There is a lot of hot air filling the Parent PAC balloon right now in Austin, and it isn’t necessarily Parent PAC’s fault.
In a panel discussion last week moderated by Evan Smith, journalists rehearsed the talking point that is coming to carry more and more of the moderate messaging load in Austin. It goes something like, ”Boy, Parent PAC sure was impressive in the primaries – right guys?”
Parent PAC is being promoted because school funding leads the moderate/liberal push for more spending and Parent PAC is a political symbol of “more school funding”. Parent PAC contributed money to 11 winning legislative primary campaigns.
On the whole, the 2012 primaries were a big win for conservative in the House and Senate. There is no need to rehearse the new makeup of the Senate or our moderate Speaker’s long and impressive list of fallen/retired comrades. Conservatives have a clear mandate in the 83rd legislature.
Parent PAC’s alleged glittering success in the primary is the moderate counter-narrative, one that looks like it will be leaned on heavily in the House.
However, can Parent PAC’s eleven wins bear the weight of the moderate counter-narrative being promoted? Let’s take a look.
First of all, Parent PAC went 11-13 in the primary season. That’s 11 wins and 13 losses, nothing to write home about, especially since their losses included entrenched incumbents Sen. Jeff Wentworth and Rep. Todd Smith. Both of these men were beaten by candidates firmly supported by conservatives. Donna Campbell’s win over Jeff Wentworth was nothing short of spectacular. Parent PAC had no corresponding inspirational, severe-underdog victories.
In fact, Parent PAC targeted four strong conservative incumbents in fair fights. They were Dan Flynn, Bryan Hughes, Bill Zedler, and Debbie Riddle. Parent PAC decisively lost all four of these primaries.
Let’s look at their 11 wins.
Two were in Democratic primaries, which doesn’t help their narrative. Anyone who would have won a Democratic primary, with or without Parent PAC help, would have been in favor of maximum school spending. Growing government is what Democrats do. Unlike moderates, they don’t hide it.
This leaves Parent PAC nine wins with which to spin a legitimate moderate counter-narrative.
The two strong conservative incumbents Parent PAC defeated were unfair fights. Wayne Christian and Jim Landtroop were redistricted out of 80% of their districts in order to make them vulnerable. No fair observer is claiming these two men weren’t gerrymandered out of their seats by Team Straus.
This leaves Parent PAC seven wins with which to spin a moderate counter-narrative.
Two of their vanquished foes, Marva Beck and Sid Miller, were abandoned by conservatives after they squarely sided with moderate Speaker Joe Straus over the conservative Ken Paxton in the 2011 speaker race. These races may have been missed opportunities for conservatives, but they do not help to prove moderates are preferred to conservatives, as Austin insiders are promoting. These two candidates were associated with Team Moderate. For political purposes these two races were moderates beating moderates.
This leaves Parent PAC five wins with which to spin a legitimate moderate counter-narrative.
Two of these Parent PAC “victories” really have no business being attributed to Parent PAC. Greg Bonnen is the first. He raised and spent over $1 million in his campaign. While Parent PAC plus Charles Butt (Butt is Parent PAC’s super-majority donor) gave him real money – $29,000 – this was a small percentage of his total fundraising and spending. In addition, Bonnen had the support of much of the conservative movement.
Parent PAC gave Ed Thompson a paltry $500, and Thompson was endorsed by the popular outgoing Representative Randy Weber, fresh off of voting against Joe Straus for Speaker. To call this a Parent PAC win is a stretch. It was a Weber win before it was a Parent PAC win.
This leaves Parent PAC three wins with which to spin a legitimate moderate counter-narrative.
In two Parent PAC candidate wins, Jason Villalba and Cecil Bell, they were blessed with an opponent who refused to do negative campaigning. Not “going negative,” while often well-intended, is also dangerous. The populous has come to expect to hear both what is right and what is wrong with a candidate from his opponent. The net result of not providing this information is that the voters think there is nothing wrong with one candidate and something wrong with the other.
Even with legitimately mitigating circumstances, these were two of the wins that best fit the moderate counter-narrative.
So, out of 24 races played in, Parent PAC has only two or three that can be credibly claimed to fit the “moderate, not conservative” counter-narrative being pushed in Austin.
This isn’t a primary record to brag about. The moderate load that is increasingly being placed on Parent PAC’s primary involvement is not credible.