The rumors about Houston Mayor and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Bill White switching to the Governor's race circulated again this week, and the White camapign denied them (again). With Kay Bailey Hutchison appearing to once again be waffling on her decision to resign from the Senate, some have thought White would rather jump to the governor's race than wait until 2012.
Ross Ramsay's Texas Tribune article identified John Sharp and Rick Perry as the two pushing the rumor, which if true certainly does not put Sharp, the former Texas Comptroller and current Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, in very good company.
BOR's Todd Hill wrote in August that Texas Democrats should "get off Bill White's back and get on John Sharp's" when it came to deciding if one of the two leading Democrats would switch races.
I think Sharp is better qualified, and in a better position politically, to change the dynamics completely of the Democratic gubernatorial primary.
Sharp's campaign doesn't appear to be raising the funds necessary, outside of personal loans, to remain competitive in a potential U.S. senate race. I suspect that is because those donors who thought Mayor White would run for governor versus the United States Senate suddenly found themselves choosing between Sharp and White. Many people, including myself, believe that Bill White is the brightest star we have in the Democratic Party, and donors and grassroots supporters do too. Those who committed to Sharp assuming White would run for governor suddenly switched allegiances upon his announcement that he would run in an eventual special election senate race. White's fundraising numbers prove that is the case. That doesn't mean those donors don't support Sharp, they just don't support him in a head to head race with Bill White.
In this race without an election date, not much has changed since August, although White's financial advantage over Sharp has only widened.
Sharp came extremely close to defeating Rick Perry in 1998. Since then Perry has gone form being George W. Bush's Lt. Gov. to becoming one of the most unpopular governors in Texas history. Despite Perry and Sharp's past collaboration on school finance, if he decided to switch to the governor's race, he would probably be the favorite versus Perry. Democrats would have a strong candidate for governor and Bill White's huge fundraising lead would stay in the Senate race, where he gives Texas Democrats their best chance to win a Senate seat in years.
Detailed fundraising numbers from the Sharp and White Senate campaigns show a striking discrepancy in the source of both candidates' fundraising. In the fundraising quarter ending September 30, John Sharp loaned himself over $500,000 of the $615,000 he reported to the FEC. The following table breaks out the numbers:
Other Peoples' Money
Loans from Candidate
Contributions from Candidate
Total Raised
Expenditures
White:
$1,116,813
$0
$414,399
$1,549,941
$703,108
Sharp:
$107,204
$504,514
$0
$615,210
$170,190
In actual contributions from campaign supporters, White outraised Sharp by over 10 to 1.
Both candidates contributed to their own campaigns: Sharp loaned himself money, while White contributed the $414,399 as part of a donor-matching program during the last three days week of the quarter. White and his wife Andrea matched donations that included $200,000 in online giving through ActBlue and the campaign website. That $200,000 raised online by White in the last three days week of the quarter is more than Sharp raised from all of his donors throughout the three months of the quarter.
It's also interesting to compare these numbers to the candidates' expenses. White is running a full state-wide campaign with organizers and physical office space in most regions of the state. However, he more than raised enough to cover his significant expenses. On the other hand, the Sharp campaign spent more money in Q3 than it took in from outside contributions.
With the DSCC openly encouraging White, Sharp may begin to feel more pressure to switch to another race where Democrats desperately need a strong candidate. Without the FEC limits of $2400 per person, Sharp would likely find it easier to raise money closer to the levels he did as Comptroller. Of course, Sharp has given no public indication that he is considering switching races.
Bill White is getting a lot of virtual ink after announcing another $1.5 million raised in Q3. The latest round of fundraising now gives Houston Mayor Bill White $4.18 million cash on hand.
Some of these numbers are actually somewhat disappointing. Republicans are going to have to settle behind a candidate, because none of those totals will measure up to Bill White's total. That guy looks stout.
[...]
Either way Republicans are vulnerable if Kay resigns. I still think one of them could emerge and defeat Bill White easily if people really get behind the GOP nominee, but right now it makes me nervous.
This same realization has been covered in The Hill's Briefing Room. The Hill observes that Democrats John Sharp and Bill White have self-fundend and raised an astounding $10 million. On the other side of the aisle, Republicans are collectively struggling to raise even $1 million.
A lack of a consensus candidate on the Republican side has created an opening for Democrats to win a statewide race. The only question now for the field will be when the election will happen.
Kay Bailey Hutchison told a Republican/conservative radio host Tuesday she plans to retire from the Senate, but the time frame is still in the air.
According to the the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
"I am going to leave," Hutchison told Davis on WBAP/820 AM. "I think it's important that I do everything I can when there are such huge issues and I haven't been able to set that deadline which I know is something a lot of people are looking at to determine what other possibilities there might be."
With the question of "when" left to be answered, at least we know Democrats can be competitive statewide and specifically we can send a Democrat to Washington in a special or general election.
The Bill White for Senate campaign announced today that the Houston Mayor raised over $1.5 million in the quarter ending September 30th. Campaign spokesperson Katy Bacon stated to BOR that campaign cash on hand now totals $4.18 million. Overall, White has now raised over $6 million total from more than 5000 donors throughout his campaign.
The third-quarter report also includes 2000 first-time donors to the campaign. White is running for the as-yet-undeclared special election to fill Sen. Hutchison's seat, should she resign to campaign full-time for Governor.
As of the second quarter filing period, the Bill White for Texas team had raised more dollars from more people than all other Senate candidates combined. With nearly 2000 first-time contributors, the third quarter filing period attracted significantly more new contributors to the campaign than any other quarter.
"With each report, it becomes increasingly clear that Texans across the state trust Bill White to be their voice in the U.S. Senate," said Campaign Finance Chair Scott Atlas. "Bill is the right leader to move our state forward and protect the future of our children and grandchildren."
Until the release of reports from John Sharp and the miasma of Republicans running for the seat, we don't know yet if White has maintained his lead on all announced candidates combined. Reports are due tomorrow.
As BOR previously reported, one of those donations came from Warren Buffet, famous investor, philanthropist, and Democratic supporter. Buffet, widely considered to be one of the shrewdest investors in American history, clearly thinks Bill White is a strong bet for Texas and for the US Senate.
White also raised approximately $200,000 online in the last weeks of the quarter, spurred on by a dollar-for-dollar match from the Mayor himself.
Update by KT
Here are some of the numbers for the quarter and to day in table form for easy viewing.
Before we got the first peak into Bill White's new fundraising numbers, John Sharp possibly gained his largest single endorsement yet. Senator Leticia Van de Putte endorsed John Sharp, saying, "it's time to make sure that Texas has at least one U.S. Senator in the room when the critical decisions that affect our working families and small businesses are made. John Sharp is uniquely qualified to get that job done."
Van de Putte is a legislator and politician that we all respect here at the Burnt Orange Report, and she is someone we all wanted to run for a statewide office. That said, I take her opinion on John Sharp seriously as a reason not to rule him out, despite KT's convincing Special Comment,
That said, the Van de Putte announcement elicited a few reactions for me:
I hope Senator Van de Putte is thinking purely about policy ability rather than campaign ability. I think in policy, one can easily flip a coin between Sharp and White as to which man is distinctively better. On campaign ability, though?
Is John Sharp trying to cover for another bad fundraising quarter? We will see in due time, but it's hard to imagine a getter reason for the announcement's timing.
The two thoughts above, though, assume John Sharp's fundraising successes will continue the negative trend that we saw the last quarter. Instead, John Sharp could be leading us to a surprise with a strong fundraising quarter. I doubt this, but if he reports high numbers, he could make a solid case for momentum.
Meanwhile, Bill White isn't leaving us waiting for his money reports as if that's all he has going for him. Besides the revelation that Warren Buffett is among his donors, he recently announced the endorsement of nine members from the Texas Legislative Black Caucus. The group includes Alma Allen, Garnet Coleman, Dawnna Dukes, Harold Dutton, Helen Giddings, Barbara Mallory Caraway, Ruth McClendon, Sylvester Turner, and Marc Veasey.
It was useful to group them together so White could use the Black Caucus' name in a press release, but observers should note that most of this is not new. His page of endorsements from Texas representatives listed most of these names before the announcement was made earlier today. In reality, it seems only Representatives [Turner,] Dutton and Giddings can be counted as "new" endorsements.
Either way, both Bill White and John Sharp have added names to their endorsement lists. As lackluster as Sharp's campaign has looked, he has faired alright in gaining names for that list. Unfortunately, endorsements are not all that matters.
We will learn more when we see fundraising numbers.
Update: I messed up with some of the Bill White endorsements. Chris Turner had previously endorsed White, but Sylvester Turner had not. So add Sly Turner as a new endorsement. Bill White spokesperson Katy Bacon also pointed out to me that the new endorsements mean that Bill White has received endorsements from a majority of Democratic State Representatives. That in itself is an accomplishment.
The other day I pointed to a story about the problems with Texas Food Stamps program, one that US Senate hopeful John Sharp actually got into shape in the 90s. I wanted to post this note from Kelly Fero who is advising Sharp's campaign. It plays into the current context of what is going on but also how Texas got here from there.
I noticed you mused rhetorically yesterday about "who derailed [John Sharp's] food stamp reforms after he introduced the Lone Star Card."
Eliminating the paper food stamp coupons - and the waste, fraud, and abuse that went along with them - was first proposed by Sharp in his 1991 "Breaking the Mold" performance review report to Gov. Ann Richards. The Legislature passed the reforms, Sharp lobbied Washington to get the necessary waivers, and then made sure Al Gore included a national version in his National Performance Review (1993). The electronic card has now been adopted by all 50 states, and virtually eliminated all of the fraud, waste and abuse associated with the old paper coupons (which were used as a second currency in the criminal underground).
The whole point was to safeguard a successful program for feeding hungry kids by showing taxpayers that government was willing to be good stewards of their tax dollars. What a difference a decade makes.
In 2003, Arlene Wohlgemuth and the Craddick-led Texas Legislature began (in the same bill that famously stripped hundreds of thousands of eligible kids of their CHIP benefits) a consolidation of all the state's health and human services agencies. Pushed by the state's new leadership, the so-called reforms had at their heart a privatization scheme that was going to make things like the food stamp program even more efficient. With George W. Bush in the White House, Texas had a willing ally to approve this privatization scheme.
The goal, as always, was "to run government more like a business." Unfortunately, the business they had in mind was Enron. And now Texas is almost dead-last in the effectiveness of its food stamp system - just ahead of Guam.
With regard to the current problems, the Texas Democratic Congressional delegation has signed the following letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack urging the USDA to take immediate action to improve Texas Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) performance. Letter below the fold.
In the last week of the quarter, the Bill White's campaign raised nearly $400,000 dollars, about 50% on the internet. That doesn't include the money that White said he'd personally match.
As of yesterday, more than 5000 people have contributed to the Bill White campaign.
Billionaire businessman (and Democrat) Warren Buffett is a Bill White donor.
Parker County has no elected officials who are Democrats.
It's a sad state of affairs, but we're not just sitting around weeping about it. In fact, we're getting off our butts and welcoming several Democratic candidates at our third annual Old-Fashioned Democratic Rally, scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 3, at Hall Middle School in Weatherford.
The schedule of speakers is as follows:
12 p.m. - John Sharp
12:30 - Hank Gilbert
1 p.m. - Bill White
1:30 p.m. - Jeff Weems
2:50 - Felix Alvarado
3:30 - Neil Durrance
We'll also have appearances by State Rep Mark Veasey, a representative from Tom Schieffer's campaign, and Sharon Wilson (you may know her as TxSharon).
Plus, there will be all of the usual stuff: Silent auction items, baked goods, and barbecue!
This is shaping up to be a great event and we really, really need support, as we're kind of the Lone Rangers out here in Parker County. If you're in the DFW area, please come by.
If you need more info, please see www.parkercodemocrats.org. Thanks! Hope to see you there!
While the national media can analyze the national health care debate daily and endlessly, it's like there's nothing of substance to talk about in Texas- and no, I'm not counting finger pointing between Rick Perry and "The Internet" over a botched webcast as substance. So I'm taking this time in the political doldrums to add a special comment (of immeasurable substance) to get the juices flowing.
It's a month past Labor Day. What the hell?
Are we that incapable of making decisions, campaigning, and developing messages (or fielding candidates) until Sen. Hutchison graces us with a decision on when or even if she's going to resign from the U.S. Senate to run for Governor? Sure, it's frustrating, but why are we ceding Hutchison the power to control everyone's political future? I'm not even convinced that she's ever going to resign until that Senate seat is declawed from her cold dead hands. And that only makes our Democratic Duet of Houston Mayor Bill White and former Comptroller John Sharp all the more sad while we're playing the world's smallest violin.
So let's talk about that race between White and Sharp...
Is it even a race?
I was clearing out my YouTube queue last night and literally had to stumble across a new web ad that was apparently put out by the John Sharp campaign. Well, it was put out two weeks ago so I'm not sure that qualifies as new. And even though it was on the front page of John Sharp's "new" website, it's only had 150 views, half of which came from a Dave McNeely rehashed 6-month old Sharp messagecolumn, so it makes you wonder how that was never pushed around online. After all, it's only the 3rd thing ever posted to Sharp's YouTube channel (compared to a dozen videos in the last month on White's channel which is just a fraction of the over 50 posted to date).
But hey, at least that Sharp video was posted on his website- good thing, it's the only content that's been added to the front page or blog for the entire month of September. Bill White had three blog posts...yesterday alone- not to mention a half dozen media hits or press releases linked from the last week. Oh, and White has a push for end of quarter donations since the deadline is tonight, something that is distinctly absent from the Sharp campaign. And given that it had a negative fundraising quarter last report, I'm sure they could use it, unless of course that big red arrow pointing down on contribute button on Sharp's site really is pointing out the direction his contributions are going.
That's all to say- where is the John Sharp campaign? When you're being outpaced in media (and possibly fundraising) by Tom Schieffer or Hank Gilbert over in the Governor's race, you know something is wrong. There are only so many retired or soon to be retired journalists that are willing to regurgitate and reiterate the "Sharp Strategy" that "running for statewide office several times gives [you] a considerable head start over candidates who haven't" and that you've "been on statewide ballots in five separate election years from 1986 through 2002, and already have organizations in counties all across Texas."
Where's the beef, because that sounds like a lot of bun- Does 1984 need to give us a ring? How about from right here?
I heard a rumor the other week that the Sharp and White campaigns might be talking to each other again about...
A) if one of them would kindly drop out of the Senate race so the DSCC could finally gear up and help Texas (for once) like it actually wants to (which is a real thing), or
B) figure out who was going to run for Governor and/or other state executive offices if Sen. Hutchison chooses to keep playing Two-Face and not resign.
We need to stop betting on the future of Texas with the same old chips, especially when Hutchison holds the dice and refuses to roll.
Earlier this month a letter on LULAC letterhead criticizing Houston Mayor Bill White and the city's participation in the 287 (g) program was distributed by the campaign of John Sharp.
While the letter was on LULAC letterhead and was written by Angela Garcia, who was Texas State Director of LULAC during part of the 1990s, it was not authorized by the organization. LULAC's current Texas State Director Joey Cardenas issued this statement in response to the letter:
The letter from Angela Garcia is not, as it may appear to be, a letter from LULAC. It is a single point of view. Mayor Bill White and the Hispanic community have historically had a great relationship. Mayor Bill White was the keynote speaker atLULAC's convention in Dallas this year and also spoke at the state board meeting just a few weeks ago. We're having an ongoing discussion about many important issues affecting LULAC members. LULAC stays out of partisan politics and does not endorse candidates.
Katy Bacon, communications director for Bill White's campaign, had this to say:
It seems, yet again, the Sharp campaign is choosing to misrepresent something in an attempt to tear down Bill White, this time by presenting one person's letter as a letter from an entire organization. Texans are tired of this kind of negative, politics-of-the-past approach. Bill White has earned the support of 34 State Representatives, raised more dollars from more people than all the other candidates combined, and is traveling the state reaching out to Texans who want to work together on our state's future.
The Sharp campaign could have accurately sent out the letter as a "Letter from Angela Garcia" but sending it out as a "Letter from LULAC" is misleading. Despite Garcia's involvement and past leadership in LULAC, to say she speaks for the entire organization just does not make sense.
There is no open seat, there is no election date, but there is some consistently negative campaigning going on in the U.S. Senate race here in Texas. We will have to wait and see whether the last few months are a preview of what is to come once the race really starts.
