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The Austin Chronicle has an interesting piece out today, "Dukes Under Siege".
This is a longer story about Dawnna Dukes and her Democratic challenger Brian Thompson. Let's get some of the disclosure out of the way. I support Brian Thompson and I am not affiliated or paid by the campaign. As long as Craddick D's continue to support Tom Craddick, I will do whatever I can to defeat them in the primary.
Brian Thompson has been endorsed by the Texas Progressive Alliance and we are asking any person motivated to take back the Texas House to donate to the slate or Brian Thompson directly. And there are a lot of reasons why.
In Richard Whittaker's piece, Dukes continues to rationalize her continued support for Craddick by pointing to legislative committee appointments and Craddick's political back scratching. However, to this date, Dukes has not pointed to a single legislative achievement for House District 46 or Austin that she couldn't have achieved with out Craddick. What we do know is she does like the Republican money that has come into her campaigns because of her support for Craddick.
According to KVUE, Dukes has received over $10,000 from assorted Republicans, Craddick loyalists, and Conservative PACs.
Rep. Dukes's "top donor is HillCo PAC, which is in part funded by the largest (Republican) political donor in the nation, homebuilder Bob Perry. Perry gained notoriety for helping pay for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads against Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race. Dukes also counts among her contributions a $1,000 individual donation from Perry himself, as well as $1,000 from Bill Miller, a longtime Craddick friend and consultant.
Maybe this money is the reason Dukes continues to support Tom Craddick. Just today she reaffirms her possible support for Tom Craddick.
Even now, she says, she would not rule out backing Craddick as speaker again next session.
This loyalty and support to Craddick and his money are the reasons a site run entirely by minorities call Dawnna Dukes a Craddick D. This combined with Thompson's vision for a better Austin and strong progressive credentials are the reasons the Texas Progressive Alliance, Lon Burnam, and six democratic clubs in Austin have all endorsed Brian Thompson.
This is in stark contrast to Dawnna Dukes, who rather than embracing her own political party and House Democratic Leadership, she attacks. Colin Strother says:
[Democrats for Reform] spokesman Colin Strother says the group is simply a loose affiliation of 15 House members, committed to pursuing a progressive agenda, who signed off on a 16-point agenda to protect and extend vital services. "This doesn't have anything to do with Craddick and had some pretty ambitious and progressive goals," he said. The list was compiled, he said, because there had been no agenda set by the Democratic leadership.
Rep. Helen Giddings said in their final press conference that, "this is the reason we made the votes we made the very first day of session." A veiled quote on their vote for Tom Craddick. (Because I know it will come up, the reason I have the quote written down is because I worked at the Capitol for House Leader and MALC Chairman Pete P. Gallego during the 80th session).
Read the rest of the Austin Chronicle piece, let us know what you think, and then, I hope you will donate your time and donate a little money to give House District 46 a real representative. |
