Morales/Gramm Campaign The 1996 Senatorial Thesis

With the proportion of Hispanic voters that were turning out for Morales, even simply increasing overall Hispanic turn out, though providing Gramm with additional votes, too, would have provided Morales with approximately twenty-percent more voters than Gramm in many counties where Hispanics constituted eighty-percent and more of the population. Given how close the statewide race was, the difference of even a few of the more populous counties could have been all that was needed to change the outcome of the campaign. Instead, as Morales struggled with a budget about a tenth the size of Gramm's, communication efforts simply were not extensive enough to produce the kind of results that the Morales campaign needed. An awareness of the discrepancy in spending between the two campaigns, which must certainly have been available at the time, should have revealed the closeness of the race to Democratic leadership. Republican spending on the campaign to re-elect Senator Gramm, which formed the bulk of the total funding for the campaign (non-party funding represented less than a fifth of contributions), should have been a tip-off to the Morales campaign and the leadership of the Democratic Party that not everyone considered the race to be as sure a thing as the Democrats did. Gramm's much larger presence in the media could only...

...

As it was, Morales was able to obtain numbers in the forty-percent range in many counties, and carried several predominantly Hispanic counties. Only a slight edge was needed to effectively shift the tide in Morales favors in many counties. Morales' campaign lacked the financial and moral support that it and the public needed from the national party, and this in large measure can be attributed to his loss in the campaign.
There were, of course, other factors at play in this election. Not only did Senator Gramm and the Republican Party already have a stronghold in the state, but the move of Hispanic voters towards the Republican party in the 2000 and 2004 suggest that interest in the Democratic Party was already beginning to wane, just as overall voter turn out and Hispanic turn out specifically was beginning to diminish. These factors cannot be considered as important as the financial disparity between the two campaigns, which itself is reflective of the mentality behind the Democratic campaign. The lesson to be learned here is not to enter any fight halfheartedly.

Sources Used in Documents:

The benefits of increased spending and promotion focused on the Hispanic community might not have been enormous, but they could have been decisive. With the proportion of Hispanic voters that were turning out for Morales, even simply increasing overall Hispanic turn out, though providing Gramm with additional votes, too, would have provided Morales with approximately twenty-percent more voters than Gramm in many counties where Hispanics constituted eighty-percent and more of the population. Given how close the statewide race was, the difference of even a few of the more populous counties could have been all that was needed to change the outcome of the campaign. Instead, as Morales struggled with a budget about a tenth the size of Gramm's, communication efforts simply were not extensive enough to produce the kind of results that the Morales campaign needed. An awareness of the discrepancy in spending between the two campaigns, which must certainly have been available at the time, should have revealed the closeness of the race to Democratic leadership.

Republican spending on the campaign to re-elect Senator Gramm, which formed the bulk of the total funding for the campaign (non-party funding represented less than a fifth of contributions), should have been a tip-off to the Morales campaign and the leadership of the Democratic Party that not everyone considered the race to be as sure a thing as the Democrats did. Gramm's much larger presence in the media could only have served to reinforce the idea that the campaign was wrapped up; had Morales had the adequate funding to present a higher public profile, his candidacy might have been taken more seriously by the public generally and the Hispanic community specifically. As it was, Morales was able to obtain numbers in the forty-percent range in many counties, and carried several predominantly Hispanic counties. Only a slight edge was needed to effectively shift the tide in Morales favors in many counties. Morales' campaign lacked the financial and moral support that it and the public needed from the national party, and this in large measure can be attributed to his loss in the campaign.

There were, of course, other factors at play in this election. Not only did Senator Gramm and the Republican Party already have a stronghold in the state, but the move of Hispanic voters towards the Republican party in the 2000 and 2004 suggest that interest in the Democratic Party was already beginning to wane, just as overall voter turn out and Hispanic turn out specifically was beginning to diminish. These factors cannot be considered as important as the financial disparity between the two campaigns, which itself is reflective of the mentality behind the Democratic campaign. The lesson to be learned here is not to enter any fight halfheartedly.


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