Dewhurst’s fatal mistake
Dewhurst has no business being behind the eight-ball in this race. His campaign should have wiped the floor with Ted Cruz.
In late January, Cruz’s name ID was 40%. All Dewhurst had to do was stay with his message–that is, touting his record as a conservative light guv and basically ignoring Cruz. That’s when his campaign made the fatal mistake: On February 1, it hired Dave Carney. What kind of consultant is Carney? He’s an attack dog. Dewhurst ultimately went on the offensive with the China ad. It was very effective. It hurt Cruz, but it helped in even morem by raising Cruz’s name ID, which was around 40% at the time. That was the last thing Dewhurst wanted. The Dewhurst campaign stayed on the attack, including a late spot accusing Cruz of favoring amnesty, which had little credibility. The amnesty attack ad was so overdone that it caused Dewhurst to lose ground in the days before the primary. In effect, Carney’s tactics handed the initiative to Cruz.
Dewhurst should have stuck to his record. He could make a great positive case for himself. (If Cruz ever ran a positive spot, I never saw it.) Instead, he put his campaign in the hands of someone whose most recent credit was the failed Perry presidential campaign. All that got Dewhurst was an endorsement from Perry that hung a sign around Dewhurst’s neck labeled “establishment candidate.” Perry’s performance in the presidential race was evidence that Carney wasn’t the grand strategist he was reputed to be. (Remember, he worked for Craddick, too, in 2008, and didn’t have much to show for it either.)
Tagged: dave carney, david dewhurst, Ted Cruz
Just Another Joe says:
And remind us again, Paul, how many times after this Feb. 1 fatal mistake that you predicted Dewhurts would sail to victory? There is no better Monday Morning Quarterback in this business than you. Good job at finding a way to be right about something you were dead wrong on all along.
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Just tired.... Reply:
June 1st, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Paul’s problem is that he predicts what any particular candidate SHOULD do to win, IF that candidate runs a well-organized, logical campaign. Unfortunately for Paul, more and more Rs are running nutcase, dingbat races, screaming about everything from Obama’s birth certificate to tinfoil headpieces.
Paul is assuming people like Dewhurst will run a respectable campaign. You can’t run a respectable campaign when you’re appealing to those who aren’t respectable.
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paulburka Reply:
June 2nd, 2012 at 12:05 pm
I have heard a lot of bad talk about campaign consultants this election cycle and how some of them ripped off their campaigns.
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This Saturday at Joseph A. Bank says:
The only “fatal mistake” that Dewhurst experienced was running against eight people. Cruz had the easiest job in the world: have a negative Dewhurst message, and repeat it until the end in hopes that Dewhurst will fall a bit below 50%.
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Anonymous says:
Any word from Leppert camp on an endorsement?
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Neither Hatfield nor McCoy Reply:
June 1st, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Hopefully not, for both candidates.
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truth says:
His biggest mistake was publicizing an endorsement from Mr Unpopular, Craig James. Almost nobody is going to vote for Dewhurst because of an endorsement from James. But a lot of people will vote against him because of the endorsement.
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jd says:
I agree 100%, I was planning on voting for Dewhurst, but I don’t vote for candidates who send out crazy negative mailers like the ones I got from his campaign right before the election.
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paulburka Reply:
June 4th, 2012 at 9:57 am
I think the Dewhurst campaign was one of the worst-run campaigns of recent times. The consultants should be ashamed of themselves, but they never are.
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Brokerbiker says:
Dewhurst wants to tout himself as a fiscal Conservative and must think we have forgotten about his testing for steroids in High School athletes bill that he championed. How many millions did that program cost and nabbed, what, a dozen or so culprits? I am tired of the moralizing politicians like him meddling in our lives and generating expenses for all to pay in the process.
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Blue Reply:
June 1st, 2012 at 11:46 am
I don’t remember that as Dewhurst bill–it was Zerwas, wasn’t it?
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I Wanna Be Sedated Reply:
June 1st, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Close, but it was Janek.
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paulburka Reply:
June 4th, 2012 at 9:58 am
It was Dewhurst. I think they found 3% steroid users. It was very low.
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Cousin Eddie says:
Paul, your short-term memory deficit is truly profound. You can’t have it both ways. Either “oops” killed the candidacy or the campaign did. I don’t know anyone who would affirm the latter.
But if you subscribe to that idea, remember that Joe Allbaugh was in charge of the Perry campaign when the candidate said “oops.”
Don’t remember? Here’s my source: http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/burkablog/?p=11759
Right before he waddled into the Perry headquarters to assert that he hates leaks to the press, he had that information leaked to you. Remember?
In all his cowardice, he proceeded to blame everything wrong while he was in charge on the previous team.
Ask the Perry people their off-the-record opinions on Joe Allbaugh, the master strategist who couldn’t figure out how to turn on his computer.
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paulburka Reply:
June 2nd, 2012 at 12:11 pm
I looked at the post you cited. I stand by it.
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NotDave says:
Dont forget about the Gingrich campaign. Dave Carney has now destroyed two presidential campaigns and a wealthy senate campaign in the span of less than a year. I hope he goes back to NH.
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FLPD Reply:
June 1st, 2012 at 11:38 am
And please don’t forget the 2008 Republican primary when Dave Carney signed on with the Rudy Guiliani campaign for President and brought Rick Perry along to stump for Guiliani in Iowa. That’s right. Rick Perry endorsed the only pro-choice candidate in the Republican field during that primary.
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Umm says:
Craddick
Gingrich
Perry
Dewhurst
See ya Dave. Thanks for playing.
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cyrus says:
Oh I don’t know. Sometimes it just comes down to the candidate. Dew has always been something of a weak link – never truly defined himself, always riding on the coat-tails of those up the chain from him. He’s never really had to come up with a narrative other than being Average Republican. Cruz playing the “anti-establishment” card is laughable enough seeing as he’s as much a part of it as Dewhurst, but at least he and his team had the sense to understand that in the absence of any prevailing narrative, the first order of business in claim-jumping a race like this is defining yourself and your opponent on your own terms.
Dew hoped to skate along like he always has, and instead realized (too late) that he was in a new Republican order. He desperately tried to get hip to the Tea Party craziness to no avail. The country clubbers aren’t driving the Texas Republican bus anymore, and it’s careening down a two-lane road toward a pretty high cliff.
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Neither Hatfield nor McCoy Reply:
June 1st, 2012 at 4:26 pm
Yeah, I think this was generally the problem, combined with the terrible negative ads likening Cruz to a Chinese communist that ran over and over and over and probably killed ratings for popular television shows in the offing. No one knows what Dewhurst actually stands for.
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Neither Hatfield nor McCoy Reply:
June 1st, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Not that I agree with you about Cruz. But Dew, yes.
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cyrus says:
Expect to start seeing reasonable Republicans trickle out of the GOP camp and start switching parties in the next 2-4 years, much like conservative Dems began doing back in the 80s and early 90s.
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Anonymous Reply:
June 1st, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Hope you’re right, Cyrus. Whether it’s Dewhurst or Cruz won’t matter in the U.S. Senate — there won’t be a dimes worth of difference in their votes. And they’ll look exactly like those of the self- and party-promoting robot one of them will be joining.
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Naconowhere Reply:
June 1st, 2012 at 1:16 pm
Keep dreaming Cyrus Vance.
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TexRusk Reply:
June 4th, 2012 at 5:01 pm
Cyrus, you’ve got to be kidding. The Democratic Party needs a moderate middle before it can attract Republicans. The left took over the Democratic party long ago, but there were always the odd John Nance Garner or somebody to complain about it. Even Lyndon Johnson tried to straddle two camps. But we now have a president and a House leader (sad to say, Harry Reid is the most moderate one left) who are frankly quasi-socialist.
All the polls on the issues show most Americans to be conservative. They may not be AS conservative as the Republicans, but there is NO conservatism left in the Democratic party. Third party maybe, but moderates generally don’t successfully splinter, extremes do.
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TexRusk Reply:
June 4th, 2012 at 5:02 pm
There are relatively moderate Dems in Texas, but the face of the democratic party here is increasingly becoming the Yarborough/Doggett wing.
Moderate Reply:
June 5th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
I’ve said the same thing to several of my Republican friends. If the dems would just move a little to the middle, I have no doubt there would be a lot of defectors. The Republican Party did that to much success in the 80′s and 90′s. If the dems were halfway organized, moderates (including myself) would bolt. The Tea Party/Agenda 21 crazies are killing the GOP from within. These folks are every bit as extreme as the Yarborough/Doggett wing, if not more so.
paulburka Reply:
June 6th, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Not in the next two to four years, but by 2020. Realignment takes a long time.
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Man says:
Dave Carney is a joke. He thinks he’s in the company of Mike Murphy, Karl Rove, Stuart Stevens and James Carville. But he’s just another Sloppy Joe who just can’t win the big one. When will people/candidates learn he’s nothing more than a bloviating cretin who talks a good game but is nothing more than a Paul Burka before Paul Burka.
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Chiek Kongo says:
None of this matters. Dewhurat will still win. This is just another Burka process story.
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paulburka Reply:
June 2nd, 2012 at 12:15 pm
I don’t know that Dewhurst will win. I don’t know that he won’t. He has a decent lead. This could go either way.
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truth says:
It will take closer to a decade for a substantial number of Republican moderates to switch parties.
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paulburka Reply:
June 6th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Closer to a decade is probably right. That allows for Hispanic population growth and time for disgruntled mainstream conservatives to walk.
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cyrus says:
What’s “substantial”? Within the next 6 years, a lot of them won’t have much choice. The Texas GOP is now divided into two camps: those who are fine slashing $5.4 billion from public schools and those who are outraged that we even have public schools. The Age of Reason with them is over. The Rs who could once be counted among the reasonable have run screaming from the realm of common sense and embraced lunacy and crackpot conspiracy theories (like Dewhurst has now done) in a vain attempt the placate the whackos who have taken over their primaries. Perry only got away with it in 2010 because his opponent was KBH.
If Cruz beats the Dew, years from now we’ll look back on this Repub primary as a watermark, when the slide really began for Texas Republicans.
It’s often been the case throughout history that when the real opposition is so weak (as the Democrats are in Texas), a dominant party can’t help but descend into radicalism, factions and chaos.
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Anonymous Reply:
June 1st, 2012 at 11:30 pm
“The Texas GOP is now divided into two camps: those who are fine slashing $5.4 billion from public schools and those who are outraged that we even have public schools.”
True dat.
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paulburka Reply:
June 4th, 2012 at 10:01 am
One of the best comments ever.
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TexRusk Reply:
June 4th, 2012 at 5:07 pm
Who’s not being reasonable? You guys take the Teacher’s Union B.S. and never ever report that we now have as many administrators as we do teachers. Our public school systems have now reached a point of inefficiency that would have made Leonid Brezhnev cringe.
Every single private-sector industry responded to the computer revolution by becoming more efficient. Paul Burka can do the work of 3 reporters, plus Tx. Monthly doesn’t need as many typesetters, etc. Most offices dumped about 30 percent of their workers because they don’t need memos retyped or someone to go down to the courthouse to spend all day digging into records by hand.
And yet our school bureaucrats have doubled, trippled, quadrupled, and anyone who questions the need for that is not reasonable?
Dollars and Sense says:
Cyrus Cyrus Cryus. You make us cry cry cry.
What is the three-legged stool of power in the Democrat party?
Labor.
Trial Lawyers.
Planned Parenthood.
(In fact, what sector of the medical market will likely never be a major tort??? Abortion providers. Go figure.)
Until the day these three cease being the money and organization of the Democrat party there will be no seismic party switching in Texas.
What’s more likely to happen is not party switching but sheer demographic change as the next generation of Hispanic voters comes of age. How these individuals assimilate or balkanize in Texas, and their level of voting participation, will play a larger role in the partisan powerplay of Texas.
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paulburka Reply:
June 2nd, 2012 at 12:20 pm
The three-legged stool metaphor is ridiculous. Labor has no presence in this state to speak of. Trial lawyers were eviscerated by tort reform and workers comp reform. Planned Parenthood is trying to survive.
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Dollars and Sense Reply:
June 3rd, 2012 at 11:25 pm
Paul,
It is as ridiculous as the Democrat Party in Texas. I never wrote they were powerful, I just wrote they were the power of the Texas Dems.
You can replace each leg of the stool in your reply with “Democrat Party” and it would be the same.
The Democrat Party has no presence in this state to speak of.
The Democrat Party was eviscerated by tort reform and workers comp reform.
The Democrat Party is trying to survive.
My point is to Cyrus that as long as these three control the Dems in Texas no Rs will be switching.
DS
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Tammany "Scott" Hall says:
But all that matters is winning.
Under that rule, how can Burka say this is fatal?
Contrary to tv ads, David has made TX better.
Know this– we need real leadership in the Senate.
Since we all share in TX’s glory, let’s give credit.
More than ever, we need proven conservatives.
It’s clear, there is only one choice.
Through and through, one man has passed legislation.
How can that not be enough?
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TexRusk Reply:
June 4th, 2012 at 5:12 pm
One man has passed legislation? Like what? The TSA bill? Sanctuary cities? A ban on in-state tuition for illegals? Dewhurst has been good on pro-Life stuff, but as a conservative leader, he has been pretty weak.
Besides, hasn’t Kevin Eltife been the de-facto Lt. Gov for the last 2 years? David Dewhurst skipped the Senate more often than Barack Obama voted present in Illinois.
I’m sure if he wins he’ll be two months late to his swearing in and then give the “steering wheel” sign to some staffer to do all his work for him.
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Buckley Smitherman says:
If you’re with the popular artist who sang “Lost Cause”, would you say you are With Beck?
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Loud Cackle says:
If San Antonio Spurs Hall of Famer David Robinson was joined by the popular artist who sang “Lost Cause”, would it be David With Beck?
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Jurassic Rooster Reply:
June 1st, 2012 at 4:29 pm
If you joined Beck with David, you’d have a great basketball player with two turntables and a microphone.
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Eddie Murphy's Laugh says:
Bray Bray Bray
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House of Boratheon says:
We have a Buck on our banners. And a Smith for our weapons.
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JohnBernardBooks says:
Dems have helped Cruz with their hundreds of lawsuits delaying the primary till May.
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Anonymous says:
Two parties of extremes is what we have in Texas and at the moment the Rs are dominant. Eventually we will shift and the other extreme group will become dominant. And Texas infrastructure will continue to go down hill, especially schools and highways. Neither party will tolerate an independent thinker.
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Steve S. Reply:
June 4th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
Anonymous, you apparently have never followed Texas history. Regardless of politics, CONSERVATIVES have always been dominent in Texas, whether Democratic or Republican ones.
The only way that will change is if the ethnic shift ushers in a bunch of liberal democrats who can outmuscle republicans. But it’s becomeing more clear that the ethnic shift isn’t turning out the same way as Matt Angle and the anglo Liberals want it too. It may still shift the balance, but the idea of Hispanics being somehow DNA coded to vote Democrat has been pretty much discredited by now.
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The Mustache That Dare Not Speak Its Name says:
To borrow a meme from about a week ago,
Dave Carney does NOT HAVE BALLS CROSBY.
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Mr. Politico says:
Ouch! That’s a hit in the nuts for Carney, Burka!!
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Blue Dogs says:
Burka, the PPP poll has Dewhurst leading 59-34 over Cruz.
Do you have polling for the Railroad Commissioner races (Place 1 and Place 3) and the TX Supreme Court Justice, Place 4 contest ?
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Tarry House says:
Dew should win the runoff by micro targeting and motivating his voters. Although Carney could screw even that up. Cruz’s brigades of haters and nuts will show up again but serious voters dropped Cruz when he touted Palin and DeMint type endorsements. Couldn’t agree more on the overrating of MQS, only a few weak House Rs really listen to him, time for adults to forget about him and angry Dunn. Texas Rs must modulate a bit and bring in younger educated Hispanics or risk losing control about 2020 for a century.
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