year in an R state.

Before the primary election I heard someone call Bill White "DRANO" if Rick made it to the general election... a "Democrat Ranting Against Neverending Optimist"

Optimism... pro Texana as a political religion... will always prevail. In 2010 voters don't want an Ambassador for the Obama administration running Texas.

Should she stay or should she go?

I am of the opinion that Kay should go ahead and resign. I think she should have resigned more than a year ago. In fact if she had resigned in 2008 she may have had a much much better chance to beat Rick...

Rick Dunham has some good reasons for and against resigning (link).

I think she should resign, but I also think it is becoming crystal clear that she has no plans of resigning before the end of her term....

Rick was the tea party candidate...

Facts point to the idea that Medina was not the tea party candidate. Rick was.

This analysis by Reeve Hamilton of the Texas Tribune is flawed because of that (link). Frankly so is this analysis by Chris Cillizza (link).

Debra Medina was a 9/11 truther... Rick was a darling of the tea party movement early on. I am disappointed she pulled more than single digits...

Rick's victory speech...

Sounds like Kay was very gracious in defeat... threw her support behind Rick from what I heard.

Rick Perry Primary Victory Speech from texastribune on Vimeo.

Sounds like Kay was very gracious in defeat... threw her support behind Rick from what I heard.

There is also audio of Kay's speech but no video that I know of (link)...

40 most important moments of Rick vs. Kay... and Debra...

In no particular order... I am just dashing these out...

1. Rick rejects unemployment insurance money, Kay criticizes him for it.
2. In December Kay votes with Democrats to end the Republican filibuster of the government take over of health care.
3. Kay's peeps caught inserting hidden malicious keywords about Rick on her new web site standbykay.com... a web site that never saw the light of day because it was banned by google, yahoo, and other search engines for the unethical practice.
4. Rick gets #1 billing on Drudge for HCR50.
5. Rick gets #1 billing on Drudge for secession comments.
6. Medina bombs out with her September 11th Truther comments on Glenn Beck.
7. Kay misses vote after vote including some important votes that Republicans care about... ACORN for example.
8. Kay dithers and flip flops on whether to resign, then doesn't resign showing she may not be serious about her race.
9. Rick raises 1.38 million dollars in a one day money cannon.
10. Rick raises almost as much in 8 days in June as Kay raises in the entire first six months of 2009.
11. Kay draws a couple dozen peeps for her official campaign kick off tour in "La Markee."
12. Kay is hounded by Rick's YCT allies and others on her campaign kick off tour causing her to be more secretive about her events which probably contributes to 12 peeps showing up at some of her events.
13. Cameron Willingham dominates news, distracting Rick's campaign and preventing Rick from pulling away earlier.
14. Palin Stumps for Rick in Houston in early 2010.
15. Palin endorses Rick in a letter to Republicans in early 2009.
16. Kay fumbles the abortion issue in two separate debates... videos come out of Kay fumbling the abortion issue in old debates. Why couldn't she figure out how to answer that question?
17. Polls show Medina within striking distance of Kay for second place.
18. Dick Cheney does event for Kay, however underwhelming the event looks on television.
19. Rick gets nearly every endorsement from every Texas group out there including the Texas Association of Business, the Texas Medical Association, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, the National Rifle Association and Texas State Rifle Association, every pro-life group, two-thirds of the state's SREC and most of the former state chairmen, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Minutemen, the Realtors, and about 50 Austin groups you have never heard of.
20. Kay gets the Farm Bureau endorsement.
21. George H. W. Bush endorses Kay.
22. Ron Paul writes a letter for Debra Medina coming just shy of endorsing her but hinting at his support for her.
23. Where were all of the state reps and state senators Kay was going to roll out after session ended? Their conspicuous absence was a pretty big deal.
24. Rick and his peeps dominate social networking... until Medina comes along... but Rick makes it part of his day to day life with the pictures of puppies and his work outs and things... his text messages are better than Kay's... he ends up with far more Facebook fans, twitter followers.
25. Kay's peeps work hard and overtly to get Medina into the first debate, thinking it will hurt Rick.
26. Medina does well in the first debate, doesn't look crazy. Earns ticket to second debate. Does well. Siphons off votes from Kay more than Rick.
27. Rick does zero paid phones or glossy mail pieces... Kay does a blitz of both costing probably into the millions right at the end when television would have been more effective.
28. Rick sues the EPA with Greg Abbott and Todd Staples.
29. Rick wins basically every county and every demographic... Rick gets far more votes than Bill White in Houston.
30. Rick or Kay video from the Texas Republican Women event made by the Austin American Statesman's Ken Herman shows Rick dominating what should be Kay's peeps.
31. Rick becomes a tea party favorite on April 15 and July 4 separate from the secession thing.
32. Kay votes for the bailout a day after saying she wouldn't give a blank check for 700 billion dollars to anyone even Ronald Reagan.
33. Mark Sanford loses it, effectively making Rick lose one of his governor allies with whom he often shared op eds and policy initiatives.
34. Rick makes Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity honorary Texans and both... and a lot of other major talk radio guys... quasi endorse him or all out endorse him and talk him up.
35. Rick gets major bloggers and new media peeps like Andrew Breitbart, Erick Erickson, Glenn Reynolds and other smaller bloggers either on his team or to at least say nice things every now and then about him and not as nice things about Kay.
36. Kay hires a Washington Dream Team and pays them Washington wages while Rick hires more scrappy Texans and pays them Texas wages.
37. Kay gets every single newspaper endorsement and actually uses her news endorsements in her television ads... Rick decides to specifically reject the endorsements and not even sit for the editorial board meetings.
38. Rick does some kind of secret hidden Hispanic out reach clearly that we all missed... more than just having a Spanish language version of his web site... he had to have done something to dominate Kay and Medina so much in South Texas areas.
39. Kay wears a jacket vest thing in a barn in one of her final television ads. Rick wears a Carhartt jacket in his final commercial. He looks more genuine.
40. WashingtonKay.com 100 times better than slickrickperry.com in almost every way. Better videos. Better, more readable information... even the web site name itself helps to define Kay as non Texan while slickrickperry.com just sounds like a personal attack. Kay's anti Rick site has good graphics and features but Rick's anti Kay site has better information.

I'll add more and refine these later. I think I need to figure out what comes next for this blog... I think I can keep it up for a while and do recap stories and retrospectives... then I am not sure Rick versus Bill White warrants the same interest. I started this blog because I cared a lot about the Republican primary. Whichever candidate won last night is the winner in November barring some dead underage prostitute found at the governor's mansion...

I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?

"Well-well look. I already told you: I deal with the g- damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"

-Tom Smykowski from the movie Office Space.

Kay in POLITICO this morning sounded a little bit like Tom Smykowski (link). Excerpt follows...

“The difference is in our record and how we treat people,” she said in a press availability that clocked just over three minutes. “I’m a conservative and I help people and I work with people and I don’t posture against Washington at the same time I’m taking their money.”

Pressed, she again cited her “good record of working with people.”

Kay is known for a lot of things, but she is not known for treating people well. People who hurl objects at their staffers should not be talking about how they "treat people." Kay is a well known serial abuser of staff... which is probably something Rick's peeps could have exploited had the going got rough.

Spokesman quote of the campaign...

I bagged on Joe Pounder for his tortured quote about the Minutemen and only taking a minute after being elected to go back on his word as maybe one of the worst and most petty quotes I have seen in any high level campaign (link). Excerpt follows...

"When it comes to border security, Rick Perry's a Minuteman in the campaign but then takes a minute to forget what he said when the election is over," said Hutchison spokesman Joe Pounder.

Pounder might as well be selling a jump to conclusions mat... get it? JUMP... to conclusions... that quote is so emblematic of the disaster that Kay's communication team is, that Joe Pounder might as well have just said, "I give him. Surrender. You win."

Well... this quote from Rick's campaign spokesman sums up the converse of that (link)...

Perry spokesman Mark Miner said Hutchison was delusional.

"Better nominee for what?" he said. "Governor Perry is focused on issues important to Texans, while Hutchison has been in Washington working on earmarks, bailouts, out-of-control spending in addition to being pro-choice."

Now that is a quote. Full of win. Calling the other side delusional? That is just amazing in its audacity. He then got in all of the talking points. Good talking points. Non-sequiter talking points that completely end up dominating the impression the reader takes away...

Not acronyms and abbreviations and strings of letters that most voters glaze over when they see or hear... HPV, TTC, and so on... those are the talking points for Kay's peeps, and they are terrible. A plurality of Texans prefer toll roads to all the other options, and HPV is something that actually helps Rick win over moderate suburban women who should have been with Kay...

It is always easy to be a communications professional for a winning client than one who is losing by huge margins, but I think you can pin at least some of Kay's problems on her communications team and how she chose to use them... I have seen Kay in action for the past 20 years and know peeps close to her that say she and her husband are micromanagers beyond belief... which could have something to do with why her communications strategy seems so disjointed and pathetic...

Here is another series of meaningless letters for Rick's peeps... TCB, Takin' Care of Business... good work guys... you've earned a big win on Tuesday night barring an "Operation Chaos" type of surge...

Poll recap...

Nice work by the Texas Tribune peeps (link).

You could probably go back further and find others showing Kay up by large margins... until the race became defined as Texas Rick versus Washington Kay... conservative Rick versus moderate Kay... pro life Rick versus pro choice Kay...

More insult to injury... Kailey Bay Hutchison...

The pro choice Kay cancelled an event and seemed to crash a pro life event last night where Rick and George W. Bush spoke... and it wasn't pretty for her (link). Excerpt follows...

Perry was conciliatory toward the former president, going out of his way in his brief remarks near the end of the 2½ hour gala to laud Bush’s “remarkable record of defending life,” as governor and president.

“There is no way to tell how many lives were protected by his fearless pro-life efforts,” Perry said, citing Bush’s enforcement of the Mexico City Accords, support for a ban on late-term “partial-birth” abortion, and “rebuke of embryonic stem-cell researchers.”

Neither gubernatorial candidate was on the program and attendees were unaware of their presence until evening was almost over. An emcee introduced Hutchison and other VIPs at the end of the program, but mangled her name as “Sen. Kailey Bay Hutchison.” She received polite applause.

The crowd was outright enthusiastic as Perry touted state efforts to ban the use of public funds for abortion, and to require parental notification when Texas teens seek to end a pregnancy.

According to the blogs, there had been some behind the scenes jockeying... and Kay's peeps told reporters Rick was not going to speak... but he did speak... so... why would Jennifer Baker pick a fight on that point? Another strange communications move... kind of petty really... and why cancel some other event so she could go to this pro life event? Was she really that worried that George W. Bush and Rick would buddy up and conspire against her? I mean... come on...

Kailey Bay Hutchison... that is just insult to injury... she didn't get to speak... she had to listen to Rick speak... she got weak applause when they mangled her name... she didn't get to buddy up with Bush... Rick got enthusiastic applause... what a disaster for her...

Rick tops 50% ... among Cougars...

The University of Houston did a poll of its students... Rick is way ahead, and Medina has crashed and burned (link). Excerpt follows...

A poll conducted by The Daily Cougar last week revealed that 85.99 percent of UH students likely voting in the Democratic primary favor White to be his party’s nominee in the Nov. 2 general election. Meanwhile, 52.78 percent of likely Republican student voters support Perry.

White’s opponent, local businessman Farouk Shami, garnered the endorsement of 12.56 percent of UH Democrats, while 1.45 percent indicated they were undecided between the two.

Among Republicans, U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison earned the support of 36.11 percent of those polled. Tea Party activist Debra Medina received the backing of 8.33 percent. About 2.8 percent of Republicans said they are undecided, but will likely vote in that primary.

I have no idea how scientific this poll is, and it is obviously a very limited and narrow group of people geographically and age wise but those percentages are looking pretty close to what the state wide numbers end up being... it is hard for me to fathom how more than 15% of Republicans could vote for Medina... or how more than 1/3 of Republicans could vote for Kay...

Watch it while it's still online...

Bill White... too liberal for Texas...

PoliTexas has some of the best tracks from the past year of campaigning with back story about copyright and fair use for political commentary and things of that nature (link)... the singer of that song is considering filing a lawsuit to get it taken down which in my opinion is not a good idea in the new internet age that we live in...

The article lists out some of the prominent ones, but the article misses the mark in terms of not including the best video of the entire campaign in my opinion...

Earmark Queen... in response to my last blog on the subject asking whether the American Idol girl who sang it was paid... someone tipped me off and said "she did it for Texas." Gratis...

Here is her myspace... (link)... looks like an aspiring artist maybe just trying to get some exposure...