Campaign Evaluation: Katrina Pierson (U.S. House, TX-32) - campaign ended

[Bryan]

This thread is intended to be a collection point of the strong pros and cons of any potential liberty candidate / campaign that is being discussed / promoted on the forum. You are welcome to post both positive and not-so-positive attributes about the candidate as they related to their position on supporting liberty as well as issues relating to their campaign. The most important information may be aggregated in this top post for easy reference.

Candidate Name: Katrina Pierson
Office Sought: U.S. House
Website: http://www.katrinaforcongress.com/
Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/KatrinaForCongress
https://twitter.com/KatrinaPierson
http://instagram.com/Katrinaforcongress#
http://www.pinterest.com/katrinaforcongr/

Candidate Profile: On the Issues
Civil Liberties: [Rating TBD]
Constitutional Issues: [Rating TBD]
Economic Issues: [Rating TBD]
Foreign Policy: [Rating TBD]
Social Issues: [Rating TBD]
Overall Issues Rating: [Rating TBD]

Race Profile: Competition & Demographics
State: Texas
District: 32
Incumbent:
Other Primary Candidates:
Non-Incumbent Candidates from Other Parties:
Relevant poll numbers: None.
Overall Race Profile Rating: [Rating TBD]

Miscellaneous Pros/Cons
Key strong points:

Unknown points for further research:

Possible weak points:

Possible deal breakers:

Overall Rating:

[Mr.NoSmile]

Have no idea of her following, but Ted Cruz's father appears to have backed her over Pete Sessions:


Sen. Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, is weighing in on a GOP primary in Texas to support the challenger of incumbent Republican Rep. Pete Sessions.

Cruz on Monday endorsed Sessions’s opponent, tea party leader Katrina Pierson, according to The Dallas Morning News.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/rafael-cruz-pete-sessions-katrina-pierson-101821.html?hp=l22

[lib3rtarian]

She is a Cruz ally.

[FSP-Rebel]

Let’s audit the Federal Reserve.

I support a full, independent audit of the Federal Reserve to be conducted as soon as possible. Our nation’s money supply should be fully transparent and easily accessible to the citizens of the United States. There is no other way to untangle this financial mess our government has created — and identify the billions of dollars of fraud, waste and abuse — than starting with an audit of its books.
She also speaks our language on nat'l defense. If you check her twitter feed, Michelle Malkin is out campaigning with and for her in addition to the Cruz Sr. partnership. The woman is pretty influential on her own right for being a Tea Party leader of sorts and I can't say I've ever seen a person get so much support against an incumbent. Unfortunately for the incumbent, the woman can speak, is good looking and the base is in RINO hunting mode. I suspect a major upset is coming in this race but she better not turn out to be a clone of Bachmann, she looks so much better on paper up front.

[Mr.NoSmile]

Ted Cruz himself hasn't endorsed, which is noteworthy, since his father's endorsement speaks just for that: the father, not the son. Also, I look at some of his FreedomWorks votes:

Ryan/Murray budget
Against the Amash Amendment
Raising the debt ceiling

And those could be opportunities to pounce on if Pierson does that. Given how Sessions has been in Congress for so long and is chairman of the House Rules Committee, he'll definitely have a lot of power and money to go up against. Hopefully she's got some of that and more on her side.

[compromise]

Ted Cruz himself hasn't endorsed, which is noteworthy, since his father's endorsement speaks just for that: the father, not the son.

Ted Cruz can't endorse against an incumbent in Texas for the same reasons Ron couldn't.

[William Tell]

Fund raising totals released in September, scroll down to CD 32: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G14/TX It would be great if my fellow Texans would finally throw some of these incumbents out. Sadly we don't have a very good track record of doing that.

[Mr.NoSmile]

Fund raising totals released in September, scroll down to CD 32: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G14/TX It would be great if my fellow Texans would finally throw some of these incumbents out. Sadly we don't have a very good track record of doing that.

Incumbents are in a better position for funding given their name recognition, though. Maybe a lot of folks around don't know Pierson as well as they do Sessions.

[William Tell]

Incumbents are in a better position for funding given their name recognition, though. Maybe a lot of folks around don't know Pierson as well as they do Sessions. Yeah, it is always an up hill battle. It is very hard to fund a serious campaign with local liberty money. But we have to keep chugging along.

[TaftFan]

Pete Sessions sucks. Enough said.

[Mr.NoSmile]

Article about her fundraising. Yes, money isn't the deciding factor, but it's still a factor. Seems press doesn't get or acknowledge that, yeah, running against an incumbent isn't easy. Though Pierson's numbers aren't exactly great.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2014/01/katrina-pierson-posts-anemic-fund-raising-against-rep-pete-sessions.html/


Tea party leader Katrina Pierson’s has raised just $76,187 in her bid to unseat veteran Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas.

Sessions, a member of the House GOP leadership and chairman of the influential Rules Committee, hasn’t filed his end-of-year campaign finance report yet. But even through the end of September, he had more than $1.3 million stockpiled. Sessions was elected in 1996 and is seeking his 10th two-year term.

Victory and defeat don’t always hinge on money. But in a fight that lopsided, it’s a factor that can’t be ignored.

[Brian4Liberty]

She has been endorsed by FreedomWorks.

http://www.freedomworksforamerica.org/candidate/katrina-pierson

[Brian4Liberty]

From an interview with Pierson. It looks like if she is in the House, she will be working with Amash.


Dustin Hawkins: The Republican Party leadership seems to believe that political seats are for life and that incumbents should never be challenged, no matter how liberal or Democrat-lite they may be. What do you have to say about that line of thinking?

Katrina Pierson : The greatest threat to the people of the United States are career politicians.

DH: Did you grow up in a conservative household? When did you know that you were a conservative?

KP: No. I grew up on welfare to a teenage mother. I was born with a fire in the belly to do more and be more than society dictated for me. Eventually, I because the first to graduate college in my family and the first to break the poverty cycle. It wasn't easy, but I appreciate my journey as it allows me to help and inspire others.

DH: What would your top three priorities be in the US Congress?

KP: Get the federal government out of public education, term limits, restoring the bill of rights in their entirety.

DH: Finally, if you and four other people could sit around and write all the laws in the country, who would those four other people be?

KP: Rep. Justin Amash, Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Rand Paul, and Sen. Jim DeMint.

http://usconservatives.about.com/od/2014-Elections/fl/QampA-With-Katrina-Pierson-2014-Congressional-Candidate.htm

[Brian4Liberty]

She has an interesting background. She understands the folly and destruction caused by the welfare state. This is from a Glenn Beck interview:


...
As Pierson explained, it is the depth of her life experience that has made her the conservative she is today.

“People always ask me how I became so conservative considering where I came from. And the simple answer is I just lived it. My mother was 14 years old when she was pregnant with me, and my grandfather said abortion was not an option,” Pierson explained. “But she had a biracial baby, and they didn’t know what to do. Gladney said they didn’t specialize in biracial babies, so my mother was sent to Kansas to give birth to me and give me up for adoption. She changed her mind, and brought me back to Texas. So the joke on the campaign is: I’m a native Texan born in Kansas.”

“But I also grew up with a teenage mom who became very much codependent on government and then became very much codependent on drugs, and that’s what happens with these liberal policies. It traps you in an environment that you can’t get out of,” she continued. “And then it finally breaks your spirit. And the rest of us caught up in that environment have to fight tooth and nail to get out of it. And I survived that, so I feel it’s my duty to fight back against that because it’s becoming the standard. This Administration feels like a redistribution of wealth should become the standard in this society and I cannot allow that.”
...
http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/02/12/glenn-talks-to-congressional-candidate-katrina-pierson-about-taking-on-the-establishment-gop/

[cajuncocoa]

I mentioned this in the other thread (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?444535-Sarah-Palin-Dishes-Out-Endorsement-to-Katrina-Pierson&p=5425403#post5425403) that was posted today. I'm a little concerned about this rhetoric from a "Liberty Candidate". The rebuttal is that she is better than her opponent. Well, maybe so....but that doesn't make her a Liberty candidate. Speaking as if Israel is the U.S.'s 51st state is not the standard that Ron Paul set.

From Katrina's website:


We must stand with Israel.
For over half a century, Israel has remained one of America’s strongest and closest allies. Israel is an open, pluralistic, constitutional republic in a region dominated by kings and dictators. Israel has been an ally in a region hostile to our country and the ideals we stand for. The United States and Israel are joined together by common values, including but not limited to, a shared commitment to freedom and individual rights. A free and prosperous Israel is a benefit to our nation and to the world.




http://www.katrinaforcongress.com/issues/

[TaftFan]

I mentioned this in the other thread (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?444535-Sarah-Palin-Dishes-Out-Endorsement-to-Katrina-Pierson&p=5425403#post5425403) that was posted today. I'm a little concerned about this rhetoric from a "Liberty Candidate". The rebuttal is that she is better than her opponent. Well, maybe so....but that doesn't make her a Liberty candidate. Speaking as if Israel is the U.S.'s 51st state is not the standard that Ron Paul set.

From Katrina's website:



http://www.katrinaforcongress.com/issues/
Curious as to why you cut off the rest.

[cajuncocoa]

Curious as to why you cut off the rest.
I didn't click the "learn more" button. Here it is:

A free Israel is the best judge of its own security needs and should be able to respond as it sees fit to threats and unprovoked aggression without pressure from any other nation. Just as the United States takes actions necessary to protect our homeland, Israel should be able to take steps it deems necessary to protect its sovereignty and existence and to respond to attacks by going after the terrorists where they hide – as the United States has done.That doesn't change the problematic language in the first paragraph, however.

[Brian4Liberty]

On transparency, from Pierson's website:


Every week brings new revelations about the incredible scale of domestic wireless surveillance being conducted by the National Security Administration (NSA). The NSA has been exposed, time and again for monitoring Americans’ communications in Orwellian fashion…all in the name of “security.” We aren’t buying it anymore. We need a full understanding of the scope of warrantless surveillance on law-abiding American citizens, and a return to a Constitutional surveillance scheme of warrants based on probable cause of wrongdoing.

The Obama Administration may not be the first administration to use the IRS as a political weapon to target its enemies, but it has certainly taken the practice to an entirely new level. The Administration’s practice of targeting conservative organizations and journalists is a direct assault on the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of association, speech and the press. This is an attempt at blatant intimidation and must come to an end.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and given the condition of this government, there simply can’t be too much sunlight. If I am honored to serve you in Congress, I will not vote for any bill that the American people haven’t had a chance to read in full, digest and debate. Every vote I make will be posted online and I’ll tell you exactly why I voted that way. Finally, I will speak up whenever any member of Congress tries to put the interests of a select few ahead of the American people at large. Americans come first.

http://www.katrinaforcongress.com/issues/corruption-transparency/

I'm not entirely sure that even our favorite members of Congress have stuck with the highlighted promise...

[Pericles]

I live in the district and I'm voting for her.

[RandallFan]

I think Stockman is similar on Israel. Rand, Schumer and Harry Reid have 34 votes to help Obama stop war.

Pete Sessions is also more likely to support amnesty than someone endorsed by Malkin.

[Brian4Liberty]

Well, it looks like she buys this re-Sovietization BS.



The "re-sovietization" of the old U.S.S.R. and continued radicalization of Islam are the most potent threats I see. With Putin's strong arm approach to consolidating power and trying to revamp the old U.S.S.R., including much of the same type of corruption and human rights abuses, though not an imminent military threat, it could lead to a resuscitation of Cold War frictions and a reversal of détente. The result could be to re-create a bi-polar power structure that reduces the influence of the U.S., which has already been reduced significantly by President Obama's policies. This will only create further instability at a time when the U.S. needs international stability to address its debt problem...

https://www.facebook.com/KatrinaForCongress/posts/210926999102586

[TaftFan]

Well, it looks like she buys this re-Sovietization BS.

How is it BS? I think it is pretty obvious they want their territories back. We saw this with Georgia in 2008.

China is still brooding over Taiwan. Military exercises were being conducted over a small island not too long if I remember correctly.

[Brian4Liberty]

How is it BS? I think it is pretty obvious they want their territories back. We saw this with Georgia in 2008.

Nothing but neo-conservative fear mongering. There is no way they are going to get "their territories" (i.e. Soviet Union) back. When there is chaos and violence, they may go outside their borders a little to protect majority ethnic Russian areas, but that is a far cry from attempting to reconquer the ex Soviet Union or Nations that were behind the Iron Curtain.

[RandallFan]

I think the Tea Party candidates will just use this Ukraine thing to bash Obama. I don't know how much further they will go with it. I'd trust her to vote against Boehner more than Pete on war.

Arpaio took back his Pierson endorsement because Pete Sessions promised him he didn't support amnesty. It is a win win. Pete Sessions will be worried about a 2016 primary if he pushes amnesty in 2015. The Arizona House Republican delegation is against amnesty and any Arizona newcomers like Adam Kwasman will probably oppose. You got the 2 Republican border delegations mostly against amnesty.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2014/03/americas-toughest-sheriff-pulls-katrina-pierson-endorsement-backs-pete-sessions-instead.html/?nclick_check=1

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/03/1/VIDEO-PETE%20SESSIONS-EXPRESSES-SUPPORT-AMNESTY

[Brian4Liberty]

Nostalgia bump.