Rick and Bill assume front runner status...

I wrote a blog recently about how liberal Democrat former mayor of Houston Bill White is already running against Rick (link). Bill White was also in the valley recently to discuss how much he doesn't like Rick (link). Excerpt follows...

Even though he's a Democrat running in a state where no Democrat has won a statewide race in 16 years, White is freer to attack Perry than Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, the incumbent governor's main GOP rival.

Much as Hutchison does, White jumped at the chance Thursday to scold Perry for alleged cronyism and promotion of toll roads in the now abandoned Trans-Texas Corridor proposal.

So... basically Bill White is going to run the same campaign against Rick that Kay did... only he has a D by his name... and more room to be defined by Rick's peeps... let me know how that works out for ya...

Rick's campaign strategist is glad to keep the fight going because it shows that Rick is basically the presumptive nominee... which means that people on the fence will go ahead and vote for him just to make sure the party avoids an expensive run off...

David Carney sent an email that got leaked by the Texas Tribune (link). It looks like I was blind copied not on accident as well on an email officially to his colleague at his consulting firm ... probably a lot of bloggers, journalists, and influence makers were included if I had to guess...

As we head into Tuesdays primary I thought I'd let you in on some of our thinking going into the home stretch.

The early vote turnout is up and we're excited about who has been voting. Most of the increase appears to be based on the continuing trend of voters taking advantage of the convenience of no line/plenty of parking voting that the early voting process allows rather then an increase total turnout. We're thinking turnout will be around a million to 1.1 million GOP voters, which is up 20% but not the blow it off the roof projections some hysterical analysis has implied.

We believe high turnout is good for us because all types of voters continue of to move in our direction. In fact as of Thursday the Governor leads in all sub groups including first time GOP primary voters and self identified liberals and moderate on social and fiscal issues. (Just don't tell any one that! :) )

While no one can predict what will happen on Tuesday, we believe there will not be a run off. Our voters are energized, solidly committed and growing in number every day. Neither of our opponents can say the same thing. It is funny that pundits are quick to point out that we are below 50% in public polls by a few points but gloss over the fact that our opponents together generally poll in the low 40s and dropping.

As the campaign as been progressing the Governors’ favorability ratings have actually improved while our opponents have slid into almost a 1:1 ratio. Not good for them.

Regardless of the outcome on Tuesday, the GOP nominee is well positioned for November. The voter frustration with the democrat party nationally has not escaped the attention of Texans. Mayor White is another in a long line of dream team mirages that the net roots of the left have fabricated. In this political environment no competitive state will elect a big city trial lawyer, anti gun, sanctuary city promoting, Clinton protégé DC politician, let alone a conservative state like Texas. While Mayor White has yet to been defined its inarguable the Texas voters have been exposed to well over $100 million in negative attack ads against Rick Perry. The voters of Texas know Rick Perry, warts and all, and he still leads Mayor White by double digits in most public polls . Voter registration, voter intensity and the issues matrix in 2010 make any democrat the longest of long shots to be competitive.

Three observations that this primary has reinforced:

1) Message matters! Both in content and delivery, process and inside jargon can never compete with a coherent message delivered by a credible candidate.

2) The research that we were the guinea pigs for in 2006 with Professors Green and Gerber of Yale, Daron Shaw of UT and Jim Gimpel of the University of Maryland on the effectiveness of various traditional methods of campaign communications has paid off. Mail and phones are ineffective, while personal contacts through social networks and personal appearances, as well as and paid media move voters.

3) Dr. Bob Stein the worlds leading researcher on the effects of earmarks, conclusions (short handed and with apologies’ to Dr. Stein: Earmarks do not enhance an incumbent’s electoral standing) are correct. Using his theories we built our campaign against earmarks prior to the 2009 explosion of the center right voters on the federal fiscal issues (tea party’s, etc.) which just enhanced the effectiveness of our efforts.

If you have other thoughts or observations please pass them along and I'd be glad to answer any questions that you might have.


Thanks for your time,

Dave

Bill White's campaign responded (link).

We are already in the general election here...