Kay expands Campaign Staff, surpasses Perry's re-election team in growth

Gardner Shelby at the Austin American-Statesman just published an article about significant changes to Senator Hutchison's gubernatorial campaign staff.

Wiley and Sullivan said the change in leadership, finalized last week, was not in reaction to Hutchison losing ground to GOP Gov. Rick Perry in recent polls. Instead, the two said, the addition of new staff and consultants reflected timely growth in a campaign intent on making history.

“As with any campaign, you build as you go,” Sullivan said. “You don’t hit the ground with a full staff.

“This is big; this is going to be one of the biggest races the country has ever seen outside of a presidential race. This is a multi-dimensional campaign. We want to make sure we’ve got the firepower to win.”

Sullivan, 35, said he’s never managed a gubernatorial campaign. But he previously worked in Texas for Hutchison in 2005, leaving then only after Hutchison chose not to challenge Perry in 2006.

“It’s going to be fun to kick Rick Perry’s record around for the next seven months,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan managed Jim DeMint’s 2004 win of a Senate seat in South Carolina. Later, he coached various Senate campaigns before managing presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s effort in South Carolina in 2008.

Shelby also reports that Kay's campaign staff is larger than Governor Perry's re-election team and growing:

Hutchison’s campaign, which already exceeded the size of Perry’s operation, is also set to reveal other hires, which Wiley and Sullivan characterized as signs of a promising build-up rather than a troubling shake-up.

Two individuals will focus on communication with reporters and a third will be handling rapid response to incidents and sallies from Perry’s campaign. Over the past few weeks there has been great speculation about whether Kay should or would drop out of her bid for the Governorship. Shelby's report seems to indicate otherwise; instead Kay's campaign seems strong and organized.

Jeff Sadosky’s arrival as press secretary amounts to no surprise considering Hutchison’s campaign earlier this year retained Hans Klingler, formerly with the Republican Party of Texas, as communications director but didn’t immediately designate a press secretary entrusted with day-to-day reporter contacts. Sadosky took the campaign job this week after joining Hutchison’s Washington staff as communications director earlier this year.

The campaign’s new senior communications adviser, Jennifer Coxe-Baker, previously helped Mel Martinez of Florida win a Senate seat. She also was a spokeswoman for the Bush administration’s Secretary of Labor.

Joe Pounder, designated the deputy communications director, will focus on rapid response. He has worked for U.S. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican Whip, for whom he composed this blog today, and Romney’s presidential campaign. (A reader forwarded this Pounder profile from Politico.com.

Sullivan said two Dallas-based consultants—already affiliated with Scott Howell, who’s handling Hutchison’s TV advertising—will play significant roles going forward. Heath Thompson, who was a regional political director in the Bush-Cheney campaign of 2004, will focus on strategy, while Todd Harris, who’s been a spokesman for Florida’s Jeb Bush, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sen. John McCain, will be a point person on communications. Harris was once called a “spinner extraordinaire” by “Roll Call,” the Washington newspaper.

The continued growth and organization of Kay's camp clearly shows she's ready to fight Governor Perry for the 2010 republican gubernatorial race. Here at KVR we agree with Shelby's assessment that this latest re-organization to her staff is not a shake-up, but rather a strategic build-up of experienced campaign staff. Hold on to your cowboy hat, it looks like Kay's kicking up dust and possibily running Rick outta town.

Polls indicate both Perry and Sen. Hutchison are tied

A Rasmussen poll released today indicates that Governor Perry and Senator Hutchison are "essentially tied in an early look at their 2010 Primary battle."

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey shows Perry attracting 42% of the vote while Hutchison earns 38%. Seven percent (7%) say they’d like to vote for somebody else and 13% are undecided.

Perry leads by 15 percentage points among conservative voters but Hutchison leads by 35 points among the moderates.

Garner Shelby at the Austin American-Statesman reported yesterday that "A poll taken Sunday and Monday on behalf of Gov. Rick Perry’s re-election campaign suggests that among Republicans likely to vote in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary, Perry is in striking distance of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison."

The summary doesn’t precisely say how pollster Mike Baselice chose who to poll.

Hutchison’s camp later questioned the methodology.

Her campaign manager, Rick Wiley, and a senior strategist, long-time GOP pollster Lance Tarrance Jr., took issue with Perry’s campaign testing the candidates in two ways—both with their officeholder titles (Gov. Perry, Sen. Hutchison) and simply by their names. Tarrance said the sample size in each case means the margin of error for each sample of 250 GOP voters is plus or minus 10 percent.

“Maybe they’re baiting everybody” with the poll, Tarrance said.

Baselice said later the plus or minus margin of error for a sample of 250 voters would actually be 6.1 percent.

In the summary, Baselice advises: “The overall ballot score shows the race much closer than some of recent polls floating around the Internet.” The percentages as relayed to Perry supporters by Perry consultant Dave Carney: Hutchison 44 percent, Perry 39 percent.

Yet those percentage combine the two samples. When the two were paired against each other by names alone, Hutchison led by 11 percentage points, that is: Hutchison, 47 percent, Perry 36 percent.

Put another way, nearly one in two Republican voters favors Hutchison for governor at this time.

Baselice, reached later, defended his approach.

Perry's raises more from Washington donors than Kay?!?

The Associated Press is reporting today that, "Perry has collected $2.7 million from Washington since becoming governor — four times more than Hutchison's $670,000 from Washington during the same period, a Morning News analysis found".

Perry has been able to raise far more than Hutchison overall because federal campaigns have limits on individual donations, while Texas state campaigns do not. A slightly higher percentage of Hutchison's campaign money has come from Washington.

The money has come from political communities, lobbyists, individuals and interest groups.

We reported last month that Perry's political strategy is to paint Senator Hutchison as a 'Washington outsider'. The AP article continues with comments from Kay's campaign manager and the Texans for Public Justice:

The governor's financial support from the Beltway undercuts efforts to distance himself from the nation's capital by painting himself as the candidate of Texas-style government and Hutchison as the candidate of Washington, which recently landed Perry in the national spotlight amid talk of Texas secession.

"Governor Perry has built a fundraising mechanism well beyond the boundaries of Texas," said Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice, a nonprofit group that tracks campaign money. "He has been very successful with special interest groups inside the Beltway."

Hutchison campaign manager Rick Wiley said it's more evidence that Perry likes to bash Washington but has no problem taking its money — except for $555 million in federal unemployment stimulus money, which the governor says has strings attached and he has rejected.

"One has to wonder what kind of strings he's attached to the fundraising haul he had from Washington, D.C.," Wiley said.