Off the Kuff: Some sloppy Senate reporting

December 16, 2008

Some sloppy Senate reporting

The Hill has a story about Houston Mayor Bill White's apparent decision to run for the Senate seat that will presumably be vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison. By my count, it has three errors in it.

The three-term mayor, who won reelection in 2007 with 86 percent of the vote, gives Democrats a top recruit in the Lone Star State, something the party lacked this year when Sen. John Cornyn (R) won reelection by a wide margin.

They misspelled "gives Democrats a candidate the DSCC is actually willing to support in the Lone Star State".

White's entry into the race comes after a prolonged courting period by both national and state Democrats, who had hoped to coax the mayor to run for either Hutchison's seat or for governor. White's Senate bid gives the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee its first major recruit of the 2010 cycle.

Of course, we don't know that this race will actually be in 2010. It could take place any time between May of 2009 and May of 2011, depending on when KBH decides to tender her resignation. If I had to bet, I'd put my money on May of 2010. This would be part of the 2010 cycle, even if it winds up being a post-2010 election, but the way this is written it sounds like the race will be in November of 2010 like everything else, when that's almost surely not going to be the case.

Though White would begin as an underdog in a state that remains solidly Republican, the open seat and the prospect of a bloody GOP primary give Democrats hope they may be able to snag a Senate seat in advance of the 2010 elections.

Given that this will be a special election, which means everybody into the pool all at once and thus no primary at all, that's a pretty questionable hope. On the plus side, they did at least note the uncertain timing of the race, so maybe I was too harsh on them in the previous paragraph. Overall, though, color me unimpressed with this particular piece of journalism. Miya has more on White's still-unmade decision.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on December 16, 2008 to Election 2010

Comments

You noted:

Given that this will be a special election, which means everybody into the pool all at once and thus no primary at all, that's a pretty questionable hope.

Actually, whether or not there is a primary depends entirely upon the timing of Hutchison's resignation. If the vacancy occurs between January 1, and the 62nd day before primary 2010, the office will appear on the primary ballot for Democrats and Republicans, and it will be a head-to-head general election contest.

I wondered about this myself and did a good deal of research on it, and queried the Secretary of State's office. The above is what I was advised by SOS.

Posted by: Vince Leibowitz on December 16, 2008 12:10 PM