The results are hardly surprising. In a recent post, I raised the question of whether Perry could be reelected. I didn’t think so then, and I don’t think so now. And the talk from Ray Sullivan and the Perry team that he could run for president in 2016 is a fantasy. The problem for Perry is that the American people have made up their minds about him–and so have most Texans. His brand is ruined.

Here are the key numbers from the newspapers’ poll:

Job approval (adults): 40% approve, 40% disapprove

Job approval (registered) 42% approve, 43% disapprove

Should he run again for governor (registered): 56% no

More/less favorable view of him as a result of his presidential candidacy: 41% say less favorable

Adversely affected Texas’s image: 25% “a little”, 23% “a lot”

Support among Republicans: down from 73% to 60%

Support among independents: down from 46% to 29%

These are disastrous numbers across the board. Perry is leaking support everywhere: Republicans, independents, and registered voters. The problem for Perry is that there is nowhere to hide. His “oopses” were so numerous, and so indelibly stamped onto the minds of those who saw them, that they will not be forgotten. Indeed, Perry can expect to see them again and again, every election year, into his old age, as pundits ruminate on the influence of debates and use the “oops” moment as their teaching lesson. This is the point of my article in the February issue, “Is There Life After Rick Perry?” The governor’s mistakes are going to reverberate into the 2013 legislative session. Yes, Perry is still the governor, but a leader’s power depends upon one thing–followers–and it is not clear whether Perry still has them, or at least enough of them to enable him to govern, much less win reelection. Whether he has done so much damage to himself that he has lost the moral authority to lead will be determined in the 83rd Legislature.

The newspapers’ poll comes on top of a recent Public Policy Polling survey, whose numbers I wrote about last week.

There has been brave talk from the Perry camp that he might run for relection in 2014, or that he might even run for president in 2016. This translates into, “Repeat after me: Rick Perry is not a lame duck, not a lame duck, not a …..” [quack, quack]

Tagged: polling, rick perry

The Gallup organization released a nationwide poll last week showing the partisan preference in every state. The daily tracking poll, conducted during the election campaign, sampled 19,415 adult Texans concerning their self-identification by political party and found that 43.4% identified themselves as Democrats compared to 41.0% who identified themselves as Republicans.

Do I find the results credible? To some extent, yes. There is no shortage of evidence of a Democratic trend: the Democrats’ sweep of Dallas County offices in 2006; similar. but less, success in Harris County this year; and the huge turnout for the 2008 presidential primary. But I question the accuracy of a poll about party identification that is based upon interviews with adults, period. Not likely voters. Not registered voters. No effort was made to screen the sample. In any case, the Democrats’ problems are manifest: They can’t win an election above the local level. They can’t win a statewide race; they can’t even win a contested congressional race.

It really doesn’t matter what people’s political leanings are. If those leanings don’t translate into votes cast and elections won, they don’t count. In the Gallup poll, Oklahoma was bluer than Texas. Democrats hold a six-point lead there over Republicans in party ID. But John McCain carried every county. According to Gallup, Georgia also computes as a blue state. The Democrats didn’t come close to winning the U.S. Senate seat that was contested there. This is the biggest problem the Democrats have: How do they turn party ID into votes?

I have had some long conversations with a semi-retired Democratic strategist (as well as with some Democratic politicians). His view is that the Democrats are nowhere close to being an effective political party. They don’t have the fundraising base to compete with Republicans. They don’t have the consultant talent to compete with Republicans. They don’t have a bench of candidates who can compete with Republicans at the statewide level. The Republicans are low-hanging fruit, but the Democrats don’t have the party infrastructure that can take advantage of the GOP’s failure to govern the state. Will Rogers said it some 70 years ago: “I belong to no organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”

The strategist pointed out to me that the Republicans will probably raise and spend $100 million in the next election cycle. This includes the contested gubernatorial primary, the general election, and possibly a U.S. Senate special election, plus the other statewide and legislative races. That kind of money brings out voters. How can the Democrats match that? They can’t. The Democrats do not have the ability to fund statewide races and legislative races at the same time. Yes, they have developed some new fundraising sources. But they are still far behind in the statewide races. This creates a dilemma. What should they do with their limited resources? Try to elect a governor? Try for seats on the Legislative Redistricting Board? Focus on the top of the ballot or the bottom? The money goes further at the bottom, but the credibility of the party can be restored only by winning at the top.

The Democratic political operation in Texas is not without talent. It’s without direction. It’s without coordination. There plenty of wannabes, but no game plan. You have the House Democratic Campaign Committee, the Lone Star Project out of D.C., the trial lawyers, Annie’s List, and lesser fiefdoms. Things slip through the cracks. Chris Harris should have been challenged for his Senate seat. Linda Harper-Brown should have been defeated.

The Democrats need–you’re not going to like this–a Karl Rove. (And before Rove there was Norm Newton and the Associated Republicans of Texas. Look what Rove was able to do for the Republican party in Texas. Look at what Eppstein was able to do in getting Republicans elected to the Legislature. You have to have people who are willing to spend full time on politics–not just on their clients, and not on lobbying, but thinking about the next election and how to win it. That’s what Rove did in the late eighties and the nineties. That is what Jack Martin did when he was Lloyd Bentsen’s chief operative, before he formed Public Strategies. The 1982 election, in which Bentsen was reelected, Bill Clements was swept out of the governor’s office, and Democrats won up and down the ballot even as Ronald Reagan occupied the White House, is the model for a coordinated campaign. Until the Democrats treat politics as a business that requires an effective organization and an effective message, they are not going to fulfill the high expectations of their base. The Republican policies of the past six years should have been a gold mine for opposition research, but the Democrats have no message machinery. When Karen Hughes was at the state Republican Party, she chipped away at the Democrats every day.

The rest of this post is strictly for political junkies.

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Tagged: blue, dallas county, democrat, gallup, harris county, mike baselice, polling, public strategies, purple state, red, republican, texas