(I'm back in town and getting back to blogging. Here's a post that should get some discussion going about TX-23. I'll have mine soon enough. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
Want to know all the players in the race to unseat Henry Bonilla? Here you go.
Ciro Rodriguez: Four-term Congressman, Two-time loser. No one knows how much money he actually has. On his initial March 30 reports, he showed over 300k. Ciro then filed a correction that showed him 80k in the hole. It's like seeing my bank statement on the 1st and then looking at it again on the 2nd.
He's never had to win a race by even remotely trying to attract Republicans. Yeah... that could be a problem. Big turning point for Ciro will come this Thursday at the SA AFL-CIO meeting. Labor has always been his biggest supporter. If they won't hop in this time around, that's the ballgame for Ciro.
Everyone in his base (southside SA/Bexar County)- regardless if they love or hate him- is saying, "Again?!?!" when told Ciro is running... um... again.
Already going negative against the rest of the Dems. Will do what it takes to win, which is a good thing, unfortunately for Ciro and his campaign staff that means turning it into a intraparty fight- one that they'll all have to engage in since Ciro is the most credible and recognizable candidate right now- which would let Bonilla cruise on by everyone to a November 7 win.
Highest name ID, but crappy campaign staff. Probably the best shot out of all the Democrats to take 2nd and go to a run-off with Bonilla. Worst candidate to send up against Bonilla. Bonilla. will. kill. him.
Albert Uresti: Thinks his brother's support will transfer over to him seamlessly. Doesn't really have a clue about the vast expanse of space there is between him working on his brother's campaign and actually running himself.
Where does he get his money from?
Nice guy but that and 50 bucks will buy you a tall cup of joe at Starbuck's.
Look for him to finish 4th... maybe 3rd if he's lucky.
Lukin Gilliland: Lotsa money. But trying to get Dem votes in Latino areas when he's running up against people with names like Bonilla, Beltran, Rodriguez and Uresti.
What do you think Senora Garcia in Eagle Pass is going to do when presented with a list like that? Unless Gilliland empties out his pockets it's gonna be tough for him to push past Ciro.
500k is alot of money, but it's just a drop in the bucket for him. If he really wanted to, he could fund this entire campaign out of his pocket. That would hurt him financially, but he could do it.
One other thing to remember. Don't know where the millionaire's clause threshold exactly is (the clause that says that if an independently wealthy candidate spends, say, over $400k of his own money the rest of the candidates in the race can go back to their maxed out donors and solicit another 2,100 from them) but I think Gilliland may have passed it already.
Which means Bonilla's kitty probably just jumped 300k with that clause alone. Not a good thing. Also, did anyone ever figure out if these candidates can resolicit donors again because it's a special election? That would suck if they could.
Still, the most intriguing of the bunch if he can get past non-Hispanic surname. But you could drive a truck through that if.
Rick Bolanos: This guy's a joke. For all of his high-falutin' endorsements, my dog could've raised more money than he did in 10 months. As a matter of fact, I think she did.
Playing for last.
Augie Beltran: For those of you who made it all the way down here, boy have I got a treat for you.
Mr. Beltran is what they call in San Antonio a, coyote. A 'political operative', and I use that term extremely loosely to describe these guys who will work for whomever pays them the most money regardless of party, who has done work for people like Henry Cuellar in Bexar County (Hey, he went from losing 4:1 in Bexar County to 3:1 in those exact same spots!) and most recently for Republican State Rep candidate George Antuna.
The funny thing is, I think he could outpoll Bolanos and the Independent. How would you be able to move on from there?
There's also reports that Bonilla's people are donating to him just so they can have one more Dem on the ballot this November. Fantastic.
Needless to say, I believe, that if you wanted to give Bonilla this district and then stack him up against the worst possible opponents and almost assure him of re-election- save Gilliland- you couldn't have done much better than this.
I think it's wait til '08 in 23.
What do you think? |
