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.
Despite the fact that Texas boasts the highest number of uninsured residents, all Texas Republicans in the U.S. Congress voted against health care reform that would guarantee coverage for the vast majority of Texans.
All Republicans continue to spin health care industry manufactured talking point garbage about HCR.
Showing their lack of honesty and the courage to cope with much needed change in this crucial area, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich, mired in the same ol' out-of-touch GOP talking point silly nonsense and everything disingenuous, actually had the nerve to co-author an editorial in the Washington Post that extolled the virtues of states taking charge of health care.
They used Texas, of all places, as a shining example of the finest state run health care industry with choices for all.
Surely Rick and Newt are kidding. Surely they know they are insulting the intelligence of every Texan who knows better.
But, Rick and Newt don't really know that they are insulting our intelligence because they are completely out of touch with any reality that resides outside of their air tight bubble.
Texas, for example, has adopted approaches to controlling health-care costs while improving choice, advancing quality of care and expanding coverage. Consider the successful 2003 tort reform. Fewer frivolous lawsuits have attracted record numbers of doctors to the state as medical malpractice insurance premiums dropped by half. Christus Health, a large Catholic nonprofit system with a significant presence in Texas, spent about $100 million on liability defense payments in 2003. Last year, Christus spent $2.3 million on such payments. Much of that savings has gone into expanding health-care services in low-income neighborhoods.
Choice? Really? I didn't get a choice to choose anything other than that which is offered to me by my employer.
As we can see, it always comes down to those evil doing trial lawyers in Texas who might actually hold a robbing cheater accountable for stealing life from patients by denying the care that they need, deserve and pay for.
You might think Washington would be curious about plans to provide more low-income Texans with insurance, reduce expensive emergency-room visits for basic care and make it easier to buy into employer-sponsored insurance. Unfortunately, Washington has failed for 18 months to give Texas permission to use Medicaid dollars for these policies.
Silly boys, many small businesses cannot offer health care insurance b/c it is far too expensive.
Perry, of course, wants to steal money from the poor who are entitled to Medicaid and give it to his buddies in small business. Do you think for a minute small businesses would use the Medicaid bucks to insure their poorer employees in these dire times when banks will not lend them the money to increase inventories or meet payrolls? I kind of don't think so. At least not under the present conditions in which health care insurance coverage is off of the affordability charts.
Knowing what we know about Rick Perry, meet his Republican soul mates who voted against health care reform. And meet the few brave and principled Democrats who stepped up to answer the cries from their constituents. The picture below is not pretty.
A member of the Congressional Black Caucus who's met with Obama's vice-presidential screening team says she offered the names of former senators John Edwards and Sam Nunn - and was told they're on the list. Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Michigan says when she mentioned that Al Gore is her favorite, the two members of Obama's team smiled. http://politicalticker.blogs.c...
Sorry I didn't put this on the calendar - and sorry this is a short diary entry & very short meeting notice (for a meeting I can't even make) but I figured someone here might want to know:
What: May Planning Meeting (This one's for real!)
When: Monday, May 7th at 6:00 PM
Where:
Antonio's, 7522 N IH 35 (I 35 just south of Anderson)
Austin, Texas 78752
Event Description:
Time once again for AOC members to get together for a planning session
(that sounds more official than partying at Antonio's, doesn't it?!).
We will meet on MONDAY instead of Tuesday so that people can still
attend the South Austin Dems meeting on the 8th.
I know many of us have our eyes set to summer vacation, so please come
with ideas of what you'd like AOC to accomplish throughout the season.
That way we can all plan our schedules accordingly. Remember, we are
NOT a once-a-month organization...Austin needs us year round!
For more information, and to RSVP for this event, please click here: http://blog.johnedwa...
(From one of our own on the Democratic National Committee, David Holmes! - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
Sitting in the Washington Hilton in DC this weekend, the Presidential Primary race appears to be in full swing. There are stickers and buttons everywhere and speech after speech about the ails of the country and some of the hopeful solutions. But some of the candidates are more "present" than others.
The presidential candidates who have announced or indicated strong interest in running were all invited to have a presence and give a speech at this DNC meeting. We went through this process last cycle too, and it can be fun.
Each of the candidates sets up a table full of materials. Some of the candidates gave their speech today, the others will speak tomorrow (Saturday.) After the speeches, each of the candidates are supposed to go to a small hotel room and talk with and get to know the DNC members. Most of them do that and do it genuinely.
I'll touch briefly on each of the candidates who spoke today in the order they spoke:
