“I Am In” trumpeted HCC Trustee Carroll Robinson in announcing this morning in an email that he is running for H-Town City Controller.
Yesterday, Chron.com posted a story saying that former H-Town City Attorney Ben Hall would be running for Mayor again.
State Rep. Sylvester Turner has already said he’s running and has signed up consultants.
H-Town Council Members Stephen Costello and Oliver Pennington both had full page ads in Gary Polland’s latest TCR and are telling folks they are running.
My friend Bill King is telling folks he is running.
Chris Bell’s law partner is complaining about the fundraising rules so I guess Chris may be running.
Without spending a whole lot of time dissecting the race, I will say that Carroll Robinson probably benefits if both Hall and Turner make the race and spend a lot of dough – the African-American turnout thing.
I am also thinking that The Mayor isn’t going to sit on the sidelines and quietly watch the race. Here is what she tweeted yesterday after word of the Hall announcement got out:
Annise Parker @AnniseParker • 15h 15 hours ago
Ben Hall to run for Houston mayor? Wants debate on issues? If he paid his taxes & tickets no one would about them.-A http://bit.ly/1xOAYmP
Turner’s spokesperson also got into the tweeting act here:
Sue Davis @suedavis1974 • 15h 15 hours ago
I can’t wait! Chron:”Ben Hall to run for mayor in 2015.” And it’s not even Christmas yet. I must have been a very good girl this year.
The MLB Cy Young Award winners were announced yesterday. Name the MLB clubs who have never produced a Cy Young Award winner?
I really did want to move on but then I saw my pal Jay Root’s Trib piece on more of the Team Davis loss. Jay Root got ahold of some internal memos from Team Davis’ former consultants. Now just how did these memos fall into Jay’s hands? Is this a case of someone getting even? How convenient. Here are parts the Jay Root Trib piece:
Consultants for Democrat Wendy Davis warned her campaign months ago that the Fort Worth senator was headed for a humiliating defeat in the Texas governor’s race unless she adopted a more centrist message and put a stop to staggering internal dysfunction.
The warnings are contained in two internal communications obtained by The Texas Tribune and written at the beginning of the year by longtime Democratic operatives Peter Cari and Maura Dougherty.
After the drubbing Davis got from Gov.-Elect Greg Abbott last week, they seem eerily prescient.
“The campaign is in disarray and is in danger of being embarrassed,” Cari and Dougherty wrote in a lengthy memorandum on Jan. 6. “The level of dysfunction was understandable in July and August, when we had no infrastructure in place — but it doesn’t seem to be getting better.”
And:
Dougherty and Cari, founders of the national consulting firm Prism Communications, had helped guide Davis to two tough Senate wins in a Republican-leaning North Texas district, and they were deeply invested in her campaign.
But the media strategists complained that they and other consultants who had been involved in her past races, and who knew her strengths and background, were being sidelined and had been unable to communicate directly with Davis.
And:
“Running Wendy Davis as a generic national Democrat is not only the quickest path to 38 percent, it’s also a huge disservice to Wendy, her record and the brand she has built,” they wrote. Davis got 38.9 percent of the vote, compared to the 59.3 percent of voters who cast ballots for Abbott.
Given the national wave that swamped Democrats around the country, including in governor races that Republicans won in traditionally blue states such as Maryland and Massachusetts, it’s highly unlikely that any political strategy would have ushered Davis into the Texas Governor’s Mansion.
But Dougherty said it didn’t have to be such a rout.
“It’s possible to lose and still look good,” she said in the phone interview. “Our worry in January was it was setting Wendy up for embarrassment throughout the course of the campaign. I think the way the campaign played out was far, far worse than it should have been.”
Here is the entire Trib piece:
http://www.texastribune.org/2014/11/12/internal-memos-detail-davis-campaign-dysfunction/.
This is from the Statesman a few days ago on Battleground Texas:
They lost ground,” said Christian Archer, a Democratic political consultant in San Antonio who has worked on several mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns in Texas.
“It was frustrating to watch,” Archer said of Battleground Texas’ performance. “The bar kept getting lowered and lowered and lowered and lowered and lowered, and then they tripped over it.”
By every measurable outcome, Battleground Texas failed to live up to its promise: More women voted for Abbott than Davis, there was no surge in Hispanic registration or turnout, and the numbers of Democratic voters plunged. (Democrat Bill White’s 12.7-point loss to Gov. Rick Perry in 2010 looked good by comparison.)
Here is the entire piece:
http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/how-battleground-texas-hobbled-the-wendy-davis-cam/nh34K/.
Cincy, the Fish, the Rangers, and the Rockies have never produced a Cy Young Award winner of course.
The ‘Stros are saying they will increase their payroll to $70 mil this season. We will see.
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