Well, this is sad. I've been hoping that Pete Sessions would leave Congress "to spend more time with my family," but, apparently, I'm out of luck. Pete Sessions and his wife of 27 years are separating.
The 56-year-old Texas Republican issued a statement Friday:
"After a great deal of thought and discussion, a decision has been made that my wife and I are separating. I am grateful for many years of marriage, and the blessing of two wonderful sons. I ask for respect for my privacy and for that of my family, and I do not intend to comment any further."
Of course, he can't be reached for comment, and he dumped this news on Friday night. So there's no news on what's behind this--maybe she got tired of him running off to fundraisers at strip clubs or just got tired of him being so damned stupid.
Whatever the reason, he's got some splainin' to do--like it or not--to his right-wing followers who've been lapping up his "family values" message all these years.
(This got buried earlier. Bumped. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
According to the Dallas Morning News the National Republican Campaign Committee has withdrawn it's reserved advertising buy as a demonstration of retreat in efforts to unseat the 20-year incumbent, Chet Edwards, in Congressional District 17:
The Republican Party has scrapped plans for a costly last-minute TV blitz on behalf of congressional nominee Bill Flores.
Democrats said the move signals that Republicans are giving up hope of unseating Rep. Chet Edwards. But Flores disagreed, saying that it means he's in such good shape, the national party can devote its resources elsewhere.
This is a story you're not hearing much of around the country-Republicans beginning to conduct candidate triage in which the NRCC and other Party entities are retreating in many congressional districts in order to conserve resources and invest in seats that Republicans have a better shot at winning. Pundits and talking heads love to pontificate right now about just how many seats Democrats are going to lose in the House. At times you hear 50+, and other times you hear as much as 100. I suppose we'll know on Election Day, won't we? One seat that Republican's were counting on though-Chet Edwards-may just be ok. That should give D's across the country some cause for hope.
What might prevent this massive tsunami of Teapot extremists being elected as Republicans across the country are a few nuggets that some aren't thinking about:
Republicans have begun candidate triage. CD-17 is an example of the NRCC beginning to retract its initial investment, retreat, and move on to fight somewhere else. As we close in on November 2nd Republicans are forced to hone strategy down to where they are most likely to win and target districts they are within the polls margin of error. All of that costs a lot of money, which is something the NRCC has trailed its DCCC counterpart for all of 2010. In other words, you're seeing Republicans beginning to create their own electoral firewall of what they are capable of winning versus what they are quite likely not to win. Which brings me to point #2.
Money. Democrats have consistently outpaced, despite gloomy predictions from talking heads, Republicans in raising money this election cycle. That is certainly a stark contrast to where Democrats found themselves in 1994, which is the mid-term election cycle pundits love to compare 2010 to.
Field operations. The fact is that Democrats have become really good at voter targeting, communicating, and turnout. Arguably the Democratic field machine is more superior then the Republican one given the electoral success that Democrats have enjoyed since 2006. Those successful election cycles have allowed Democrats to perfect their field machine over time, while Republicans have been sent time and again for the last four years back to the drawing board to try and figure out how to compete in the field. Rest assured that Republicans are not capable of activating a field program and turnout machine in every single competitive congressional district across this nation. And where they may have a field program and turnout machine they still must compete with those on the other side of the political aisle which have become pretty good.
Platform. Oh yeah, that thing Republicans need to actually communicate to voters about what you would do differently than the last decade of tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of the market system, gutting of public education, ravaging the healthcare system, growing the divide between rich and poor, and otherwise causing the catastrophic economic mess this country now finds itself in. Hardly a Contract for America, right?
Leadership. Who leads the modern GOP? John Boehner? No, I don't think so--although he is set to become Speaker should Republicans take back the House, he hardly is the spokesperson for the Republican Party. Michael Steele? Naw. Mitch McConnell? Hardly. Sarah Palin? Yeah. Glenn Beck? Yep. Rush Limbaugh? Oh my-uh huh, I think so. The entertaining wing of the modern Republican Party is what has usurped the perceived leadership that encompasses the GOP. Voters are realizing that although Palin-Beck-Limbaugh might be quite the three stooges comedy skit, it doesn't inspire much confidence in leadership or policy.
The fact is that as we close in on November 2nd voters are beginning to take stock of the fact that the Rand Paul's, Sharron Angle's, Joe Miller's, Bill Flores's and Christine O'Donnell's of the world aren't capable of governing and are so fringe and extreme from the center of this country that one can only conclude that extreme has become mainstream in the modern Grand Ole' Party.
When the GOP picked Pete Sessions to chair the NRCC, residents of the gerrymandered 32nd congressional district wondered, "Has the Republican Party completely lost its mind?" We broke out the popcorn, sat back, and waited for the GOP to implode. Pete Sessions' latest lapse in judgement: backing a candidate who likes to dress up as a Nazi.
Key Point: The NRCC recruited Bill Flores, a carpet-bagging, wealthy oilman from Houston to run in a district he knows nothing about, and now his incompetent campaign is stumbling as he reaches the finish line.
Bill Flores -- the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) recruited candidate for Texas' 17th Congressional District -- is struggling in the final days of the primary campaign. Today, in his latest bumbling mistake, Flores e-mailed his supporters asking them to support an Attorney General candidate in Michigan...several hours before he e-mailed them to ask him to support his own race.
Flores' blunder would be more surprising if he was just another Republican, but since it is the recruited candidate by the NRCC and their leader, Congressman Pete Sessions, the gaffe should almost be expected. Sessions has always struggled with this complicated new technology we call the internet. In fact, just last week Sessions attacked one of his fellow members in a fundraising e-mail. From Hotline:
In a fundraising letter, NRCC chair Pete Sessions lets donors in AL 05 know their "Democrat in Congress has been falling in line with Nancy Pelosi's destructive liberal agenda." The only problem is the NRCC is backing that incumbent, Rep. Parker Griffith (R).
Now it looks like Sessions & the NRCC are having more troubles with technology.
Here's the header of Flores' first e-mail -- sent earlier today at 1:15pm CST -- in support of Bill Schuette, a Republican running for Attorney General in Michigan.
Now here's the header of the second e-mail -- sent earlier today at 3:09pm CST -- where Bill Flores is choosing to support himself. Take note that the "from" and "reply-to" lines are the exact same for each:
Why would Bill Flores think that Texas Republicans want to know about a race in Michigan? Two scenarios come to mind, to potentially explain this very odd turn of events:
Bill Flores is running an incompetent campaign and hired an e-mail client that doesn't know what the heck they are doing;
The NRCC has given up on Flores' campaign and are using his e-mail list to support other Republican races across the country.
Enter Bill Flores … He moved to the district in July 2008, from the Houston area, which is well outside the district. A wealthy oilman, he has close ties to the party machine and in particular Pete Sessions at the NRCC. He also gave nothing and did nothing to try to help win the 2008 race.
Last week Flores filed for Congress here, and the NRCC provided him with a supporting quote in his release. The NRCC has put him on their “Key Races” list on the Freedom Project web site, and they refuse to list anyone else in the race. They have listed a story about him on their web site. It’s clear he’s their guy, and the people in this area are fed up with it.
The Eagle is the second-largest paper in terms of readership in the 17th Congressional District — which stretches from Aggieland through Waco and up to Burleson — and the largest paper that's endorsing primary candidates. (The Tribune-Herald ed. board is keeping its powder dry for now. Click here for candidate forum story.)
The endorsement may be notable for a number of reasons, but it sticks out to me because Wilson is not from the Bryan-College Station area, while three of his opponents are. The paper's support could give the former CIA agent and now Waco residential developer some help in an area outside of Wilson's backyard.
To recap:
Bill Flores is e-mailing Texas Republicans about an out-of-state race and candidate they know nothing about
Flores has already lost the endorsement of the largest paper that will endorse in his district
This is the candidate the NRCC recruited to run in the district
Congressman Chet Edwards' bean counters are doing just that. Chet Edwards, known nationally as, the late notice Vice Presidential consideration, officially reported $1,309,661.02 cash-on-hand as of December 31, 2009 in a report the campaign will file with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) on January 31, 2010.
The total represents a record sum for the Edwards campaign and is over $290,000 more than Edwards reported at the same point during the 2008 election cycle. The Edwards campaign raised a total of $274,956 in the final quarter of 2009.
Chet Edwards represents one of the most Republican seats with a Democratic congressman. That's why Rob Curnock, Timothy Delasandro,
Bill Flores, Dave McIntyre, and Chuck Wilson all think they can be competitive.
Curnock was Edwards' opponent in 2008 and lost by 7.58%.
Bill Flores was recruited by Pete Session and the NRCC. After resisting the initial round of courting, Flores decided to announce his candidacy in mid-December.
Businessman Bill Flores will be announcing his campaign tomorrow after initially resisting entreaties this year from the National Republican Congressional Committee earlier in the spring. He sent a letter to party leaders and colleagues last weekend informing them of his decision.
Keep in mind this district voted for John McCain over Barack Obama in a big way. McCain garnered 67% of the vote, and yet, Edwards won a 10th term. His re-election campaigns are always close and expensive, but Edwards has made a name for himself as a conservative Democrat who will break with Democratic leadership on issues.
Flores reported close to $369,000 cash on hand, far less than Edwards fundraising totals. Edwards had $1,125,907.89 cash-on-hand. Since that time he has added an additional $183,000 in cash-on-hand and has raised a total of $1,389,828.59 for this election cycle.
Dallas-area Republican Congressman Pete Sessions continues to suck it up as head of the NRCC, turning in another lackluster fundraising quarter for the Republicans' Congressional campaign efforts. Even the pro-GOP Daily Caller failed to put a positive spin on the GOP's numbers:
The Republican fundraising arm for House races this year raised $3.2 million in December and paid off their debt, but still lags far behind their Democratic counterpart in cash on hand. The National Republican Congressional Committee, which released its numbers Friday morning, has $2.67 million in its war chest, compared to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's $16.7 million. The DCCC outraised the the NRCC with a total of $3.8 in December.
Because Republican suckitude always looks better in a clear, comparative numerical array, here's a table:
Republicans
Democrats
Advantage
Raised in December
$3.2M
$3.8M
Democrats.
Current Cash On Hand
$2.67M
$16.7M
Democrats. By a factor of seven. Burn.
Total Raised in 2009
$35.8M
$55.7M
Democrats.
"Two million! That's right, we've only got two million in the bank! And there are 435 seats in Congress!"
When asked for a statement on the $2.67M cash on hand, Pete Sessions held his fingers up like Nixon and demonstrated to the illiterate tea-bagging base how many "two million" is. Despite recent success at recruiting candidates, it remains unclear whether the GOP infrastructure will be able to support them. The RNC only has $8.7M on hand. Furthermore, many incumbent Republicans are facing primary challengers from the agitated, further-right-wing Tea Party crowd. If you're that far to the right of the modern day Republicans, you may be at risk of falling off the edge of the flat earth you believe in. If the Republicans are the "Party of NO," what does that make their primary challengers? The "Party of Oh HELL NO," I suppose.
This is a particularly amusing turn of events here in Texas, where three of our Republican Congressmen are facing primary challenges: Reps. Ralph Hall, Kenny Marchant, and Mike Conaway all have primary opponents.
So, for that matter, does Pete Sessions himself, who will face a strong opponent in the general election in Grier Raggio, if he can first get past David Smith, a Dallas businessman active in the Tea Party. From Talking Points Memo:
Will he tap into the Tea Party movement, to power his campaign? "Absolutely, absolutely I will," said Smith, saying that the principles of the Tea Party movement are largely in line with his own. "I anticipate that those will be the most active supporters of my campaign, those are going to be the people who will go out for my campaign and wear out shoes, and make phone calls to people in the district."
Sessions, who somehow managed to convince the voters of CD-32 that he had any skills relevant to serving in Congress, now faces a far-right challenger in the form of a corporate financial analyst railing against the bailout. However, it does seem that Democrats and Tea Party Smith may have something to agree on:
Smith also warned the Republican Party about Sessions' performance as NRCC chairman, in the wake of NY-23: "If this is the performance we can expect from the NRCC nationwide, going into the primaries and general election next year, this is a D-minus -- and that's friendly."
We agree! Pete Sessions gets a D-minus for his performance as NRCC chair. I just hope he keeps it up. Or down, as the case may be.
What's the difference between the Pete Sessions / Allen Stanford scandal and Pretty Woman?
A: Julia Roberts won't kiss you-- for any amount of money
The bubbling scandal over the "mini Madoff", R. Allen Stanford, and the Ponzi scheme he (allegedly) engineered in his bank, Stanford Financial, continues to percolate and slime everyone he had dealings with.
Let's briefly reset the stage, shall we? Sir R. Allen Stanford was a relatively big financier, meaning he would take your money, invest it, then give you a healthy return. Of course, what he is accused of doing by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is "massive ongoing fraud" of investment funds worth over $8 billion. Allegations are that Stanford would take your money, use it to pay other clients who had previously invested with him, and then take money from others and give it to you-this is what is known as a "Ponzi scheme" and is the same thing Bernie Madoff was convicted of. But with Stanford it's much less clear, as many of his bank accounts are hidden in notorious banking black holes in various Caribbean islands, so Stanford is not yet convicted of anything: we should continue to give him the presumption of innocence that our legal system affords him. Ditto on the allegations that he laundered money for the Mexican Gulf Cartel or cheated on his personal and property taxes to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
However, the following are facts which are NOT in dispute. Stanford threw money around Congress and various elections like it was water, with over $2.4 million given to various candidates from Stanford, Stanford Financial's PAC, and its employees bundling their donations. These donations were often given to individuals who sat on committees who would mark up a bill which would regulate financial securities and clamp down on fraud-- the same fraud he is now alleged to have been perpetrating. Convenient, no?
Texas GOP Congressman Pete Sessions as chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is charged with fundraising for his party's efforts to take back the Congress. Last week, his committee suffered a major defeat in the NY-23 special election, not just because his party's nominee lost, but because his committee spent nearly $1 million in the process. Oh, and after doing so, the GOP candidate dropped out and endorsed the Democrat who won.
That expenditure wouldn't be as painful if not for the weak fundraising by the NRCC as reported in this Politico piece.
If Republicans hope to make a play for dozens of Democratic-held House seats, they'll need a well-stocked campaign account to fund all their candidates. But right now, after spending money in two contentious off-year special elections, the National Republican Congressional Committee has a long way to go to raise enough money to compete across the national map.
The National Republican Congressional Committee ended September with just $4.3 million in the bank, less than one-third of the $14.7 million banked by its Democratic counterpart. So far this cycle, NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions hasn't improved the fundraising fortunes of the committee - he's raised $10 million less than his predecessor, Rep. Tom Cole, did at this same point in the past election cycle.
And the committee took an additional financial hit in the New York 23rd District special election, spending nearly $1 million on a race in which the GOP nominee, Dede Scozzafava, ended up quitting and then endorsing the Democratic candidate. Worse, the NRCC's decision to support Scozzafava's campaign has played a role in alienating conservative donors.
Pete Sessions certainly is no John Cornyn when it comes to fundraising. Maybe he's distracted by his Democratic challenger Grier Raggio who has raised over $25,000 in wake of Sessions's comments last week suggesting that it's ok for health insurance companies to categorically charge woman higher health insurance premiums than men.
Despite repeated campaign promises to always be in the District on weekends, Pete Sessions is working overtime today to kill health care reform.
His latest outburst on the House floor drew "a burst of chatter" in the room, kind of like it does in bi-partisan settings here at home when Sessions gets stuck for an answer and says the first thing that comes to mind, usually a tangent about "socialism" or "Nancy Pelosi."
In his latest gaffe, Pete Sessions defended the insurance industry's practice of charging higher rates to women, comparing the practice to charging higher rates for smokers. Transcript over the jump...
Usually when you contribute to losing a race that has been controlled by your party since the civil war, you lay low and avoid words like referendum and change. Pete Sessions hasn't read that memo.
Sessions, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, lost races in both California (not a surprise) and New York (huge surprise) and yet he is spending his day saying last nights election results are a referendum on the popular Democratic President. The big surprise is Sessions, like Tom Craddick in the State House, is so out of touch, he has directly contributed to helping increase the Democratic majority in Congress.
As mentioned today on the Plum Line, "NRCC chair Pete Sessions's statement says the gubernatorial wins prove independents are "dissatisfied" with Dems and will continue "moving away from them at a rapid pace."
The NRCC and Sessions came out strong against the Republican nominee and for the independent/conservative candidate. Yet, they lost.
Do we extrapolate then that Sessions is unpopular and the people of New York and the Republican Party as a whole made a referendum on the leader of the caucus? No. That is ridiculous.
What it does mean is that the Republican Party is still in total disarray and lost traction in local races and lost ground in Washington D.C. where the battle over health care reform, insurance reform, environmental reforms, clean energy reforms, and many many other initiatives are being fought. Clearly the people of California and New York both want Washington to move forward.
This is a signal that Democrats can continue to win tough races in fragmented parts of the country as long as Sessions, Cornyn, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Rick Perry can't agree on what their party stands for and what sort of candidate they should field.
Both sides need to use last nights results and learn. 2010 is going to be tough and Democrats will lose seats in the U.S. Senate and House and in local races if the fail to mobilize and turnout. When Democrats can sweep in federal races but lose gubernatorial races perhaps we should stop throwing out buzz words and start asking why.
Why are Pete Sessions and John Cornyn gloating when their jobs just got harder? Why is this a referendum when VA has swapped parties with the President for nearly four decades? Why aren't we comparing Corizine and Bloomberg instead of comparing Obama to the whole Republican Party of New Jersey?
Let's start asking some questions and stop making blind, sound bite assumptions. Oh, and let's get to work for March and November.
