All right. It doesn't take a real genius to figure out that Rick Noriega is going to be the Democratic nominee against John Cornyn come November. Regardless of whether Gene Kelly's presence or it being a 4-way race forces a run-off, Rick's going to win based upon the math alone when you consider any of the following points.
- Noriega holds a 100-1 or greater fundraising advantage over any of his opponents.
- Noriega, because of his Hispanic surname, could garner 35-40% alone with limited campaigning alone. (based upon 2002 & 2006 primaries).
- Noriega has been taken seriously by party leaders, elected officials, and thousands of donors- more so than Radnofsky had in 2006.
- Gene Kelly does well when his opponents don't spend money. In 2006, Radnofsky hoarded her cash hoping to avoid the runoff so she could spend limited resources against Hutchison and Gene ended up with 38%. In 2002, Ron Kirk, Victor Morales, and Ken Bentsen spent plenty of money during the primary and Gene only got 4%.
Granted, the Noriega campaign is still building, campaigning, and positioning itself for bigger and better things ever since Watts dropped out of the race. But take any of these points in combination with each other and there is not a lot of opportunity for anything other than a Noriega victory to be assured. He's rightfully taking the lead in going after John Cornyn who is the real concern for us a Democratic Party.
So that brings us to the issue of Ray McMurrey's single-issue vanity campaign and why people on this blog are taking his campaign way too seriously. Let's review.
Strike Number 1: Ray McMurrey is a Democrat of convenience. He planned on filing as an Independent and even in launching his campaign at the Texas Democratic Party headquarters went on to attack our party leadership.
"Ordinary Americans are clamoring for someone to stand up and be truthful about what is going on in our country, and I feel both major political parties have abandoned their responsibility," McMurrey said.
Tired of "politics as usual," McMurrey, who said he is a lifelong Democrat, initially planned to run as an independent. After determining that gaining the 43,000 petition signatures required to get on the ballot was too arduous, he signed up as a Democrat. -Caller-Times 11/19/07
His campaign website was converted over to say Democrat but evidently a few spots were missed in code that still stands today. Here's a screenshot.
Rick Noriega on the other hand has been as strong, out and open Democrat of decades. He been a solid vote in the Texas Legislature. He joined with 50 other members of the House in Ardmore, OK to fight against Tom Delay's redistricting. In fact, he's the only real Democrat in this race given that Rhett Smith has run before in Republican primaries, McMurrey yearns to be an Independent, and Gene Kelly has been Gene Kelly. No wonder it's so hard to organize a Democratic debate. We need to find a second Democrat for Noriega to debate.
Strike Number 2: But let's say we give McMurrey the benefit of the doubt and welcome him as a Democrat, even if he doesn't like our party. At the very best, McMurrey is a clueless Democrat.
What type of Democrat would welcome Gene Kelly into a Democratic primary? McMurrey of course. From the Austin Chronicle...
McMurrey is far more charitable than I. In a statement, he welcomed Kelly into the race, saying "Democracy demands that we have more than one choice in who will represent us. ... Democrats are about inclusion, not exclusion. We are about expanding democracy, not limiting it."
As the outsider candidate, McMurrey may end up regretting those words. I'm keeping an open mind about the virtues of both McMurrey and Noriega, but my gut feeling is that the entrance of Kelly signals a third-place finish for McMurrey, a candidate who was already going to have to struggle against Noriega's name ID.
Democrats have been fighting against the scourge that is Gene Kelly for years. Everybody who is an anybody knows this and any good Democrat works to spread the truth about Gene Kelly in hopes that one day, for better or worse, he can be eliminated as a factor in elections. But McMurrey actually welcomed him into the race...as a prop to attack via proxy the Party and/or Rick Noriega. Did he think there were some die-hard Gene Kelly fans he was going to win over or did the campaign actually think he was a fellow 'serious' candidate?
Strike Number 3: Ray McMurrey isn't running to defeat Cornyn. He seems to be running to make a point about public financing of elections. But regardless of why he is running, he's not doing much towards ensuring Democratic victories in Texas in 2008.
Yesterday, he had the opportunity to speak in front of the Texas AFL-CIO convention about the clear differences Democrats have with Republicans like John Cornyn and why we are better for Texas workers and Texas families. Vince Leibowitz was there liveblogging both Noriega's and McMurrey's speeches. Noriega gave a rousing "I've Had Enough" speech that outlined those important differences that we have with the GOP.
And McMurrey? He ignored those issues and cut away to whine about unrelated campaign process issues, including this statement.
"Mr. Cornyn is debating his challenger, Larry Kilgore, in this election...I feel like I deserve that opportunity. Mr. Noriega in his campaign material talks about answering the call. Well sir, I am calling you out, and asking you to debate me....this election is about you and the people of Texas, nothing else...a lot of people want to make this election about money...if this election is about money, we have already lost."
Did McMurrey just compare himself to Larry Kilgore in an attempt to make his point? The same Larry Kilgore who had a picture of an aborted fetus on his homepage in his 2006 bid for governor? The same Larry Kilgore who supported execution as punishment for crime of homosexual acts? The same Larry Kilgore who urges citizens to oppose paying taxes and is currently comparing the U.S. Government to that of a Nazi dictatorship?
McMurrey's statement that "if this election is about money, we have already lost" is frustrating on a couple levels. First, it's funny that Noriega is now the big-boss-political-party-money-machine-man. Was it not but 4 months ago that Noriega was the scrappy progressive underdog campaign to Mikal Watts who very much had the 'big-boss-poltical-party-money-machine-man' label covered? I'm sure McMurrey wouldn't mind having some money in his campaign coffers... unless of course he's depending on the "accept no contributions" strategy that has worked so well for some Texas Democrats in past elections.
Let's not forget, Ron Kirk actually outspent John Cornyn in 2002 and lost. It wasn't about the money and it wasn't even as much about the candidates (as Kirk was solid). It was about 2002 being an awful year for Democrats everywhere, especially Texas. This year is 2008 and it's going to be a good year for Democrats everywhere, including Texas. So let's drop the money shtick.
Our Democratic ideas and values, which Noriega has stood up for in the legislature in countless vote after vote for nearly a decade, beat John Cornyn's hands down. We need money to communicate those, which Noriega's campaign is actively working to gather, over $1 million so far. Even the greatest candidate isn't going to get very far in Texas if they only have about $7,000 to work with. That doesn't indicate a high minded campaign of ideals; it indicates a lack of a serious Democratic campaign against John Cornyn.
So debate amongst yourselves if you must, but can we please remember that in the end, we're working to replace John Cornyn with a real Democrat in November. The only litmus test we should have is to support someone who A) is a Democrat and B) has the conviction and a plan to replace John Cornyn. There's only two candidates that have met that standard this election cycle and one of them, Mikal Watts, has dropped out of the race.
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