Yesterday's money totals showed Rick Perry with a substantial cash-on-hand lead over Bill White -- which would mean something, if Bill White hadn't already put down at least $4 million worth in television advertising, according to the Statesman:
White spokeswoman Katy Bacon, explaining the spending difference, said White spent $4 million during the recent fundraising period to reserve television time for ads that would run in the future.
White's planned ahead for the campaign for months, and now Perry is stuck paying more for television advertising.
Now, I know the latest BELO poll looks terrible for White. I'd be concerned if the BELO poll didn't look so terrible itself:
All respondents were screened to ensure they are registered voters. To filter for likely voters, respondents were also screened to ensure they vote in most or all school, local and primary elections.
That is an extremely unusual screen on a poll. The screen is basically only looking at voters who vote every single time in every single election. I'm not at all surprised Perry is leading this much with that group -- you're talking about predominantly looking at an extremely active voter population or, as one person told me today, "people who drive by the polls every day to see if there is an election."
Four weeks is not a lot of time left, and every day there will be something new so every day that something new will seem like something major. For what it's worth, I am very confident in White's chances at winning. White's upcoming television advertising campaign is very strong. Perry's campaign probably has at least two negative attack ads (sanctuary cities and White's business connections, are my guesses) coming up that will worry everyone at first blush, even though they are likely to be just as big a pile of lies as his first negative ad (the one White has effectively responded to above). It will be a strong race to the finish from both campaigns -- and for the first time in well over a decade, our Democratic candidate is still within striking distance to make it happen.
