In the final hours of his incomplete term, Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert told News 8 Friday morning he is a candidate for the Republican nomination for United States Senate. Leppert announced his intentions during a Friday morning taping of “Inside Texas Politics.”
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On why he is running, Leppert said this: “I think we bring a different perspective; a conservative approach; clearly I think I have an understanding of how the economy works. I built businesses, I created jobs, I’ve had to deal with spending, cutting spending on both the public and private side and where we are today is Washington is overspending, it’s overtaxing and as a result it’s destroying jobs.”
The role of a partisan candidate will be a new one for Leppert. He served without party label and got high marks from his colleagues on the Council, most of whom are Democrats, for finding consensus on most issues and doing so in a respectful, accommodating way.
However, running in the primary for Kay Bailey Hutchison’s highly-sought seat may be a whole different level for the former construction company CEO. He will have to face GOP voters hungry for red meat issues such as sharply reduced spending, debt and social issues.
Leppert has tried to show he knows how to make a sharp turn to the right.
From there comes the usual checklist of modern day Republican talking points. I don’t know much about Tom Leppert so I have no way of judging whether that stuff sounds natural or forced coming from him. I do know why he’s going that route and I wouldn’t expect anyone to do anything different, but it still feels a bit like a strategy that’s born to fail. I mean, it’s not like the red meat crowd lacks champions in this race, and if they harbor any doubts about his bona fides they’re unlikely to be mollified by what he says now. Not that there’s a better avenue available to him, I suppose. I don’t think much of his chances to win the nomination – the most recent Texas Trib poll either didn’t list him as a candidate or didn’t get enough responses naming him to mention a number – but we’ll see how it goes. The DMN has more.
Leppert will be a non-factor. His base is supposed to be Dallas, but even there, 2/3rds of the people there don’t even know who he is. Not a good place to start.
He doesn’t have any kind of record that will fly with Republican Primary voters, and he is hardly working to create a good impression with those voters – reaching out the Log Cabin Republicans (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20091126-Dallas-Mayor-Tom-Leppert-woos-Republicans-2706.ece) early on probably isn’t something that he wants the rest of the Rep primary electorate to be the first thing they hear about