Pack It In, Parent PAC
Usually a record of 3-10-1 isn’t going to get you into post-season play. Likewise, a record of 3-10-1 in political candidates that an association backs isn’t going to garnish them much esteem in Austin. Welcome to Parent PAC’s world.
Two years ago, Parent PAC took Texas political circles by storm when they orchestrated the defeat of then House Education Chairman Kent Grusendorf. As a top Craddick Lieutenant, Grusendorf’s ousting was a masterful debut by the rookie PAC. The following fall, Parent PAC rode the coattails of a national movement in backing more successful candidates for the Legislature, leaving many to see them as a force to be reckon with.
But now their true colors have come out for show. They’re a joke, a flash in the pan that may get a candidate elected here and there, but they’ll never amass the support in Austin they need to completely run-over our public education system with their one-sided mindset and hateful campaign tactics.
Best estimates for the 2008 primaries (exact numbers won’t be known for sure until July) put the Parent PAC at spending over 330,000 dollars on just three winning races, TEN losing campaigns, and one that qualified for the April run-off. Something tells me this isn’t the results Charles Butt (HEB Groceries) had in mind when he basically gave the PAC a blank check to fund their operations. To make it even worse, best estimates put Parent PAC’s arch nemesis, pro-voucher supporter James Leininger, at 4-2 this primary cycle. And three of his four victories came against Parent PAC backed candidates.
Here’s a closer look at Parent PAC’s primary cycle. In races where they put in 10,000 dollars or more, they managed a mere 2 - 5 record. In their marque race of the season, Parent PAC again targeted a top Craddick Lieutenant in Phil King, but this time they poured over 60,000 dollars into a poor showing with Joe Tison, who got rolled-up by 31 points. Jim Shepherd took 5,000 of their dollars and front-runner status into his quest to not make his run-off to replace Fred Hill. Likewise, Bob Leonard took 7,500 of their dollars only to get trounced by Mark Shelton. But I’m sure that was one they didn’t mind losing, this way Parent PAC is saved the awkward moment of having to chose in the general between Leonard and Democrat Dan Barrett, who they’ve donated to in the past.
The El Paso duo of Moreno and Haggerty took a combined 16,000 Parent PAC dollars and flushed it down the toilet. All in all, in the ten races Parent PAC lost, totaling over 131,000 of their dollars, 6 were by ten points or more. But it’s not all bad news. It only took the badly bruised PAC just 161,000 dollars to squeeze out a 17 vote victory over Nathan Macias.
In fact, if it weren’t for Doug Miller pulling out a nail-bitter over Macias, better than 90 percent of Parent PAC’s dollars would have gone to fund losing efforts. I’ve heard it said before that poker is an expensive game to learn how to play, and I guess political jockeying is the same, because Parent PAC just spent a lot of money to learn how to lose.
So what happens now for the Parent PAC? Who really knows for sure. I’m sure they’ll be back in the general election, screaming foul language and targeting any and every incumbent lawmaker they deem bad for public education. But as we have just witnessed, its not all that bad of an ordeal to end up square in their cites. After all, if my name were on a ballot, I’d take the 79 percent chance of winning that comes with them backing my opponent.