Posted on 09/04/2011 4:11:28 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Show up at a Rick Perry campaign event, whether a book signing in New Orleans, a prayer rally in Houston or a speech to enthusiastic Republican faithful in South Carolina, and you may notice a hulking, gray-haired man standing on the fringes of the crowd.
He rarely gives interviews these days and is not yet well-known outside political circles.
Yet, Dave Carney is, without question, the most important person in Perry's presidential quest outside of the candidate himself.
Almost every presidential election cycle, the spotlight illuminates a campaign guru whose tactical acumen seemingly propels his client to heights unreachable alone.
For Republicans, Karl Rove — “Bush's Brain” — occupied that position during George W. Bush's White House years; James Carville was the Democrats' man with a campaign plan for Bill Clinton.
For 2012, Carney is stepping into that role, as his client soars in the early polls and he gets credit for a strategic innovation he put into place for Perry's 2006 Texas gubernatorial race and may be adapting for Perry's presidential quest.
The state's longest-serving governor was insisting as recently as a few months ago that he had no interest in being president, whereas his campaign strategist has been preparing for this moment throughout a long and winding behind-the-scenes odyssey in local, state and national politics.
Carney originally had cast his lot in this year's Republican primary with Newt Gingrich, as his New Hampshire coordinator, but left as part of an exodus of top campaign staff in June. To many, that was a signal Perry would enter the race, which he did three weeks ago.
Neither Carney nor the Perry campaign returned phone calls seeking comment for this report.
Early career
Carney, 52, began his political career in his native New Hampshire, working for former Gov. John Sununu, then followed his mentor to Washington when Sununu became President George H.W. Bush's chief of staff.
At 33, he was named national field director for the 1992 Bush-Quayle presidential campaign and four years later was a senior adviser to then-Sen. Majority Leader Bob Dole during the Kansan's White House bid.
“At 36, Carney is already a legend among Republican operatives,” Time magazine wrote.
After Dole lost to Clinton, the legend retreated to the New Hampshire woods, where he concentrated on growing his consulting firm, Norway Hill Associates, based in his hometown, Hancock.
His wife, Lauren, is co-owner and stays closer to home while Carney flies Southwest Airlines back and forth to Texas.
Former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, then chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, brought Carney to the Lone Star State in 1993 to help with Kay Bailey Hutchison's U.S. Senate bid.
Chad Wilbanks, former executive director of the Texas Republican Party, credited Carney with helping Hutchison distinguish herself in a special-election field of 24 candidates and then go on to defeat Bob Krueger, a former Texas congressman appointed by Gov. Ann Richards to serve out Lloyd Bentsen's term when he became U.S. Treasury secretary.
“A lot of his skill has to do with his being able to take a wealth of information and break it down into simple terms, whether it's polling data, history, resources, whatever,” Wilbanks said. “He helps his candidate speak the language that the American people understand.”
The New Englander came back to Texas in 1997, when Austin-based GOP consultant Rove dropped his other clients, including a relatively obscure state agriculture commissioner named Perry, to concentrate on Gov. George W. Bush's 1998 re-election effort and subsequent presidential campaign. Carney picked up Perry, and the two have been together ever since.
Carney and Rove found themselves at odds a year later, when Bush was breezing toward re-election, and Perry was in a tough lieutenant governor's race with Democrat John Sharp, the state comptroller.
Carney insisted Perry go negative, despite Rove's insistence that negative campaigning would depress voter turnout and undercut the Bush portrait he was crafting of a “compassionate conservative.”
Carney got his way and Perry won, barely, but the Carney-Rove working relationship didn't. The estrangement has only gotten worse. Carney never endorsed Bush during the 2000 GOP primary and 10 years later dismissed Hutchison and her Bush-family supporters as “country-club Republicans.”
In the early days of Perry's presidential campaign, Rove has been one of the governor's most outspoken critics.
The Perry team
Years ago, former White House chief of staff Andrew Card good-naturedly described Carney as “temperamental and a bit nuts,” but those who know both Carney and Rove say Carney is more secure with himself than Rove.
Reporters find Carney terse and to the point, although he can flash a self-deprecating sense of humor and doesn't seem to hold a grudge.
Like Rove, he has developed a reputation as a no-nonsense professional who will do pretty much whatever it takes to win. A key to Carney's success, said Austin political consultant Bill Miller, is a cohesive campaign team whose members have worked together for years.
“The collegiality of the Perry team under Dave Carney is far superior to that of the Bush team under Karl Rove,” Miller said. “They understand each other better, and they work better together.”
The Carney team was in place for Perry's 2002 governor's race against Democrat Tony Sanchez. Despite being outspent 3-1 by the multimillionaire Laredo businessman, the team ran a vicious campaign that focused on Sanchez's failed savings and loan and its alleged connections to drug kingpins. Perry won with more than 57 percent of the vote.
Heading into the governor's 2006 re-election effort, Carney came across a book by Yale political scientist Donald Green that radically changed the way he looked at campaigns.
In “Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout,” Green and co-author Alan Gerber contend that modern-day campaign staples — mass mailings, TV buys and robocalls — were striking in their ineffectiveness. What worked, they maintained, were old-fashioned approaches — knocking on doors, phone calls by volunteers, public appearances by the candidate.
Carney bought the book for everyone on his team and then invited Green and Gerber, along with political scientists Daron Shaw of the University of Texas at Austin, and James Gimpel of the University of Maryland to test the book's conclusions during the 2006 race.
Gimpel said that invitation proved to him that Carney isn't a know-it-all.
“He thinks he has something to learn, and he's willing to learn,” Gimpel said last week. “I don't know too many consultants who are willing or secure enough to admit that they don't know it all.”
Sasha Issenberg, the author of a forthcoming book about the new science of campaigns, told the New York Times recently that “the eggheads,” as they were known within the Perry camp, ran extensive experiments testing the effectiveness of techniques and concluded the highest-value use of Perry's time as a campaigner was to do public events around the state.
The professors persuaded Carney and the governor that a grass-roots approach not only was more effective politically but also dramatically more cost-effective. TV ads, they concluded, had short-lived impact, and robocalls had no effect at all, while direct mail invariably ended up in the trash.
Their findings provided the scaffolding for Perry's 2010 campaign against Hutchison and Debra Medina in the GOP primary and in the general election against Bill White.
“I think that it probably saved them some money and probably kept them from doing some conventional, stupid stuff that doesn't work, during the primary,” Gimpel said. “It allowed them to run up the margin just enough on KBH that they avoided a runoff. A runoff would have been a $2 million proposition. That freed up resources for elsewhere, and that gave them a leg up on Bill White.”
Gimpel particularly was impressed with the “home headquarters” scheme, which involved supporters volunteering to get 12 pro-Perry voters to the polls. He expects Carney to adapt the idea to Perry's presidential campaign.
‘Bit of a bully'
Kathy Sullivan, a New Hampshire lawyer and Democratic national committeewoman, professes not to be terribly impressed with Carney's innovation.
“That's something we've all been talking about for several election cycles,” she said. “The way TV works, with TiVo and people speeding through ads, we've been stressing knocking on doors and pounding the pavement for some time. (Former Democratic presidential candidate) Howard Dean was doing it in 2004. It's not original with Dave.”
Sullivan admits that she and Carney don't like each other.
“I think Dave's a bit of a bully. He has a nasty temper, doesn't like to be challenged,” she said last week.
In 2004, Sullivan filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission for Carney's role in trying to get Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader on the ballot in New Hampshire as a way to undercut support for Democratic nominee John Kerry.
“The FEC staff wanted to proceed,” she said, “but the FEC commissioners said no.”
Sullivan noted that Carney also has been involved with a Virginia-based group called Americans for Job Security, which has a reputation for running multimillion-dollar attack ads against candidates without disclosing the source of the money.
In 2002, the Alaska Public Offices Commission fined the group for improperly trying to influence Alaska elections. It already is running pro-Perry ads in New Hampshire.
In Texas, the group attacked a Republican state representative from Longview, Tommy Merritt, in a state Senate special election because he had been an outspoken Perry critic and had opposed Republican congressional redistricting efforts.
“Dave Carney is a ruthless political consultant,” Merritt told the Houston Chronicle in 2009. “Dave Carney has no respect for the person's well-being or love of family if they stand in Dave Carney's way.”
Gimpel has a slightly different perspective.
“He knows he's in charge,” he said. “He has a foul mouth at times, but probably no more so than a lot of other people in the business. I think it kind of goes with the territory.”
A President is important, we’ve seen this proved in spades with Obama. But, he’s important because of who he’ll appoint. The agenda is carried forward by hundreds of unknown, unseen political appointees. The ‘entourage’ of political hanger onners and fellows who will move the President’s agenda forward.
Who are those people? Who surrounds Perry? Who will he appoint? SCOTUS is more critical now than ever. Will Perry find us another Thomas or a Souter? Is he simply a 3rd Bush or will he steer the country back towards the middle - the Constitution?
Once again, if you read the article, you would have seen this line:
Carney got his way [over Rove] and Perry won, barely, but the Carney-Rove working relationship didn't. The estrangement has only gotten worse. Carney never endorsed Bush during the 2000 GOP primary and 10 years later dismissed Hutchison and her Bush-family supporters as “country-club Republicans.”
Perhaps you did read it, but you need work on comprehension skills.
Maybe I got up too early but I don't get your meaning?
Yes!
Yes it does.
bttt
Please note the preceding two lines give us all the context we need:
Carney and Rove found themselves at odds a year later, when Bush was breezing toward re-election, and Perry was in a tough lieutenant governor's race with Democrat John Sharp, the state comptroller.
Carney insisted Perry go negative, despite Rove's insistence that negative campaigning would depress voter turnout and undercut the Bush portrait he was crafting of a “compassionate conservative.”
Now we know that the argument wasn't over conservatism or even 'compassionate conservatism', but over going negative and the political interference that caused Rove's national campaign on behalf of W. That's a practical/pragmatic concern and happens all the time between grand/narrow-scale campaigns.
Are you willing to quit or will you continue to push your feet deeper into your mouth through additional postings?
Good, then would you research that? Who are the staff around Perry now? Who’s in his inner circle?
My reading of Perry is that he’s a pragmatist. If the wind were blowing left, so would he.
“Yet, if Texas were Illinois he’d be a Democrat.”
Ain’t that the truth.
Right on, Jersey.
And anyway, even with things as bad as they are, there are still enough brain-washed, public-school indoctrinated socialists in likely voters that a conservative’s conservative probably still couldn’t win the election.
Wish Perry had Sarah’s heart & attitude, but he’s probably the best we can get that can win.
“The President today announced the appointment
of David M. Carney as Special
Assistant to the President and Director of
the Office of Political Affairs at the White
House in Washington, DC.”
www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PPP-1991.../PPP-1991-book1-doc-pg218.pdf
This boy worked for George H. W. Bush in 1991...
The tentacles of the RinoCracy run deep...
OK, I will go slower for you.
You started this off by posting the list of people Carney worked for and then state that they are not conservatives. You attempt to use this as an example that Perry is not conservative. This happens in post #6
I try to point out to you that you clearly missed the part of the article where Carney agrees that those people are "Country-Club Republicans" to the point of dismissing them........just like you did.
What you seemingly cannot comprehend is that Carney now agrees with you about Sununu, Hutchinson, Bush, etc.
Therefore, if Carney agrees with you about Hutchinson, Bush, etc, how does his presence make Perry less conservative?
www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PPP-1991.../PPP-1991-book1-doc-pg218.pdf
You are another low-comprehension reader.
Did you miss the part of the article where Carney comes to the realization that Bush, Hutchinson, etc are "Country-Club Republicans"?
Or did that little fact not fit with your agenda to bash Perry?
Rick Perry Texas State Board of Education appointment -- July 20, 2011:
Meet Barbara Cargill, the SBOE's Latest Chief ……..>>>Her supporters say the Baylor University graduate is a mild-tempered, fair leader who is well suited to lead the 15-member board. Her critics say she is a dangerous culture warrior who injects her religious and political agenda into the classrooms of the country’s second largest public school system. But for those who follow the board’s every movement, there’s agreement on one point: For better or worse, Cargill’s tenure will likely bring more of the same.
Cargill’s immediate predecessors in the chair were, like her, a part of the majority-Republican board’s tightly knit gang of six social conservatives.
Because of that, her appointment “doesn’t change a lot,” said Dan Quinn, the spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network, a liberal watchdog of the board and fierce opponent of its social conservatives.
“She has voted in lockstep with Gail Lowe and Don McLeroy in the past," he said. "There's no real space between them."
McLeroy held the chairmanship from 2007 to 2009 and said Lowe and Cargill share many qualities. “She is so similar to Gail with her complete integrity and honesty," he said. "Those two ladies are some of the finest I ever met."
McLeroy suffered the same fate as Lowe during the 2009 legislative session. The Bryan dentist, who lost to current member Thomas Ratliff in the 2010 Republican primary, describes Cargill and Lowe as some of his best friends. He said Cargill was “the scientist on the board” and that she was known for independently investigating all the issues that came before it.
The board’s longest-serving current member, David Bradley, echoed McLeroy. “She does her homework,” said Bradley, who consistently votes with Cargill. “Sometimes she would make light of the fact that when I get to the meeting I'm just opening my agenda for the first time.”
He also praised her modesty, a quality he said would serve her well as chairwoman. “I don't think you'll ever find her using the word 'I,'” he said. “She blushes at the drop of a hat, quicker than Gail Lowe. So the guys on the board have to be very careful.”
Cargill’s critics point to her role in the rewrite of science curriculum as evidence that she has used her position on the board to promote her own political and religious beliefs. She was instrumental in pushing the new science standards that students "analyze, evaluate, and critique" evidence for scientific explanations for theories like evolution — a move praised by the Discovery Institute, which supports research challenging what its website refers to as "neo-Darwinian theory." During the debate on science curriculum, she also passed an amendment that added the discussion of different scientific estimates on the age of the universe to the standards. <<<<………………
This is FreeRepublic...we don’t attack personally....if you want that kind of argument..head over to DU
Point out “where” in my post I “bashed” Perry....all I pointed out was that this character is a GHWB appointee...something that means a lot. Not a thing around the world happened in the 20th century that GHWB and his father, Prescott, didn’t have their fingers in.
Frankly Carney appears to be jumping from one horse to another so as to wind up where he’s most able to influence the next Republican President. . That may...or may not be a good thing.
Perry either doesn’t know who Carney is..or has decided he has to dance with the devil to get to DC. Either way doesn’t bode well for Flyover Country.
David Carney has worked for Rick Perry for over 20 years. How is that “jumping” horses?
“Carney originally had cast his lot in this year’s Republican primary with Newt Gingrich,...”
IMHO, the most interesting part about Carney in Joe Holley’s artcle is what wasn’t stated. He misleadingly states Carney started his political career at age 52 working for John Sunnunu.
What I posted, was that he clearly started in the GHWB White House at age 31.
Now I am not a journalist..and if I can find that out about Dave Carney in a few minutes on google, you can bet Joe Holley knows it as well...and is deliberately obscuring that connection. For someone.
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