The campaign for TX-17 looks as though it will go a full twelve rounds, but Democratic Congressman Chet Edwards told Politico that he is ready for a fight.
"Every year the [RNC] predicts my demise. I'm lean and mean and have earned the support of Republicans and independents, as well as Democrats."
As Left of College Station reported last week, Edwards is facing a Republican opponent who recently won a divisive and expensive primary and runoff. While the Edwards campaign has been gearing up for reelection, the Flores campaign now has the challenge of transitioning from primary to general election campaign mode. While the district is predominately Republican it takes more for a candidate to win an election here than an R next to their name in the ballot box. Edwards has spent ten terms in Congress, and has faced well funded Republican opponents before. Like these previous campaigns the Flores campaign is attempting to paint Edwards as a liberal, and to connect him to President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"Texans across the 12 counties of this district are chomping at the bit to vote out Chet Edwards and fire Nancy Pelosi, as evidence by more people voting in the March 2010 GOP primary than did for the GOP nominee in November 2006."
After a Republican primary that included five candidates and a runoff between two candidates that was very contentious, Congressman Chet Edwards reminded the Republican nominee Bill Flores this week that the general election campaign has begun. The day after the primary Edwards released a video in which he made the case for why the citizens of Congressional District 17 should reelect him, and he criticized Flores for being the choice of "Washington, D.C. insiders" and being a "Houston oil executive" who has never "once voted in our district." The Waco Tribune-Herald reports that the Flores campaign responded by calling Edwards a "career politician" and that he is "desperately attacking."
This campaign will be expensive. Flores dramatically outspent Curnock in the primary; while Curnock spent $175,000 in the primary Flores spent $750,000. However, now Flores faces one of the best funded Democrats in Texas, and also already spent a considerable amount of money in the primary (a significant amount of which was self-financed). The Tribune-Herald reported that the Edwards campaign announced that it raised $594,000 during the current reporting period, compared to the $29,000 that Flores raised during the same period. After depleting much of their finances the Flores campaign reported $60,000 cash on hand, while the Edwards campaign is sitting on $1.7 million cash on hand. Edwards is of the few Democrats in Congress that has been targeted by the Republican Party who has been able to raise more money than his opponent. However, Flores has already contributed nearly a half million dollars to his campaign, so it appears as if there is going to be a large amount of money that will be spent over the next 200 days.
40 days from today - on May 18 - we will see two HUGE primaries for U.S. Senate. Even though these races aren't in Texas, they impact Democrats across the country and, well, the entire country as a whole.
In Pennsylvania, Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak will try to upset Republican-for-decades Arlen Specter.
In Arkansas, Democratic Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter will try to upset corporate lackey Blanche Lincoln.
These two races are tremendously important to defining who and what the Democratic Party is and what we will be fighting for.
If you can volunteer for these candidates (or encourage friends and family in Pennsylvania and Arkansas to do so), that would be amazing.
Of course, if you can help with a contribution to either or both via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page as soon as possible, it will make a big impact.
Polling shows that both Specter and Lincoln are at risk of - if not likely to - hand these Senate seats over to far-right-wing Republicans. (And, even if these two retain the seats, that's not much better on many key issues.)
Congressman Sestak and Lieutenant Governor Halter winning these primaries are critical to keeping these seats in truly Democratic hands. Your support can help make that happen! Please hop over to the Expand the Map! ActBlue page right away to make a contribution - an investment in the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party to pull out an old expression - and show your support.
Thanks SO much for any support you can provide. 40 Days.
She may have won the TX-22 Democratic primary, but considering how Rogers is calling for the impeachment of President Obama without any legitimate cause to do so, can the TDP declare Rogers ineligible to run on the Democratic ticket and select a replacement nominee?
During elections an enormous amount of money is spent on campaigns, and the dollars spent have been increasing during both Presidential and midterm elections. During the Presidential election in 2000 $3,082,340,937 was spent by presidential candidates, senate and house candidates, political parties and independent interest groups trying to influence federal elections, and that number increased to $5,285,680,883 in 2008. During the last midterm election cycle, in 2006, candidates and others groups spent $2,852,658,140, and if the trend continues even more will be spent this year.
Local residents have donated over $118,000 to political candidates and campaign during the current election cycle, and over half of those donations originated from two different zip codes. The largest amount of donations came from south College Station, a total of $39,295 in political donations originated from the 77845 zip code. The second largest amount of donations came from eastern Bryan, at total of $23,741 originated from the 77802 zip code. Residents of College Station have donated $63,429 to political campaigns, while residents of Bryan have donated $54,835.
In local Brazos County campaigns County Commissioner Duane Peters, who is a Republican primary candidate for County Judge, has spent $12,451, the most out of any other candidate. Representative Fred Brown has spent the most out of local Texas legislature candidates, spending $9,404 during the current reporting period. In the local congressional district, Congressman Edwards has already spent more than all of the Republican candidates involved in the primary combined; all five Republican primary candidates have spent a total $268,481 during the current election cycle while Edwards has spent $308,832.
Can't anyone here play this game? Casey Stengel's lament as coach of the New York Mets comes to mind as the Democratic leadership plays Chicken Little. Loss of a single Senate race has thrown the Democrats into a tailspin. Can they pull out?
Small change
The difference between Coach Stengel and President Obama is that Obama got to pick his own team. Yet, after a campaign built on change, he continued in power the same old team: Gates at Defense, Geithner at Treasury, Bernanke at Fed. And they're making the same old plays: big bank bailouts; weak regulations; tepid economic stimulus; troop surge in Afghanistan; persecution of gays in the military; protection for torturers. The President shrugged off his own deadline for closing the un-American prison at Guantanamo.
After leading the nation in a chant of Yes we can, Mr. Obama has spent his first year in office showing that No, they can't. Now David Axelrod is offering the excuse that change is hard. When did they figure that one out?
President Obama has managed to lose his Democratic base and independent voters at the same time, while gaining not a single friend in the opposition. When the President should have shown leadership, he stayed on the sidelines. Where are we going?
(The pictures from Haiti are shocking. $10 is the least we can do to help. I texted mine in; please help out. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
If helping those less fortunate and seeking justice are core elements of the Democratic Party, then any help you can give to the Haitian people - right now - is desperately needed.
I urge you to do the following: text 'HAITI' to 90999 on your cell phone. Ten dollars will be donated to the International Red Cross for relief efforts; this donation will be charged to your cell phone bill. This is completely legitimate, and is being advocated by the State Department. (And the traditional fees and cuts taken by cell phone carriers are being waved by most carriers in this case. -kt)
The capital city of Port-au-Prince has been destroyed. The Presidential Palace has been destroyed, the UN headquarters of the country has been destroyed. Several tens of thousands have died in the initial earthquake, and that number could escalate into six figures in the next few days unless food, water, shelter, and medical aid are brought to the island.
Up to three million people have been injured. A conservative estimate is that fifty thousand people died in the first day; as a comparison roughly the same number of Americans perished in the entire Vietnam War.
The cataclysm for the Haitian people - the poorest country in the western hemisphere - will get worse before it gets better.
Twitter has become an indispensible part of politics and political campaigning; it is a simple yet effective way to convey an idea to many people at no cost. It has become one of the tools that many upstart and candidates are using during the primaries. Many established politicians use Twitter as a way to convey quick messages without sending or press release. How are candidates in the Brazos Valley using Twitter? I took a look at some of the candidates for Texas Congressional District 17 and found out who tweets, who doesn't, and who doesn't want me to follow them.
Congressman Chet Edwards, incumbent Democrat, does not advertise a Twitter account on his campaign web site, although Edwards does maintain a Facebook page that is regularly updated. However, Edwards has tended to be a low profile Congressman, and rarely appears in interviews on cable news and has focused most of his campaign on tradition means such as radio advertising and yard signs. While Edwards might be able to provide some interesting tweets it is doubtful that he would say anything overly partisan or controversial in 140 characters.
Republican primary candidate Rob Curnock, who tweets under the name rob4congress, has focused less on specific campaign issues and more on promoting partisan attacks from Congressman Mike Pence to political commentator Dick Morris. Recently Curnock did promote a list to his 229 followers of "10 reasons why 2010 will be a year to celebrate for Central Texans" that his campaign web site published. Curnock's number one reason was a "Consistent, common-sense conservative message of less government, lower taxes and more personal freedom," and that "this campaign is about ideas and message." Which is interesting because that means that the Curnock campaign in 2010 should be completely different that the Curnock campaign in 2008 when its focus was not on ideas but on negative campaigning and saying the words "liberal" and "Edwards" in the same sentence over and over again.
Last night was the deadline to file for the Democratic and Republican primaries, and both Democrat and Republican incumbents are facing challenges from both the left and the right. In Brazos County and throughout the rest of the Brazos Valley there are several notable candidates, and what takes place in March is going to greatly affect the complexion of the election in November.
The campaign for the Republican nomination for Congressional District 17 is much more crowded than it was last year. Last year's Republican nominee, Waco businessman Rob Curnock, is joined by fellow Waco businessman Chuck Wilson, College Station nurse Timothy Delasandro, Houston businessman Bill Flores, and Texas A&M security expert Dave McIntyre. The Republican primary will probably be between Curnock and McIntyre, however, Flores is well funded and will be able to spend more than the other candidates. Democratic Congressman Chet Edwards is going to have a financial advantage over whichever Republican emerges from the primary. How the Republican primary evolves is going to greatly affect the general election in November and whether or not a Republican candidate can serious challenge Edwards.
Texas State Senator Steve Ogden had announced his retirement and State Representative Dan Gattis appeared to be the front runner to receive the Republican nomination for the vacated Senate seat. However, after Gattis withdrew from the campaign for personal reasons Ogden decided to run for reelection and facing a primary challenge from Ben Bius. Ogden will be campaigning as his experience as a State Senator, but the budget and the economy are going to be central issues in the campaign.
Texas State Representative Fred Brown is facing a primary challenge form three candidates; former Brazos County Tax Collector Buddy Winn, former candidate for Brazos County District Attorney Rick Davis, and Blinn College professor Blanche Brick. During the 2008 election Left of College Station reported on the almost unopposed Republican, who only faced a Libertarian opponent in the general election. However, during the primary Brown will face a longtime Brazos County public office holder in Winn, and candidate that will pull no punches during the campaign in Davis. Brown's record as a legislator will be the focus of the primary debate, including the dubious distinction as being named by Texas Monthly as being a piece of furniture.
If you get a phone call tonight it could be from your Congressman. Chet Edwards is holding a telephone town hall meeting tonight between 6:30-7:00pm, and will call over 200,000 households throughout the twelve counties of Texas' 17th Congressional District. It should be expected that those phone calls will be filled with questions about the Obama Administration's health care reform plan. Many of the people that Edwards will talk to tonight will be critical of the plan to reform health care. It is evident from reading the internet forums, the comment sections of local media, and the letters to the editor that conservative constituents, that comprise a significant portion of this district, are critical of Edwards and have expressed their disapproval. However, in reality the people that should be expressing their disapproval are Progressives. While Edwards may not be conservative enough for some of his constituents, who would never vote for a Democrat, he may be losing support from the very people that help him get elected. While conservatives may have the loudest concerns with Edwards, progressives have the most legitimate concerns with Edwards.
Health care is one of the most important issues facing Americans today, and perhaps the most significant problem in the health care system is the number of uninsured people in America. The National Coalition on Health Care notes that "nearly 46 million Americans, or 18 percent of the population under the age of 65, were without health insurance in 2007." According to Health Affairs, due to the economic recession the number of uninsured people in America will increase by 6.9 million by 2010. Bloomberg reports that health-insurance premiums for families have risen 119 % since 1999, and in the last fifteen years America has increased the amount it spends on health care from $912 billion to $2.5 trillion and the amount of uninsured has only increased.
Edwards states that his goals are "lowering costs, maintaining competition and choice, and preserving quality health care." However, the most significant way to lower cost is to provide a public option, without a public option it is unlikely that health care reform will actually be able to significantly lower the cost of health care. Also, the idea that Edwards supports maintaining competition and choice suggests that there is current competition and choice, while for many Americans that only competition is the choice they have to make on whether or not they will actually be able to afford health insurance. It is obvious that "preserving the quality of health care" is important, but the real goal should be expanding access to the quality health care that is currently not available to many Americans. It is often said that the best quality health care can be found in the United States, however, who is that health care actually available to?
