| Over the weekend State Representative, Lt. Col Rick Noriega announced he would join Mikal Watts in exploring entering the race for U.S. Seante.
During the past month, Noriega had been hinting at the run in San Antonio and the Valley. This past weekend at the Mid-Cities Democrats meeting Noriega announced that within the week he will fill out the necessary paperwork to explore the race to defeat Junior Cornyn.
A healthy group of Texas bloggers and online activists have been involved in drafting Rick Noriega to run for U.S. Senate which has sparked national interest from DailyKos, MyDD, and Swing State Project. Collectively these three sites raised over $1.5 million for Democratic candidates alone and are likely to raise more in a presidential cycle.
In addition to blogger support, State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC) member Don Bankston has written a letter to every member of the SDEC urging them to support Noriega.
Rick Noriega will be a symbol of hope and promise for Hispanics throughout Texas and the nation. We can demonstrate that there is room in our party for a dynamic progressive Hispanic leader to represent us in the Senate.
As former County Chair and a member of the State Democratic Executive Committee, I urge you, and all Democrats, to support Rick Noriega for United States Senate. Rick will not let you down.
Other impressive institutional support came from the state House, where 48 of 69 Texas House members have asked Noriega to run.
That is why we stand united in calling on you to offer yourself in service once again, this time as a candidate for United States Senate.
Texas and the nation need your leadership. Voters from throughout our communities have told us they want a candidate with the courage to defend Democratic values as Texas values and a leader who can renew the voters’ trust by not asking sacrifices of others they’re not willing to make themselves.
These are the character traits we have seen in you every day.
[…]
Texas, and indeed our nation, is at a critical point in history. And we can either respond with bold, new leadership that unapologetically stands up for true Texas values, or we will have failed future generations of Texans.
The full letter can be found here.
Noriega responded to the letter in the Austin American Statesman yesterday saying, “The question becomes: What do we do individually to ensure that we as a nation are on the right path?"”
The article goes further. Noriega lays the foundation of the upcoming campaign.
And Latino voters could lean toward Noriega, helping him make up for having less money. Last year, Maria Luisa Alvarado beat Ben Grant to be the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor after spending less than $1,500. And lightly funded Victor Morales won the party's Senate nomination in 1996 over better-known then-U.S. Rep. John Bryant.
Watts and Noriega paint Cornyn as weak and obedient to President Bush, a critique that Cornyn disputes.
Noriega, whose great-grandmother crossed into Texas from Mexico in 1916, is author of a law permitting in-state college tuition rates for illegal immigrants.
He said Senate inaction on immigration showed Cornyn's inability to work across party lines. Cornyn, like many Republicans, did not go along with what had been pitched as compromise legislation bringing Democrats and the White House together.
Noriega favored the bill.
Noriega accused Cornyn of pandering to a "fringe ideology" by voting to have a fence built on stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border. Noriega called the fence a waste of money unlikely to stem illegal immigration.
"Doesn't make sense," Noriega said of Cornyn's position. "It's a function of a lack of understanding, inexperience, not listening to the professionals on the ground."
Noriega favors removing U.S. troops from Iraq. He doesn't want to see more friends coming home in boxes.
A primary is good as long as both Watts and Noriega can keep their eyes on the prize and remember why they are getting in the race: to stop Junior Cornyn. He is wrong on immigration, education, and the war. Cornyn is bad for Texas and bad for America.
There is a chance to defeat Junior Cornyn and get Texas back on track. Remember Jim Webb in Virginia? We do too. |
