ERRORS IN STRATEGY BY SANCHEZ CITED

AUSTIN - Tooling around his hometown of Laredo last year, months before he
won the Democratic nod for governor, Tony Sanchez talked about the risks of
the oil and gas business on which his family's fortune was built.

"You go in to drill the well knowing - if it's a wildcat well - that the
risks are very high," he said. "The potential is high, which is why you're
taking the risk, but there is a very, very big chance that you're not going
to be successful."

The same turned out to be true for Sanchez's campaign against Gov. Rick
Perry, an effort in which the Democrat spent tens of millions of dollars on
the way to a dry hole in a stunning GOP statewide sweep.

With the election in the rearview mirror, some say the well had a good
chance of being dry from the beginning, given that Sanchez was challenging
a GOP incumbent in a state where Republicans have the edge.

However, some also saw strategic errors in the costly and futile effort.

"We made some mistakes and had some tough hills to climb," said Sanchez
campaign consultant Patrick Woodson. "We had the opportunity to run the
perfect campaign. I just don't feel like we did."

In a weird way, we started out the race in fourth gear and ended it in
third, whereas Perry started the engine later and took it into fifth gear
when he had to.

"Among the difficulties and mistakes Woodson sees: The campaign should have
sent out a more positive and forceful message this summer. Perry started
earlier and ended later than expected with tough ads about alleged
drug-money laundering at Sanchez's failed Laredo thrift.

Advisers also think the Sanchez campaign should have had the candidate
interact more and earlier with the media.

"It was harder to get a message out with the limited exposure he was
advised to have," Woodson said. "It was a fact of having a bunch of people
with a bunch of different ideas. This really was a multiheaded monster, and
different heads had influence at different times."

But campaign manager Glenn Smith said he wouldn't change a thing about the
operation, calling the team "very unified."

"I don't think there were any mistakes," Smith said. "I think for a
first-time candidate, he did unbelievably well. I can't think of what would
be done differently."

Sanchez, pondering the question before the election, could think of just
one thing: "I should have had more education summits."

He held one, which was blasted by Perry's camp as an admission of ignorance
on what was to be a campaign cornerstone.

The mark of the Sanchez-Perry race was its tough, early TV ads.

Sanchez, who among other hits accused Perry of selling his official power
for campaign donations, at times launched multiple ads simultaneously.

"He got caught in negative campaigning and didn't focus on issues," said
political science professor Andy Hernandez of St. Mary's University. "It
was a strategic campaign error."

Woodson said: "We had two critical tasks: driving his (Perry's) negatives
up and creating a positive message. We were never able to drive his
negatives up fast enough to allow us to come back and reintroduce Tony in a
positive fashion. In hindsight, we probably would have been better off
going positive in June or July to inoculate us against some of the negative
stuff that was coming."

In July, Perry focused on alleged drug money laundering in the mid-1980s at
Sanchez's failed Tesoro Savings and Loan. His final thrust on the issue
came shortly before Election Day, when he sought to tie Sanchez to Mexican
drug traffickers who killed a U.S. drug agent.

Sanchez called the ad "a terrible lie" and said reporters should have done
more to put the issue in context. Thrift officials weren't charged with
wrongdoing and weren't kept from heading other financial institutions.

In emphasizing that he acted properly, Sanchez pointed to testimony from
representatives of three federal agencies and to federal judges' rulings.
But, he said, reporters didn't dig aggressively into the issue.

"I don't think you all have given it the seriousness that it deserves,"
Sanchez said. "You've treated it as a ... political squabble, and I think
that's wrong. I think that had you presented it in its proper fashion, in
its truthfulness instead of some political antic by my opponent, people
early on would have understood that there is absolutely nothing there."

Hernandez said Sanchez seemed to count on his conservative businessman
credentials to play well with white conservatives who tend to vote
Republican. But he said Sanchez was cast in a different light after his
primary battle with Dan Morales for the nomination, in which Sanchez's
support for affirmative action was a top issue.

"The first thing white voters hear about Tony Sanchez is affirmative
action," Hernandez said. "He had to have a stronger message - not just to
white voters, but to voters, period."

Sanchez pounced on the issue of rising homeowners insurance rates, but
Perry moved quickly on the same subject.

Political science professor Jerry Polinard of the University of Texas-Pan
American said that about two weeks before the election he opened a
"beautiful flier" concerning home insurance, expecting it to be from
Sanchez. But it was a Perry mailer.

"That's an example of a very effectively managed campaign," Polinard said.
"You take an issue that should put you on the defensive and actually use it
against your opponent."

Perry's campaign, seen as a disciplined operation, was quick on the draw
throughout the race. Perry - who has earned a reputation as a tough and
hard-working campaigner in all his statewide races - traveled extensively.

He also had the benefit of campaigning as an incumbent and was generally
easier to reach for a comment on a story than Sanchez was.

"There was a whole school of thought within the campaign that it would be a
smarter decision not to put him (Sanchez) out there more," Woodson said. "I
think it's a decision that ended up hurting us."

When reporters were allowed aboard his campaign bus and in other relatively
informal interactions, Sanchez appeared comfortable, speaking easily with
an engaging manner. He fielded questions about his proposals, offered
details on the energy business, shared a story about the religious roots of
South Texas and even danced a few steps in the aisle.

Smith said Sanchez was available at campaign stops around the state and
pointed out that no law required him to have news conferences in Austin,
where newspapers maintain Capitol staffs that closely covered his campaign.

"Y'all think that he was less accessible than he really was," Smith said.
"He was a newcomer. He was learning a new skill. It took some time for him
to learn that skill, as it would anybody. In the end, he didn't make the
kind of mistakes that newcomers to politics sometimes make."

However the Sanchez strategy is judged, Hernandez said outside
circumstances - including the Enron scandal and the war on terror - worked
against a businessman who was challenging a "professional politician."

"When he decided to run, it seemed like all the stars were aligned,"
Hernandez said. "The cosmos changed."