Embedded in War 
You’re Rick Noriega. Do You Approve This Message?
Beating John Cornyn and reclaiming a U.S. Senate seat for the Democrats won’t be easy. It may even be impossible. But there are a couple of things you can do to improve your chances. The first is, Read this memo.
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Of course, you can’t neglect the more traditional methods. You’ve already learned how much harder it is to raise money with the federal limit of $2,300 per individual per race. As Kirk laments, “They call it ‘hard money’ for a reason.” So find some good bundlers. Bill Richardson called you on primary day to congratulate you on avoiding a runoff. Call him back and ask him to pull together some New Mexico money. Ring up some Hollywood stars and give them a chance to get behind the first plausible Hispanic senatorial candidate from Texas. Find some young Texpats living off oil and gas royalties in New York. And though the biggest money-raisers in Texas will be giving to the R’s, there are a few rich Democrats you can turn to. Get your erstwhile primary opponent Mikal Watts to throw you a party. He’s a trial lawyer—his kind is one of your natural constituencies—and last summer he raised $1.1 million for the DSCC with one simple soirée in San Antonio. Better yet, lock yourself in a room with Henry Cisneros and don’t let him out until he agrees to help you find $500,000.
And when you fund-raise from this point forward, (a) blare the good news, like those polls showing you within striking distance of Cornyn, so loudly that people wonder what the fuss is about, and (b) do it in person, not on the phone. “People won’t give squat to some kid on the phone,” Kirk says.
When you encounter a rich person who’s interested in helping you, write his name in Magic Marker on the palm of your hand. If that strikes you as less than senatorial, write it on one of your aides’ foreheads. The late-April day that I watched you campaign in Laredo went well—up to a point. On Jay St. John’s radio show that morning, you did a good job of mixing your talking points with reminiscences of your time with the Border Patrol (though I’ll admit my favorite moment came after the interview ended, when St. John told us that he likes to play Neil Diamond’s “Coming to America” when he sees Mexicans wading across the Rio Grande through the window of his studio). Then, at breakfast, you spoke eloquently about the history of Laredo and showed your wonky side in discussing primary races in counties all along the border. Later you charmed Belinda Guerra, the CEO of the company that owns one of Laredo’s leading tejano radio stations, into donating a dance hall she owns for a fund-raising pachanga this summer.
Toward the end of the day, we met with Gary Jacobs, the former president and CEO of Laredo National Bank, who has raised huge money for Democratic candidates through the years. The meeting did not go as you’d hoped. Everyone was in agreement on the issues discussed: the ways in which NAFTA had succeeded and failed, the scapegoating of Mexican immigrants, the idiocy of the border fence, and the tragedy of the war in Iraq. You made a great point when Jacobs brought up the global economy. “We’ve seen a China boom and an India boom,” you said. “And I think the next boom is going to be driven by transportation and distribution costs, and for us that means Mexico. We need to start working on policy that gets us ready for that now.” Then Jacobs asked about your campaign. You impressed him by detailing your ActBlue fund-raising, but you blanked when he asked you to name your biggest supporters in El Paso and Dallas. So did your staff. You can’t forget the names of huge supporters when you’re talking to other potentially huge supporters.
When we left, you commented on what the visit had netted: Jacobs’s patio as a party locale, his $2,300 donation, and a look at his phone list of potential donors. Not good enough. What you needed was his promise to twist arms at that party and personally call the people on that list. To get that, you have to ask. The hardest part of fund-raising is closing the deal.
Find a better pitch to the DSCC than “Help!” You have no way of raising all the money you need by yourself, so when you hit your knees each night, you need to be praying that the DSCC decides to match you dollar for dollar. That way, if you get to $5 million by Labor Day, you’ll have a full $10 million and a greatly improved chance at running a respectable race. Expect a hard sell. Texas is a much more expensive place to campaign than other states, as in move-the-decimal-point-one-place-to-the-right more expensive. So why would the DSCC give $5 million to you for an outside chance to win a seat in Texas when that same money could be split between New Mexico, Colorado, Maine, Alaska, and Minnesota?
Well, the DSCC’s dream this year is a filibuster-proof majority of at least sixty Democrats in the Senate. So a more worthwhile prayer for you would be that other states’ Senate races go well enough that you become the potential sixtieth D. Then, if you are still polling close enough to Cornyn, you might get your wish. And remember that even if your own numbers aren’t where you want them, there are other measurements that could portend a close race, like how close other Texas D’s are running this fall. If legislative races are surprisingly tight in areas you hope to win, you can argue that the updraft will lift your chances too.
Even failing that, there’s a case to be made that the Hispanic vote is very much in play in Texas. It’s been going roughly two to one for the Democrats in recent years (Bush’s ’04 race being the exception). Don’t let the DSCC jeopardize that crucial part of the Democratic base by allowing the state’s first serious Hispanic candidate for Senate to go underfunded. Remind them also that Texas will be gaining at least three, or possibly four, U.S. House seats in the 2010 redistricting, largely at the expense of Rust Belt Democrats. The party would do well not to provoke the sleeping giant, whether or not it wakes all the way up for this election.
On Your Machine
To quote Donald Rumsfeld: Go to war with the army you have. If Bush is hurting Republican candidates around the country this year, one way he’s still killing Democrats, at least in Texas, is through the lingering effects of fourteen years of Republican domination. “There’s not a lot of institutional knowledge in winning statewide campaigns,” you told me in your office in May. “There aren’t a lot of Vince Lombardis out there. And as Lombardi said, winning becomes a habit, but so does losing. You don’t want to assemble a team with people who are oh and fifteen. Texas Democrats don’t have a very deep bench.”
An adjustment must be made to your metaphor: The bench may not be deep, but the Democrats are itching for a chance to get in the game. Obama and Hillary Clinton may have sucked up all the money ($16.1 million as of late May) and attention in the state so far, but they also set the party on fire. “Rick Noriega could get a huge boom because of that excitement,” says Kirk. “Look at that [presidential] debate in Austin. Democrats haven’t had a pep rally like that in years.” Look also at the support Clinton built in the state, precisely in the areas you need to win. Have your people talk to her people immediately. Some will go to work for Obama, no matter what they told the pollsters back in March and April. But the ones who don’t will have a natural home in your organization.
Also get a copy of your party’s list of caucusers from primary night. That’s nearly a million people who are, by definition, passionate Democratic activists. Reach out to them.
Listen to your wife. Melissa Noriega is one of your campaign’s strongest assets: charming, intelligent, and extremely capable. She now holds an at-large city council seat in Houston. She may have higher name recognition in Harris County than you do. And you shushed her twice in front of me on primary day.
The first time came as we drove between polling places, when I asked how you had selected these particular spots to greet voters. When Melissa started to answer, you interrupted and asked her to cede the floor to Rowland Garza, your deputy campaign manager and field director.
“We’re going where there’s been high turnout historically,” Rowland said, “and places with contested races today that should also see higher turnout. And places that match up with our demographics.”
“What are your demographics?” I said.
“Hispanics, African Americans, and whites,” said Rowland.
“Um, isn’t that kinda everybody?” I said.
Rowland laughed a little, and there was silence. Then Melissa spoke up. “We have what we call the Progressive Dogleg in Houston,” she said, tracing her hand through the air on an imaginary map. “It runs from the Heights and Montrose down through Rice University and South Hampton and then ends in the Braeswood and Meyerland neighborhoods. That’s the area we’re concentrating on today.”
The second time you shushed her was when we were driving to lunch. After the aborted meet and greet at the soul-food kitchen, you decided on a nearby Luby’s. We drove right past it as Melissa pointed out the window at the road we needed to take, and you said you knew how to get there. Five miles later, we turned back around.
Don’t be afraid to let her speak for you—or to listen when she’s speaking to you.
When (if?) Obama comes back to Texas, don’t let him be photographed without you at his side. All other things in your race being equal—and they aren’t—Obama’s the one wild card who could change the whole game. Cling to him (but not bitterly) whenever possible. And if it looks as if he won’t be campaigning down here, do whatever you can to convince him that the state is in play. Cite the conventional wisdom that you can help him win back the Hispanics who voted for Hillary. Tell him that with the spillover support you’ll get from his black, young, and new voters, you can go to the Senate as his most loyal supporter. Tell him you’ll be the John Cornyn to his George W. Bush. Then ask him to make a few fund-raising calls.
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