With the news that Mikal Watts will be ending his bid, does that make Lieutenant Colonel and State Representative Rick Noriega the sole Democratic candidate?
Last I heard, Emil Reichstadt was expected to drop out "soon" but I hadn't heard any formal word that he was definitely out. Also, former state senator and Texas Tech Chancellor John Montford was considering a bid - any further news there?
Rumors are that Emil Reichstadt, one of three declared candidates for the Democratic primary for US Senate, will bow out early this week.
I liked Emil Reichstadt personally. I've met him a couple of times and he is a very likeable man. I was never sure of what he could do in this primary but he apparently saw the writing on the wall too and didn't want to ripple the waters.
Instead of pursuing John Cornyn it would appear that the former Army JAG officer is going to take on Republican Dan Branch in HD 108. I'm very pleased to see he will shift resources and stay in the hunt against Republicans one way or another.
In 2006 Dan Branch was oppossed by openly gay Democrat Jack Borden, who ran basically no campaign at all. Even with running no campaign he managed 40.42% of the vote in a strong Republican district.
With the resources that Reichstadt can bring to the table in HD 108 I would expect that those numbers would improve dramatically.
I wish Emil Reichstadt and his campaign all the luck in the world. Give Bush-lite Republican Dan Branch a good run for his money.
The Young Democrats of America Convention in Dallas this past weekend was an interesting event. It wasn’t confined by the same press choreography that plagues the large Democratic and Republican national conventions.
It was free flowing and at times spontaneous.
The two largest events were any training on how to become a national delegate to the Democratic Convention in Denver and the massive Democrats Work community service project.
Watching high school and college aged YD’s learning the process was by far one of the more entertaining things to watch. It was fun to sit there and watch them learn the nuance that surrounded our complex party rules, and see them energized to be a part of the party process.
As the second youngest delegate from Texas in 2004, the presidential convention is one of the most exciting events I have been to in my brief political career.
As Parag Mehta outlined in his presentation, Denver was selected because of the increasing growth in democratic support in the Mountain West. With impressive democratic gains in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Kansas, and Arizona, the Democratic Convention can serve as a launching pad for further growth in 2008.
Not only will the convention set up the opportunity for us to organize the 3,300 counties across the country or even the 203,000 precincts, it will also be the catalyst for organizational growth. The best example we heard was Denver will see a growth of labor unions in the hotel industry go from 1 union to 13 by the end of the convention because of the bargaining chip that is the Democratic Convention. Of course, every YD there wanted to be a part of that sort of growth. Of course it is always fun to be there with over 4,382 like-minded, passionate democrats too.
Enthusiasm was not reserved for just the convention. Both the Mikal Watts and Rick Noriega campaigns were out meeting democrats from across the country. Emil Reichstadt was even there as a volunteer.
The incredible thing was the interest the Texas Senate race is generating.
You know how the rest of the rhyme goes, but it would appear that Cornyn is so desperate to continue pandering at the heels of his master George W. Bush that he feels the need to trot Karl Rove out for a fundraiser to bolster his war chest.
Cornyn’s fundraising efforts have apparently taken on a sense of urgency based on Mikal Watt’s $1.1 million haul this past quarter, which allowed Senator Rubberstamp to recycle Chapter 3 of the GOP playbook entitled “Attack the Trial Lawyers.”
Cornyn has scheduled a series of fundraisers for the weekend of July 20, featuring presidential adviser Karl Rove as the main attraction. But an invitation letter for the Harlingen event also plays off Republican reactions to trial lawyers.
"We will also have the opportunity to help the senator begin preparing for what appears to be a wealthy, self-financed personal injury lawyer opponent," said a Cornyn campaign committee letter signed by James G. Springfield, CEO of Valley Baptist Health System in Harlingen.
A Cornyn fundraising letter sent out last month by John Nau of Houston noted: "Unfortunately, John appears to have drawn a very wealthy personal injury lawyer Mikal Watts as a potential opponent." Cornyn's aides declined to discuss the specifics of his letters.
Senator John Cornyn, the ever so dutiful lemming he has proven to be in the United States Senate, will stand with President Bush and his continued debacle in Iraq:
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a staunch supporter of Bush's Iraq policies, said he and many others would stick behind Bush. But "obviously everyone was concerned, and we're trying to figure out what the answer is," he said.
The answer is simple, John, while other Republican senators show the political courage to tell the president that his strategies continue and fail, leaving only the choice of bringing our men and women home, Senator John Cornyn sticks with the unpopular stance of supporting a neoconservative democracy installation project.
When we elect a Democrat senator in 2008 from Texas we’ll be that much closer to bringing the troops home from that pit of disaster in ancient Mesopotamia.
Aaron Blake of the The Hill wrote a detailed article about our emerging Democratic primary contest, focusing mostly on the money Mikal Watts raised, which Blake notes here:
Watts raised about as much as incumbents such as Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who are up for reelection in 2008, in about a third of the time. His total even outpaces comedian Al Franken’s (D) first quarter, in which the former “Saturday Night Live” actor and Minnesota Senate candidate raised $1.4 million in 45 days.
The Hill didn’t ignore Noriega by any means, noting his solid experience and knowledge related to at least two of the top political hot potatoes in border security and national security. Watts fundraising pace also opened the door for Noriega to take a minor jab:
“I think that was to be expected based on his business associates,” Noriega said. “He’s done a lot of referral work as a trial attorney, and so I think that’s just some owe-me’s coming back to him.”
The Texas Political Resource Page is reporting that former Lubbock district attorny, state senator, AT&T Executive, as well as Texas Tech Chancellor John T. Montford is mulling a plunge into the Democratic primary for the US Senate.
Montford previously was rumored to be the candidate in 1996 to take on Republican Phil Gramm but decided against it at that time. It would appear he might feel the climate is better with Cornyn being a wounded candidate heading into re-election.
Montford lives in San Antonio and attended the Mikal Watts $1.1 million dollar fundraiser for the DSCC a few months back.
Friends here in the Mid-Cities who know family members of John Montford are checking on the validity of these rumors, but if it is true, the former state senator would be a well funded and formidable candidate.
There are 254 counties in Texas so as the primary field continues to allegedly grow, if indeed Montford jumps in, then we could see some positive and intense political grassroots activity all over the state.
In all the hooplah around which Democrat is better between Watts and Noriega to StopCornyn, Emil Reichstadt, a Dallas lawyer and former JAG Army officer, announced he was running against John Cornyn back in April.
Saying that he is deeply concerned about the welfare of American children and alarming environmental and national security issues, longtime local private practice attorney Emil Reichstadt is declaring for the Texas 2008 U.S. Senate race Thursday, April 19, on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas.
According to Reichstadt's press release, he is the youngest of three sons. His father was a swiss immigrant who married his wife in Little Rock, AR. Emil has been married for over 30 years and he, and his children, attend the Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas. Has quite the volunteer background as well.
My favorite quote by Reichstadt was in regards to the military:
"We need to foster our leaders in the military as subject-matter experts and rely on their expertise," he says. "We cannot wallow in military policies of politics; we must let our soldiers protect themselves. We are mired in sinking sand in Iraq, in the middle of a civil war that our best military minds sought to avoid. The war has been terribly mismanaged, and the incumbent, John Cornyn, has stood by and blindly supported that mismanagement."
So as we continue and debate Watts versus Noriega, we need not forget there is another candidate in this race who deserves to be vetted in the manner the other two are as well.
Welcome, Emil Reichstadt, to the Texas Democratic Senatorial Primary debate.
The right-wing talking point attacking trial lawyers is nothing more than a phony smear designed to silence one of the few voices of the people against unchecked corporate power and a sinister attempt to de-fund progressive politics:
"The drive to limit court-awarded damages in civil lawsuits, often called 'tort reform,' usually is framed as a contest between accident victims' rights and corporations' desire to be protected from unreasonably high judgments. Increasingly, however, the battle is deeply partisan, as conservative groups try to mobilize the political right and cripple a key Democratic constituency, trial lawyers. . .
'It's a double kiss,' said a key strategist involved in the battle taking place in Congress, state legislatures, bar associations and local judicial elections. 'Republicans get to force one of the biggest backers of Democrats to spend money just to survive and, at the same time, please everybody from the Chamber [of Commerce] to the drug companies, to the Realtors, doctors, you name it.'
Ed Lazarus, a Democratic political operative who works for the American Trial Lawyers Association, said: '[I]t's very clear what the program is; it is to defund the Democratic Party.' For the GOP, he said, 'it's a double-header: more income for your side, and you take income from the other.' "
