Perry and Schubert
Jason Stanford over at Chris Bell's blog has a analysis of what Schubert's 3rd place finish here in San Antonio means for Rick Perry in '06. I agree and disagree with it.
Let me begin by saying that Rick Perry's endorsement doesn't really have much clout anyways, for the reasons that Stanford is talking about. Now if this was GWB in the late '90s that would've been different, but Perry's taken a beating as recent polls have shown. School finance, taxes, CHIPs, all have put Perry in a ridiculously weak situation. But I don't think you can read that much into this race.
Now I don't deny that Republicans spent some serious capital in San Antonio for Schubert, but let me let all of you in on a little secret. Outside of the upper-echelon of Republican strategists/consultants/staffers (think Atwater, Baker, Rove), they aren't really that good. They've been raised on a diet of wedge issues and attack ads, and nowadays are taught to wrap your arms around Bushie as tight as you can and hold on.
Think about it- without Texas redistricting they lose seats in the House, they gain seats in the Senate that we had no right holding onto anymore and lose one they should've held onto (CO), and their savior is re-elected with 51% of the vote? Want a specific example? For the Feb. special election in San Antonio, a friend of mine worked a poll for the Rose Spector and had a TX Republican Party staffer come on over and check out the precinct(s) vote tallies while he was there. The staffer struck up a conversationwith the Rep. poll worker, and told him how he was going to try and implement some things that worked for the Arlene Wohlgemuth campaign in Brazos County on election day when he got back to the campaign office.
Seriously? Because you lost that race bud. In a county where Bush beat Kerry by 40%, you didn't win. As a matter of fact, I can't find this information online right now but I think you lost e-day in Brazos County by over 2,000 votes. So unless you're saying that without this your candidate would've lost even worse, then I don't think you know what you're talking about. This is the sort of stuff I'm talking about. (Seriously though, where did this rant come from?)
So the fact that Republican staffers on the ground didn't help the Schubert campaign out in the end, doesn't strike me as surprising. I think the biggest factor in Schubert floundering the way he did was Phil Hardberger. If you take Hardberger out of the equation I believe his voters split 18/12(%-wise) in favor of Schubert, which makes it a 55-45 Castro victory. Now I don't know the DPI of San Antonio, but I'd venture to say that Castro would've slightly outperformed San Antonio's DPI. Also, Stanford's numbers in the 2002 Guv race are for Bexar County, not San Antonio, and I'd venture to guess that the San Antonio proper numbers were closer than the Bexar County numbers- because then you're including conservative Alamo Heights, Castle Hills, Leon Valley, Windcrest, etc.
Plus, Hardberger went trolling for votes everywhere. If Schubert had done some work in areas that were not the North side of San Antonio, maybe he would've been able to make up the 4,000 vote difference over the Judge. But he didn't, so we'll never know.
Finally, the sort of textbook Republican campaign doesn't work at a non-partisan, city level. At least I don't think so. To really help push your Republican candidate along, you need some divisive, conservative blood-boiling social issue to smack your opponent over the head with. You can't talk about how pro-gay marriage Castro or Hardberger is, or how anti-life they are, or how much they want to regulate your guns. So you're stuck with a cutting taxes/essential services mantra that is just lacking.
In the end, I think it was more of a poorly run campaign and strategy than anything else that did Schubert in.
Let me begin by saying that Rick Perry's endorsement doesn't really have much clout anyways, for the reasons that Stanford is talking about. Now if this was GWB in the late '90s that would've been different, but Perry's taken a beating as recent polls have shown. School finance, taxes, CHIPs, all have put Perry in a ridiculously weak situation. But I don't think you can read that much into this race.
Now I don't deny that Republicans spent some serious capital in San Antonio for Schubert, but let me let all of you in on a little secret. Outside of the upper-echelon of Republican strategists/consultants/staffers (think Atwater, Baker, Rove), they aren't really that good. They've been raised on a diet of wedge issues and attack ads, and nowadays are taught to wrap your arms around Bushie as tight as you can and hold on.
Think about it- without Texas redistricting they lose seats in the House, they gain seats in the Senate that we had no right holding onto anymore and lose one they should've held onto (CO), and their savior is re-elected with 51% of the vote? Want a specific example? For the Feb. special election in San Antonio, a friend of mine worked a poll for the Rose Spector and had a TX Republican Party staffer come on over and check out the precinct(s) vote tallies while he was there. The staffer struck up a conversationwith the Rep. poll worker, and told him how he was going to try and implement some things that worked for the Arlene Wohlgemuth campaign in Brazos County on election day when he got back to the campaign office.
Seriously? Because you lost that race bud. In a county where Bush beat Kerry by 40%, you didn't win. As a matter of fact, I can't find this information online right now but I think you lost e-day in Brazos County by over 2,000 votes. So unless you're saying that without this your candidate would've lost even worse, then I don't think you know what you're talking about. This is the sort of stuff I'm talking about. (Seriously though, where did this rant come from?)
So the fact that Republican staffers on the ground didn't help the Schubert campaign out in the end, doesn't strike me as surprising. I think the biggest factor in Schubert floundering the way he did was Phil Hardberger. If you take Hardberger out of the equation I believe his voters split 18/12(%-wise) in favor of Schubert, which makes it a 55-45 Castro victory. Now I don't know the DPI of San Antonio, but I'd venture to say that Castro would've slightly outperformed San Antonio's DPI. Also, Stanford's numbers in the 2002 Guv race are for Bexar County, not San Antonio, and I'd venture to guess that the San Antonio proper numbers were closer than the Bexar County numbers- because then you're including conservative Alamo Heights, Castle Hills, Leon Valley, Windcrest, etc.
Plus, Hardberger went trolling for votes everywhere. If Schubert had done some work in areas that were not the North side of San Antonio, maybe he would've been able to make up the 4,000 vote difference over the Judge. But he didn't, so we'll never know.
Finally, the sort of textbook Republican campaign doesn't work at a non-partisan, city level. At least I don't think so. To really help push your Republican candidate along, you need some divisive, conservative blood-boiling social issue to smack your opponent over the head with. You can't talk about how pro-gay marriage Castro or Hardberger is, or how anti-life they are, or how much they want to regulate your guns. So you're stuck with a cutting taxes/essential services mantra that is just lacking.
In the end, I think it was more of a poorly run campaign and strategy than anything else that did Schubert in.
posted by Cincinnatus at
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
