If you haven’t heard, Texas Ag Commissioner and Lt. Gov. candidate Todd Staples ramped up his campaign after Labor Day and is on a bus tour of the state. The bus tour is scheduled to make over 50 stops around the state. I decided to go to two of the stops yesterday, one in Texas City and one in Pearland.
The Texas City stop was held at the Galveston County GOP headquarters. Roughly a dozen folks gathered to meet the candidate, drink coffee, and eat donuts. He was introduced by GCGOP Chair Barbara Meeks. After giving his stump speech, Meeks asked him about the “fiasco” that occurred at the end of the first special session and what he would do to stop a repeat from happening. His answer was pretty strong, changing his criticism of David Dewhurst’s “wining and dining with lobbyists” from the forum I attended Monday to “drinking with lobbyists”. He said that he wished Wendy Davis would run for Lt. Gov. because he’d like to take her on. And lastly, he noted that her run for Governor is likely to cost some local down ballot Republicans their elections. Take a listen:
The second stop was in Pearland at Heritage Bank on Pearland Pkwy. Staples was introduced by State Rep. Dennis Bonnen. There were roughly 30 people at this one. Staples gave about a 14 minute stump speech that was enthusiastically received. Take a listen:
The main reason I wanted to make these stops was to see how well Staples connected with different groups. I’ve seen him four times speaking with a broad spectrum of different people. Although he’s run and won statewide, running for Lt. Gov. is much higher profile and he’ll need to sway a decent percentage of the voters in the Houston metro area if he is going to be competitive in March 2014. What I’ve seen is that he does have the ability to connect but I think he is going to have to spend more time in the Houston metro area if he is going to accomplish his goal. Familiarity is a must with these voters and the other three candidates are spending a lot of time here. He doesn’t need to win the Houston metro area to get to a runoff but he cannot let the other guys win big.
I asked him if and when he was going to hire staff for Houston and he told me that they are sorting through resumes and hoped to have someone on board soon. Putting boots on the ground will help tremendously because the other teams are showing up at every event. Heck, Patterson’s guy was at Staples’ Texas City stop. And Dewhurst has a guy going to other candidate’s speeches and video recording them. Time’s a wastin.
The campaign is providing updates by text – send a text message containing “Staples” to 21824. This was pretty popular at the Pearland stop as about half the crowd signed up.
Website: ToddStaples.com
Facebook: Todd Staples
A few pictures from the stops:
Mark says
And what exactly does this have to do with the price of tea in China before it is shipped wholesale to Walmart for repackaging?
Is this your endorsement?
David Jennings says
Mark,
It doesn’t have anything to do with the price of tea in China as best as I can tell. But it certainly has to do with an important race in Texas for Lt. Gov.
Not sure what your complaint is, this is what I do. No endorsement.
Dave