Saturday, October 22, 2011

The Chair

A story from a supposed ex-Solicitor General's office employee we ran into.:

"On those rare days that Raffy Cruz was actually in the office (as opposed to traveling about on the taxpayers dime promoting himself) he used to sit in his office and cut these huge farts, especially after lunch.  Cruz would sink his butt deeper into the leather seat to muffle the sound.  Ted was hated by most people at the AG's office, so it gave most people even more reason to avoid him."


"After Cruz quit working for the Attorney General's office, the joke in the office used to be that the new guy got the Cruz chair.  We'd let the new guy go about a week before he was told what he was sitting in."


It's probably a tall tale.  But aren't the 'smelly' stories about the Cuban Canadian the most interesting?

Friday, October 21, 2011

Well, He's ba-ack…with Another Memo.

I swear that Special Interest Lobbyist Jason Johnson just LOVES to write memos (link to full memo is posted below at the bottom) about his Foreign born, eastern establishment educated political client, Rafael "Ted" Cruz.  It's a fascinating, psychological insight into the mind of the 'man behind the man ' and what alternative universe he exists in (Note to self: forward link to JJ memo to interns at the Masters & Johnson clinic, they probably need a good chuckle as well as an idea for a project.)


This is NOT Special Interest Lobbyist Jason Johnson,
it is the late great Dennis Hopper.  This kinda looks like
 JJ so we used it since we still don't have a real photo.

And once again our anonymous friend over at "Texan on TXSen" takes this sumbitch to task for his seemingly endless desire to tell the intelligencia of Texas politics how smart he is and how the gospel according to JJ will one day prevail.  Gawd.

Well, thank god for "Texan on TXSen" - we have posted the essence of Texans response plus a link to this wonderful new website that most people who are not doing their own sister should be able to grasp.  We have also put in our own comments since, well, this is our blog:


Is Jason Johnson Ted Cruz’s Glass Jaw?
Texan on #TxSen Blog
October 21, 2011

Maybe Jason Johnson knows something I don’t, but I doubt it.

In the latest memo from general consultant Jason Johnson, the Ted Cruz campaign rolls out their case for victory. Rather than highlight the genuine, positive attributes of their campaign that are based in reality, Johnson instead lays out the foundation of his case using three factors that are a complete house of cards. Johnson’s claims:

1)      Cruz has won “11 consecutive straw polls against the major candidates” If Johnson is trying to portray Ted Cruz as a Tea Party juggernaut, he is conveniently forgetting that another Tea Party favorite Glenn Addison handily defeated Ted Cruz at two of the most high-profile straw polls in Waco and Austin.

CanadaCruz Note: Cruz is now starting to "No-Show" at these bogus candidate forums.  he recently did so at a GOP Club Northwest Houston.  How do you spell hypocrisy?  R-A-F-A-E-L C-R-U-Z.

2)      Cruz has the highest fundraising total of anyone in this race* Over the last 270 days, Cruz raised more money than any other Senate candidate ($2.8M); however, it took David Dewhurst ($2.64M in 3rd Quarter) less than 45 days to nearly outraise the amount Cruz has raised over the last 270 days.

Tom Leppert has raised nearly $2.5 million, also over the last nine months, but has the personal resources to make up for any fundraising edge Cruz may have.

Both Dewhurst and Leppert dwarf Cruz in cash-on-hand.  

CanadaCruz Note:  To political novices and virgins, it is cash-on-hand that matters, when you take away all the Run-off and General money that Cruz has collected in advance (isn't it amazing that is legal?) and back out his expenses plus assume that he had spent some cash since the last report, he barely has $2 million bucks - statewide media in Texas costs $1.5 million per WEEK.   

3)      Johnson touts poll showing Cruz in first place. As I have mentioned before, Johnson and the Cruz campaign team are doing their candidate a disservice in promoting this poll. No matter how the poll is framed, it is based on faulty methodology. The campaign will have to stand by this talking point the next time any major public poll comes out.

In his overly-defensive response to a barb that trial lawyer Ted Cruz is on the wrong side in his legal defense of a Chinese conglomerate against an American inventor; and in this meandering memo, Johnson emerges as the glass jaw of the Cruz campaign.

In spite of Johnson’s recklessness, campaign manager John Drogin deserves true credit for maximizing Cruz’s connections with the Ivy League, Wall Street bankers, trial lawyers and Washington insiders into quality, national earned-media appearances for his candidate.

CanadaCruz Note: We're not so sure we would go that far, since Raffy Cruz' depth is like acid rain: non-existent.

 Jason Johnson? Not so much.

After losing Greg Abbott as a client, Johnson seems to be doubling down on a Cruz candidacy by chasing every wild pitch. Memos like these only serve as notice that he is not ready for the major league.

CanadaCruz Note: Supporters of RRC Candidate Roland Sledge and State Senate Candidate Dr. Mark Shelton (other JJ clients) have to wonder how much time they are really gonna get from old JJ since he seems Cruz obsessed.  Makes you wonder if they haven't hitched themselves to the wrong lobby horse.

Oh and here's the link to JJ's memo that was written on Fantasy Island:

http://www.tedcruz.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/MEMO-Why-Ted-Cruz-Will-Win1.pdf

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

"A Confederacy of Dunces"

Nope, Cruzheads aren't confederates. But we like the quote and
it made us think of 'bama Leonard Skinnard type biker chicks. 
An interesting blog came to the same conclusion we did about the bogus poll that the Cruzheads were chattering about yesterday: http://texanontxsen.blogspot.com/.  Anyway, the guy has some interesting conclusions about the Senate race and where things are.

Basically this dude called the Cruz campaign staff a 'confederacy of dunces.'  The Cruz campaign seems to treat poll numbers the way the late Grace Allen spoke about campaign platforms.

Gracie once said, "A platform is something a candidate stands for and the voters fall for."  Looks like the Cruz staff could actually take the humor of Gracie as wisdom.  Wow! Burns and Allen must be chuckling from their masoleum.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Cruz tries Canadian Political Tradition: Shoveling Manure


Political Crap seems to be Cruz' Canadian birthright
Canada native Ted Cruz seems to be incorporating some old traditions of the late Canadian PM Pierre Trudeau:  when things aren't going your way, cook up numbers that work for you.

Ted Cruz's supporters were crowing yesterday about a poll purporting to show first-time candidate Cruz in a dead heat with well-known Lt. Governor David Dewhurst. It didn't pass the smell test with me so I did some digging. The "poll" was conducted by an outfit calling itself Azimuth Research Group -- an organization unknown in Texas politics to the best of my knowledge. I checked out the Azimuth website but didn't learn a lot more -- there are no names of the firm's principals, no prior clients, no evidence of any kind of track record. The website did boast a statement that "All of our public polls are conducted as much as possible in accordance with the standards and practices of the American Association for Public Opinion Researchers."

As much as possible?

Why wouldn't a reputable polling firm follow acceptable scientific research standards every time? (Read it for yourself here: http://www.fontcraft.com/azimuth/?page_id=2)  That statement was probably supposed to inspire confidence, but it raised more questions and so I dug a little deeper and discovered that Azimuth's principal is an Austin libertarian activist named Dave Nalle. The only previous Nalle/Azimuth poll mentioned anywhere the internet was a presidential poll in the summer purporting to show Ron Paul preferred by more Texans than Rick Perry. That poll came under criticism because Nalle didn't follow the traditional scientific principles of random sampling, designed to ensure a result that mirrors the electorate at large. Instead, Nalle apparently used the peculiar method of send email surveys to Republican activists involved in a select group of Republican clubs -- a method that would be dismissed with laughter by any legitimate pollster. 

These polls numbers are just like this guy: p-yew!
Even Nalle himself admitted that his methodology can produce a pronounced regional bias. (check it out here: http://www.nolanchart.com/article8814-azimuth-admits-regional-variations-in-response-rate-may-have-influenced-poll.html).  Several other Texas blogs -- and a few MSM reporters -- have swallowed Nalle's unreliable data whole. But we know our readers expect more than spoon-feeding.

When you look behind these numbers, you see fiction far more than fact. Ted Cruz -- and Tom Leppert for that matter -- may turn out to be real challengers to Dewhurst in this Senate race. But all reliable evidence that exists today indicates that this race is far from close today. It's no wonder Cruz's people touted this phony poll -- they don't have a scientific survey to use in its place.

And just like fellow his Canadian, poor old Pierre Trudeau (you know, like when his economic policies were crashing or he couldn't keep his wife from bar hopping), Canada Cruz is gonna find that cooking the numbers leads to a quiet life NOT in public office.

Remember Rafael, cooked poll numbers are NOT like manure - they do no good when you spread them around.