Sanchez and Berry are cracking me up

if Orlando wants to be a politician, he better become a more convincing liar

 

I remember seeing Sanchez getting worked over by comedians and actors on that old Bill Maher show. He just sat there quietly the whole show after he got slapped down in the first few minutes. Really pathetic...

 

Sucks to know he'll be our next mayor, huh liberals?

He's got my vote. And all the hispanic precincts in this town. Muahahahahahaha...

 

Don't count your chickens before they are hatched, Junior. Orlando has plenty of time for more screw ups like this one. Plus, he'd better hope there isn't any debate. The TV stations might show his marionette strings.

Bill White will be the next mayor of Houston! Muahahahahahah!

 

OK, I'll humor BT and pretend like he's not a fake poster for a second, just to crap on sanchez. I would like to know who is doing this though.

Contrary to what you may believe, tradertexx, many mexicans aren't as dumb as you think, hence, they don't just vote for the guy whose last name ends in -es or -ez, like robots. You may be too young or uninformed to remember, after the 1990 census, when whitey Gene Green beat out thuggish Ben Reyes for the brand spanking new majority hispanic congressional district because he wasn't thuggish Ben Reyes.

Thus, this is one of many reasons why our pasty and hapless cuban american friend is making his second run at the mayorship right now and not running for re-election right now.

 

I was at that the other night. The HPOU is a client of ours and I happen to know Dave Walden pretty well because he ran a couple of campaigns we were hired to do.

I found the whole thing more funny than anything. If you knew Walden, you'd understand.

I'll tell you, though. I found the forum really interesting. Here's what it told me about the candidates:

Sanchez: Really attacked by everyone. He is vulnerable on a lot of issues and he had trouble really responding. His weaknesses weren't particularly exposed during his failed run against Brown, but they are much more evident this time around. He looks very uncomfortable in these situations too.

Best moment: When he said to Sylvester Turner that he had been a good legislator for 14 years, didn't he think he should just stay in the legislature. The crowd roared and it took turner about a 30 seconds to stop laughing before he could respond.

Worst moment: Trying to respond to Berry over Walden's comments. He looked confused and really uncomfortable. Plus, he pretty much outright lied that he didn't know what Berry was talking about. That really surprised me at the time because I knew the situation beforehand.

Berry: Definitely knows how to take the offensive and is pretty good at spinning things. In some ways, you can see he's kind of an idealist and that makes him look good in some situations and look embarrassed in others. He won't win this, though, because he just doesn't have enough financial support to do it.

Best moment: The second time he railed on Sanchez for Walden's comments. Caused quite a chuckle in the audience.

Worst moment: When he was questioned on collective bargaining and said he was against it mainly because it hurt him with both unions - fire and police.

White: No one knows what to do with this guy. He's like the Ross Perot of the campaign. I half expected to hear him say "GRIDLOCK!" like Phil Harman's impersonation of Perot's running mate. He's awkward in speaking situations but he's also pretty balanced and extremly pragmatic.

Best moment: Sanchez asked if he was for abolition of the death penalty because of his ties to far left liberals. White said that no he was definitely not for abolition of the death penalty and that Sanchez obviously didn't follow politics very well because many liberals really disliked his fiscal conservativism. I'm not sure I would've believed that except for the fact that a good friend of mine was the treasurer for the state dems and she told me about White last year.

Worst moment: The silence. Because many of the candidates wanted to attack each other and weren't sure what to do with White, they generally left him out of the Q&A sessions. That left him with less air time than the others.

Turner: Turner came off as confident and pretty comfortable with himself. He is a big supporter of the HPOU, so it isn't too surprising he would feel comfortable in their forum. He played heavily on his experience and said that he wasn't interested in making empty promises but rather telling people what he's done and let them judge him on that. After seeing this and talking to some people in political circles, my guess is that Turner can easily make a runoff - probably the closest thing to a sure thing there is getting to a runoff.

Best moment: When he responded to the aforementioned Sanchez comment and was just laughing, it was genuinely funny. Sanchez also really gave him a softball because it allowed Turner to emphasize how many bills he had authored on behalf of law enforcement.

Worst moment: At one point, he had to ask if he had to question any of the candidates or if he could just talk. It was kind of awkward and a little wierd. I got the sense he was unprepared for asking questions of the other candidates, but they knew the format in advance so he shouldn't have been.

----

Overall impressions:

It basically re-inforced my thoughts as they have been.

Sanchez has problems. I even spoke to some friends of mine and they conceeded that even Sanchez' campaign is concerned he won't be able to make it to a runoff especiallay with Berry hammering on him as hard as he has been and with White siphoning off a lot of money from moderate local GOP members. I just get the sense that instead of the 2001 race making him a better candidate, it has made him more vulnerable. It was as if in that election he surprised everyone with how close he came to winning and this time they were prepared.

Berry is fiery and he definitely has ideas (not all of them good or bad), but he is green. He is still trying to figure out politics and it bites him on the ass at times. I would say he has a good shot at running for another office at some point and maybe even mayor at a later time, but he doesn't have the money or experience to win this one.

White is an enigma. He probably has the strongest chance of winning the whole ball of wax if people actually knew who he was. That's his biggest problem - creating ANY impression on people. He reminds me a little of Bob Lanier in some respects. He has the same affable nature and sort of good-ol-boy metality but he is more progressive than Lanier and, unfortunately for him, not nearly as well spoken. If he manages to get into a runoff, he'll win hands down no matter who he faces. But, can he get into a runoff? We'll see.

Turner is probably the one candidate you could handicap as a frontrunner. He acts the part of the frontrunner sometimes even sounding more like an incumbent. He has the strong backing of the African American community and plenty of money. He also enjoys some backing from friends throughout the state because of his years in the legislature. His issue will be dealing with White and White's ability to pull in anglo democrats in the inner loop - Heights, Montrose, etc. He still has a lot of work to do in those areas.

Still VERY VERY early in the election cycle to make any calls on anything. I still think a Sanchez v. Turner runoff is most likely a la Sanchez v. Brown in 2001 and I still think the results will be relatively similar with Turner edging him out.

But, no question, Sanchez has some problems and White makes a very intriguing choice for many moderates in both parties. Should be a nutty race. I'm glad I'm not working for anyone this time around!

 

I see Orlando Sanchez hanging around golf tournaments a lot.
He just seems so needy.

For me the mayor's race is a lot less about ideology and a lot more about managerial competence. I would usually be counted on the more liberal side but comparing the results of of the Brown admistration to the Lanier Aministration, I'll vote for whomever Mayor Bob comes out for.

 

I'm supposed to be going to a Bill White picnic in a couple of weeks...I'll let you know my impressions assuming I go...and assuming I remember to post about it!

 

They should have an official debate here in the D and D it would fit right in

 

Agreed, nonpartisan municipal elections are the way to go. That is what bloomberg is trying to do in ny so he doesn't have to be a pretend republican anymore.

 

Very nice synopsis of the mayoral candidates at the forum, Jeff. You should take more interest in state politics and what's happening in Austin right now. I might not agree with your opinion... who knows? But it would be a pleasure to read.

 

Orlando won *every* hispanic precinct in town last time around. Try again, Samuel. Are you too old to remember the *last* election, Samuel? I do appreciate the history lesson, though.

 

That is very true, however, Latino Democrats made a gigantic mistake in 2001 and they probably won't do it again.

In 2001, the Hispanic Chamber (a mostly Republican group) made itself the primary spokesman for Latinos in Houston. The truth is that most Latinos in Houston are Mexican and democrats. The Latino Democrats are and have been the dominant voice in local Hispanic politics.

Many of the Latino democrats didn't realize until late in the election that their voices were being drowned out by the much, MUCH smaller group of conservatives in their community. As a result, they were unable to mobilize their people in support of any candidate and most Latinos voted for the guy who had a Hispanic name.

The Latino Dems have already established themselves this time around as the voice for Latinos in Houston. They endorsed Bill White even when the Hispanic Chamber tried to force Sanchez on them.

Many Latinos in Houston were bothered by Sanchez' grabbing of the votes from their community in 2001. I know quite a few of the members of their political leadership and they vowed not to allow that to happen again.

I think we'll see a much more involved group of Hispanics from the region this time around and garnering votes in the Hispanic community will be tougher for Sanchez than it was in 2001.

 

Obviously he didn't win them by enough for it to make a difference did he? Nor did he seem to be able to motivate a voter turnout among hispanics that was anything more than pathetic. Somehow, mexican and central americans in houston couldn't get worked up about a conservative white cuban businessman. A strong hispanic candidate in houston, due to its demographics, (there is about a 38% hispanic plurality) should theoretically have an advantage. A weak candidate like Sanchez squanders this.

Are you going to gloat when he loses this time too?

 

I just wanted to mention that I think White's entrance in the campaign is part of an interesting phenomenon we've seen over the last few elections.

White is the representative white democrat. In 2001, that was Chris Bell. Prior to that, we've had guys like former comptroller George Grenias.

Most of them have fairly fiscally conservative platforms with progressive social agendas. They are all businessmen of a sort with some, if not a ton, of local political experience.

They all end up with a similar problem come election time: where do their votes come from?

African Americans vote practically in a block. Something like 98 percent of African Americans have voted for Brown since he won his first term in office.

Hispanics tend to have low voter turnout, but when they do turnout, they vote democrat and almost exclusively minority with the exception of Sanchez who was different because he was the first legitimate Hispanic candidate.

White democrats (Montrose, Heights, Meyerland, River Oaks, West U, etc) almost always vote for guys like White (ironic, ain't it?) but the only way they can win is by wooing moderate Republicans. The local GOP almost always tries their best to bash the hell out of them and tie them to any liberal democrat hated by suburban GOP voters. Kathy Whitmire, Lee Brown, Ann Richards and now the Clintons are examples.

Just watch as the GOP sends out mailers to its constituency tying White to Brown and, especially, Bill and Hillary.

I find it interesting that a candidate like White (or Grenias or Bell), who would likely be a frontrunner in any other politically moderate to liberal city like Houston, is actually someone who finds it tough to win votes locally.

 

Jeff,

There will always be whites in the city who will vote for the non Republican nominee, but it will always be a minority of the white voters in the city. Some of them are more likely to vote for a white dem than a black or hispanic one. In the end, the black or hispanic nominee will probably have more electability than the white dem. But white Dems have to stake out a position to retain some viability in the area. We are at the end of a Republican swing that started in 1994 or so, and the pendulum will probably swing back. We've gone from almost no Republican judges in the county to all Republican judges. That won't last forever, and I expect to see a turn no later than 2006.

you have to think of politics in terms of decades, not unlike a bball team that gets on top, then loses its edge, then has to rebuild entirely. hmmm, sounds like a team I know.

By running, Bill White helps to build his future as a candidate - for Congress, or something. A politician is a product for sell, and you have to market him to get name ID in the beginning. Most guys lose their first big election. Dubya did. He lost to Kent Hance for Congress. So Bill White is building a base, an organization, and getting in his rookie season as a pol.

Bill has been a party player since law school at UT. He's now stepping out into the office seekers, which is a whole nuther world. I expect he will run for something else in 2004. This is just his dress rehearsal.

 

usually, when you recruit candidates for office, you get a commitment from them to run TWICE


just thought I should add that

 

No arguments with anything you said. On your polling, I've heard basically the same thing but it is obviously WAY too early and the numbers are far too close at this point. Plus, there hasn't been any real extensive polling done to find out who is going to the polls and who is staying home. That will very likely decide the election given the unpredictable nature of turnout in the minority communities. The real campaigning won't even start until late September. Traditionally, Labor Day is the kick off for most campaigns.