Barbara Ann won the primary, garnering 43.5% of the vote versus Kelly's 37.4%. Hunter scored a distant third. Barbara Ann faces Kelly in a runoff election on April 11.
A reclusive candidate who doesn't talk to the media and who avoids voters, Kelly has massive name recognition after ten failed attempts in fourteen years, and runs solely off his name similarity with deceased Hollywood dancer Gene Kelly, whose moniker pulls up 19 million hits on Google.
Barbara decisively beat Kelly in the primary, despite the fact that he was the party nominee against Hutchison in 2000. Running as a first time candidate without primary polling, without direct mail, and without paid media, Barbara still took first place by a clear margin against a hunter in Texas and a Hollywood icon.
She has carefully managed money, staff, and a statewide grass-roots volunteer effort, and is well positioned to use her resources to win the runoff--with your help.
Karl Rove of course would love to clone Eugene Kelly. He has run numerous races against Democrats, and his name recognition is high enough to cause multiple run-offs and to even win the Senate nomination in 2000.
Once he makes the final cut, however, Kelly keeps playing dead--to the glory and glee of the people he supposedly runs against. Against Republicans, he does no campaigning, avoids the media and Democratic events, and gives up without so much as a whimper. In his race against Hutchison he made no appearances, received no endorsements and only granted one interview. "I'm not doing anything different, to be honest with you," Kelly said in the runup to this year's primary, indicating that he plans to keep losing even as he tries to keep others from making a positive difference.
Texas Democrats need a fighter to take our state back and to keep fakers like Kelly from ruining our party. Barbara Ann Radnofsky has made 328 campaign appearances and received the endorsement of every major newspaper in Texas. And Kelly? Commentators describe him as a clown, a perennial joke, and an embarrassment to the party.
Barbara Ann fights for veterans' rights, for education, for better healthcare, and for Texans.
The dancer is dead, folks...please don't let him kill the Party.
