Friday, March 12, 2010

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.

No comments:

Post a Comment

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