An Evening with Barbara Ann Radnofsky

Well, I'm not sure how everyone else spent their Friday night, but mine was spent in the throes of healthy conversation with US Senate candidate Barbara Ann Radnofsky. One point worth offering immediate praise for Barbara is that unlike the handful of candidates who have previously either chickened out interviews, backed out of same, or merely had staff screw up, Barbara sought this out from the get-go and deserves high praise. Not just for a willingness to sit through my questioning, but bloggers in general.

Now, any quick search through this little blog will lead one to more than a few examples of my cynical streak. Among those points, I've been guilty of muttering sentiments along the lines of "Who the hell is Barbara Radnofsky?" So without further ado, let me do a complete reversal and state rather plainly that if there's any other candidates who are debating jumping into the race, the time is passing you by and Barbara isn't going to be quite the pushover she might look like from a distance. Name ID is going to be a hurdle for her, no doubt. But last I checked, there weren't many people with a significant lead on her in that category, save for the previous US Senate candidate that just went to work for the same firm as Barbara and by all indications is not going to be a candidate in 2006.

I started the evening off with the hardball question that I think is high atop everyone's mind ... Radnofsky is one of those souls who graduated from both the University of Houston (BA) and the University of Texas Law School. Being a rather proud Coog, I had to know who she rooted for in sporting events between the two. Let's just say Barbara started off the evening rather diplomatically. She's got family at or from a few other schools as well: Texas A&M and Rice, and one more daughter awaiting a decision. I pushed for sending her to Baylor in the hopes of reuniting the old Southwest Conference. We'll see how that goes.

But back to politics, the obvious question is "Why the Senate?" I mean, despite how much doubt or cynicism one still has after this review of Barbara, she's still one hell of an accomplished lawyer. One might think that an opening for Chief Justice at the Texas Supreme Court might be a rather prized office. But to Barbara, the Senate is "where the action is." It's not a flight-of-fancy ego trip, but rather what seems like a healthy mix of desire and ambition as well as seeking out the office that inspires one's intellectual curiosity the most.

Fair enough. But Senate campaigns can be harsh for people who have never run for political office before. Or, for that matter, they can be harsh for people who are relative newbies to political campaign work period. Still, nothing about Barbara really screams "novice" as you talk to her. I managed to find one new bit of information to pass her way by asking if she'd sought out any advice from Richard Fisher, the last major candidate for Senate we had with little to no campaign experience (I'm not sure what lessons are really comparable for Vic Morales, but make of it what you will). I'm imaging that for a blogger, a refreshing sensation of power is to send a candidate rushing for their Blackberry to make a note. I'll have to follow up on this with future interviews. Suffice it to say, Barbara is running hard and she's got November 2006 in her sights, not merely a concern of how to get out of a primary.

So let's talk about the state of the race between here and March 2006. I think an initial cynicism of Barbara's chances are easy to understand and downright forgivable at this stage. She gets that, but she also has a rather ready answer to it that goes a long way towards letting you know she's got this race thought through. She knows that if a poll were taken today, she'd likely register as an asterisk. She knows there's donors holding back to see who else gets in the race, but she also has a good sense that she's putting together the best gameplan for getting to a point of competitiveness by Election Day. It's a marathon, not a sprint, after all.

Having started early helps. Let's face facts here: 2004 was a harsh loss not just because we lost, not just because we lost to Bush, and not just because it was painfully close. It's a harsh loss because of the dearth of ideas expressed at the top of the ticket. That means there's way too much room for the usual circular firing squad practices that follow any loss. Lord knows I've left a few shells on the ground, too. But moving beyond these endeavors requires the focus of candidates on the next campaign. We're not likely to sit around solving what the party has to do on matters of war, trade, abortion, gay marriage, or anything else until candidates start hitting the hustings and putting the debate out to a wider audience. Campaigns revolve around candidates and not being a candidate right now does nothing to move your party forward. If you're a potential candidate for anything in 2006, you're either sitting at home knowing whether you're going to run or not. And statewide, that's even more critical. Another shutout at the statewide level raises the serious proposition that Texas Democrats may go the way of Idaho Democrats. Alleviating that situation is not going to be a mere one-year solution. The donor base among Dems has been decimated by loss fatigue, migration over to the party in power, and pressure to not give to both sides of the aisle by the party in power. Locating that mythical $10 million dollars that candidates say is the minimum necessary to be competitive is going to take an awful lot of new legwork to locate. In the cases of the two early candidates thus far, Chris Bell and Barbara Radnofsky, they've both got the right idea in starting early.

If and when Kay Bailey decides on her electoral fate, an open race for the Senate will no doubt flush out a few candidates. They'll all have to answer the then-fair question about where the hell they were for the previous year. But there's also some interesting thoughts to ponder about Kay's timing - a fact Barabara brought up, and I think she's onto something. Conventional wisdom is that Kay will announce sometime in the summer. But if she does announce for the Governorship, it might take longer in order to line up the support that Perry is already announcing. There's a very real chance that you're going to see Kay announce sometime in September or October. That means for all those other potential Dems now on the sidelines, you're down to putting together a campaign in a matter of mere months for the primary. By that time, it doesn't matter how much you have left in your campaign coffers or what your last name is ... there's no inherent advantage over Barbara that anyone possesses. The later Kay announces for the Governership, the better it is for Barbara. If Kay announces that she'll remain in DC, then look for the race to pretty much be Barbara's for the taking. But the fact that others are waiting to see what happens will and does beg the question ... what are you waiting for? The party needs rebuilding now, not only if and when someone else doesn't run. Barbara presently holds claim to the notion that in this new day and age, she's the one that gets what has to happen to succeed in the race for the Senate. If anyone else wants to compete for that, they need to act fast and not wait on someone else's decision.

Another issue to give some real concern to potential primary opponents: the estrogen factor. High profile women candidates have an edge in salability. It can be tougher to paint them in the traditional ways many of our candidates have gotten painted. It's tougher to go negative on them. And at the risk of being a tad sexist, I'd argue they get away with a little more in their ability to go negative (witness the scathing ads Ann Richards did on Clayton Williams by merely replaying his quotes). There's not been a great deal of female candidates at that tier for our side. Margaret Mirabel and Linda Yanez were about it for 2002, with Mirabel being one of the vote leaders, in part, due to the nature of her opponent. Before that, I think you're down to Rose Spector, Lena Guerrero, and Ann Richards. Yet another avenue that Barbara has a political opportunity to gain from in terms of both the primary and the general election.

So how does Barbara see the landscape ahead allowing for her to at least be competitive by Election Day 2006? Color me impressed by the ready acknowledgement that for a Dem to win Texas, broadening the base and reaching out to persuadable independents is a necessity. Barbara's pro-choice, but is equally adamant that more can be done to reduce the number of abortions in terms of economic opportunities for families, health care opportunity, etc ... She's also against Social Security Privatization, something that may well play out as an issue against either Kay or Henry Bonilla, who would have to vote on the issue in Congress. The latter is a particularly noteworthy issue as the disparity between Bush's barely mentioned campaign on the issue contrasts with the depth of the costs involved in his do-or-die push for it in this Congressional session. That may well play to our hands in East Texas, a region rich in independent voters where we've occassionally won from time to time, and one in which several elderly residents live on Social Security as a primary source of income. Barbara's done a good bit of travel through East Texas thus far. so look for that region to get some extra attention by all sides.

Some extraneous notes worth mentioning, as well ...