Friday, March 26, 2010

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.

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.