Frost Effect?
By Karl-Thomas Musselman
Much debated here at BOR in the past has been the efforts of Martin Frost on other candidates in his losing race against Pete Sessions last fall up in Dallas. Charles Kuffner has done some more analysis on the race which he has detailed here which you should check out if interested. Here's his wrap up though- emphasis mine.
From this, it would seem fair to conclude that on a performance basis, it didn't matter to Garcia and Valdez if they were in Page's precincts or Frost's - they each did about as well relative to the national ticket in each. Therefore, if there was any Frost effect at all, it would have to come from turnout alone.
I didn't know what I was going to find going in to this. I do not consider this to be fully conclusive. For one thing, I've not looked at all of Dallas County; in particular, I've not looked at any of the other Congressional races there, including the precincts in which Eddie Bernice Johnson ran unopposed. More importantly, we only looked at some turf that was pretty hostile overall to Democrats; we'll need to see how things shake out in the more Democratic areas in these districts. I also don't have the relative turnout numbers at hand, so I can't say if there was a real benefit from an absolute vote total perspective in Frost's district. At the very least, however, this should cast doubt on the notion that Frost's tide lifted all boats. There's still more work to be done, but it doesn't look good at this point.
I don't know Dallas politics, but have a feeling that Byron may have some thoughts on this if anyone does.
Posted by Karl-Thomas Musselman at August 11, 2005 04:43 AM
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I saw Charles's post and I haven't really had a chance to really analyse his conclusions on this. I based my conclusions on this PowerPoint presentation by Gary Fitzsimmons - who I'm pleased to say is running for Dallas County District Clerk in 2006. Gary's analysis shows that much of the success of Dallas County Democrats is due to increased performance of Democrats in the 32nd congressional district in 2004. I'm not sure if I can reconcile that with Charles's analysis, but I'll try and compare them when I have the chance - or perhaps someone else would like to.
The good results for Valdez and the judges may be largely due to a demographic shift and the increased turnout to due particular Dem candidates (you go to the polls to vote for Valdez and then vote straight ticket for the other Dems).
Can we move the discussion of the Frost effect into 2006?
(1) Money. Frost raised 4.5M. Does Frost have any of this money left over that he could contribute to the 2006 candidates? I contributed to Frost and so did not have any money left for other candidates. If I am representative, this could have been a negative Frost effect. Would Frost consider writing his contributers requesting they donate to the 2006 candidates?
(2) Volunteers. Frost had a huge number of volunteers some of whom, if Frost had not been there, would have worked on other campaigns. Could he give Dems a list of his volunteers and personally urge them to work for current Dems?
(3) Records. Frost's campaign office compiled voter data and canvass sheets which would be invaluable for 2006.
Could some official Dem ask Frost about these 3 items?
Some other thoughts:
(1) Could we conduct exit polls in 2006 to get a sense of voting patterns? That may have answered to question of the Frost effect in 2004.
(2) I notice some Dem donors are contributing large sums to Strayhorn's primary campaign. Is there a chance she could run for gov as a Dem?
(3) Are there going to be 3 running in the Dem DA primary? We have a good chance of beating Bill Hill. I hope we are not going to beat up on each other in the primary. Is there some way to stop this and get behind one candidate?
Marie M.
