TX-17: NRCC Candidate Bill Flores Stumbling in the Home Stretch

by: Phillip Martin

Thu Feb 18, 2010 at 04:47 PM CST

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.

1. Bill Flores is running an incompetent campaign and hired an e-mail client that doesn't know what the heck they are doing;
   
   
2. The NRCC has given up on Flores' campaign and are using his e-mail list to support other Republican races across the country.

The NRCC first recruited Flores into the race months ago. As a RedState post from December 24th says:

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.

Source: RedState, "The Texas 17th and the NRCC" 12/24/09

Last week, Flores lost the endorsement of The Eagle, the major paper from the Bryan / College Station area, to Chuck Wilson, one of the other four Republicans in the race. Michael Shapiro, a writer of the Waco Tribune-Herald, commented on the significance of the endorsement:

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:

1. Bill Flores is e-mailing Texas Republicans about an out-of-state race and candidate they know nothing about
   
   
2. Flores has already lost the endorsement of the largest paper that will endorse in his district
   
   
3. This is the candidate the NRCC recruited to run in the district

Weak Tea? Primary Challengers to Texas Republicans Bringing The Heat

by: Katherine Haenschen

Mon Feb 01, 2010 at 10:14 AM CST

This ought to be interesting. While pundits and political "soothsayers" are already predicting death to Democratic victories this cycle, there's clearly a fomenting Tea Party movement on the Right that sets the stage for post-primary strife, and may enable third party or independent candidates to step up to the plate and capitalize on this discontent.

Let's also not count out the role of Debra Medina in this, whose gubernatorial campaign may draw out Republican primary voters who seek to support the "Tea Party" challengers in their local Congressional primaries. However, the national Republicans seem largely unwilling to address the growing frustration amongst Tea Party activists, suggesting that everyone will mend fences after the primary and work for the status-quo Republican incumbents that are likely to survive the vast, vast majority of their primary challenges.

A New York Times piece on the recent Republican retreat to their favorite foreign nation of Hawaii illustrates this. Michael Steele, RNC chairman, stated:

"If a Republican incumbent or a Republican candidate is running and a Tea Party candidate is in the race and the Republican wins, my expectation is that the Tea Party guy is going to support the Republican. ... Because we would support the Tea Party guys."

Ok, let me get this straight: RNC Chair Michael Steele says that his party would support Tea Party activists should they win a primary. However, that's the exact opposite of what happened in NY-23, where moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava endorsed Democrat Bill Owens over certified nutjob Doug Owens after Tea Party folks pushed Scozzafava out of the race for being insufficiently ideologically pure. The comments of the challengers above suggest that this might not be so true, and that Tea Party activists may not let themselves be taken for granted by the Republican Party.

This should also be a huuuuge warning sign to moderate Republicans and independents, that the RNC establishment says publicly that they're willing to get on board with Tea Party extremists should they win the primary.
However, former Texas Congressmember and one-man Dick Armey seems to see the handwriting on the wall:

"This is not a situation where the grass-roots activists are saying, 'What can we do to make ourselves attractive to the Republicans?'" he said. "It is 'What can we do to help the Republicans understand what they must do to be attractive to us.'"

Armey admits it: the Tea Party is the new activist base of conservative politics. To win over their support and enthusiasm in November, Republican candidates may have to swing even harder to the right to pacify the folks who are currently holding the megaphone in the Republican party. What this will do to moderate and mainstream voters remains to be seen, but thanks to the Tea Party this may shape up to be a more intriguing election season than we expect.  

Pete Sessions Continues Abysmal Leadership for NRCC

by: Katherine Haenschen

Fri Jan 29, 2010 at 03:22 PM CST

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:

"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.  

Congressman Pete Sessions ties to indicted financier Stanford includes email saying "I love you"

by: Citizen Andy

Wed Jan 13, 2010 at 10:10 AM CST

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?  

Pete Sessions's Facing Tough Times with NRCC

by: Karl-Thomas Musselman

Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 09:00 AM CST

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.  

I have news for John Cornyn and Pete Sessions

by: Libby Shaw

Wed Nov 04, 2009 at 08:55 PM CST

This morning when I unfolded the front page of the Houston Chronicle the headline

GOP begins to show signs of resurgence

hit me in the face.

Really? A Republican resurgence?

I guess the fact that much of his N.J. constituency viewed Corzine as arrogant, corrupt and the dude who saddled his constituents with high property taxes while at the same time has strong ties to the thieves of all thieves, Goldman Sachs, had nothing to do with his loss.

And let's ignore the fact that Wall. St. and the financial sector is among the largest employer in the NYC and northern NJ area. Many mid to lower level employees in the financial sector received pink slips when Wall St. crashed. I guess these folks are not in the least bit angry at those who are or were part of the Wall St. establishment.

Earth to GOP obstructionists: incumbents even remotely tied to the Wall St. melt down and the thieving banks are going to get the boot unless Congress does something to regulate and demand transparency from the financial industry.  

The once popular New York's former Democrat and now Republican billionaire mayor Bloomberg had to spend millions upon millions of his own money, outspending his opponents 10 to 1 to barely squeak by a win.    

And a lackluster candidate in purple Virginia who ran a lackluster campaign in which he fled from a progressive agenda in a state that traditionally votes for a Governor who is not in the same Party as the President, is a sign of a GOP insurgence?

Voters don't vote if candidates fail to excite them.  And no matter the party, voters will vote against corrupted and/or lying incumbents.  Nor will they vote for a candidate who calls him or herself a progressive or conservative but whose words and deeds show they are anything but.  Some Republicans may be able to fool the teabagging crowd and old white Independents with double talk and spin, but this crowd is a mere tiny minority.  Just wait until Independents in Va. realize the newly elected governor, who pretended to be a centrist, is really a hard core conservative. Welcome to teabagger land, Indies.  Maybe next time you won't be fooled by self-serving liars.

John Cornyn, of course, is gloating all over the place about two the Democratic gubernatorial losses.

These Republican victories clearly demonstrate a strong wave for our candidates in the 2010 midterm elections," said Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

And predictably, good ol' Taliban Pete Sessions is also salivating over the Democratic gubernatorial losses.  Check out Matt Glazer's piece over at The Burnt Orange Report.

Sessions Gives Obama Greater Congressional Majority, Spins Referendum

by: Matt Glazer

Wed Nov 04, 2009 at 09:39 AM CST

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.  

Texas GOP Hall of Hypocrites

by: Libby Shaw

Wed Oct 21, 2009 at 08:40 PM CDT

Texas has its fair share of outstanding hypocrites.  Check the list below to see if your U.S. House Rep. is included in the GOP Hall of Hypocrites.  I must admit that I am not shocked to learn that my U.S. Rep., John Culberson, is among them.  I betcha your U.S. Reps are too.  

TX-32: Pete Sessions Votes to Defund Military Industrial Complex

by: CoolOnion

Tue Sep 22, 2009 at 06:23 PM CDT

The bill was intended as a "de-fund ACORN" measure, but Democrats figured out right away that the broad wording of the bill could also cut funds to a long list of military contractors, effectively defunding the "military industrial complex."

TX-32: Sessions Defends Extreme Teabagger Rhetoric

by: alaprst

Fri Sep 18, 2009 at 04:40 PM CDT