Friday, March 14, 2014

Wendy Davis' new communications director

Appears to be just what she needs.

Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis’ campaign for governor has hired U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s former communications director.

Zac Petkanas, Davis’ new communications director, most recently was senior communications adviser for the Nevada State Democratic Party.

Before that, Petkanas was Reid’s communications director, and he was deputy communications director for Reid’s re-election campaign.

Not the 'Harry Reid' part.  This 'smashmouth' part.

In just the last few days, some members of the Capitol Press Corps have noticed a shift in how the Davis campaign is interacting with us. It also seems, for the moment at least, that the Davis folks are more nimble than before in reacting to events and seizing on chances to drive their narrative in the press.

[...]

After joining the Davis team, one of Petkanas’ first online statements about GOP nominee for governor Greg Abbott was that after the AG “campaigned with sex predator & fought equal pay for women, no wonder new GOP PAC hitting panic button in Texas." That’s apparently a reference to a new political action committee called Red State Women. As the name suggests, it’s an effort aimed at women here. It is also, one could argue, an attempt to counter any chance Davis might have at convincing GOP women to cross over and vote for the Democrat in November.

Even better is seeing the press releases this week also.

-- "Davis: Abbott took huge pay increase but fights equal pay for equal work" (on March 12, the same as his Tweet linked above)

-- DAVIS CAMPAIGN SLAMS ABBOTT’S SILENCE ON POTENTIALLY UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR ON CPRIT BOARD (yesterday)

The campaign Tweeted this to emphasize the first one, and Wayne Slater at the Dallas News wrote this in response to the second one.  So I would say Zac is off to a fast start.

Davis is in Beaumont today pumping up her volunteers, and my mother wants to go, so maybe I'll get a word or a photo with the candidate.  If I do, you'll hear about it.

1 comment:

Gadfly said...

Shared your Quorum Report link on FB and elsewhere.