I love America and I am a Democrat. This might not be shocking news to any of you, but Marsha Farney could be incredibly surprised to hear this "news". From a press release the Judy Jennings campaign sent out earlier today, Farney went from secret hiding to highly insulting in 24 hours, only to go back into hiding.
It's bad enough that Republican nominee for SBOE District 10 Marsha Farney has been virtually silent for weeks regarding her priorities, if elected to the State Board of Education.
Far worse was what Farney said once she finally broke her silence, before quickly returning to seclusion.
"I'd rather be here than with those America-bashing Democrats," Farney said at a July 4th weekend Tea Party rally in Georgetown,to the Austin American-Statesman.
Before I go into too much more detail, let's do a little housekeeping. I still work at GNI Strategies and one of our clients is Judy Jennings. (It's easy to work for people you agree with). House keeping piece number two, Judy Jennings is running against Marsha Farney and you should go to her website right now and support a candidate that believes in education and listening to experts instead of inserting blind partisanship into the classroom.
Thanks for sticking with me during the necessary aside.
Usually when a candidate makes a claim that insults an entire group of people, the candidate likes to clarify or explain their thoughts and positions. Having put my foot in my mouth a few times, it is always important to make sure people understand the truth and not the misstatement. Well, apparently Farney didn't misspeak or doesn't have anything to clarify. Farney is staying mum and letting her original quote stand.
Now, Farney is hiding from reporters and refusing to answer questions on why she has completely abandoned all pretense of being a mainstream candidate for an office entrusted with the education of Texas' school children. The Houston Chronicle has attempted for days to contact Ms. Farney to question her on what she meant, but Farney has again gone underground.
Judy Jennings did have something to chime in with though.
"For weeks I have called on Farney to explain to Texas families whether she would join those already on the SBOE in ignoring the advice of teachers and experts, by continuing to push hyper-partisan ideology on our school children., For weeks she has remained silent. Now that she's proven the extent to which she will pander to a fringe element, she has quickly returned to her 'undisclosed location' and refuses to answer any questions, in hopes that Texans won't notice," Jennings said.
"I have been clear from the start. When I am elected to the State Board of Education, I will not inflict ideology on the schoolchildren of Texas. Instead, I will listen to the advice of experts and teachers, and will remain focused on the task at hand - providing our Texas children with a world-class education," Jennings said.
"Shamefully, it's now clear that we cannot expect the same from Marsha Farney."
Earlier today, Hurta wrote more about the poll Judy is referencing. You should take a look. Apparently so should Marsha Farney. Let's take partisanship out of the classrooms and make education a priority.
The good news: Apparently, super right wing radical Cynthia Dunbar will not run for reelection in 2010 to the State Board of Education's 10th District. This is great news for Texas, as well as for those in Austin and elsewhere who live in the district. She only disrupts and distracts from potential progress in education.
The bad news: Ms. Dunbar plans to pick her successor.
APPEARS DUNBAR WILL NOT SEEK RE-ELECTION TO SBOE
SREC member Brian Russell says she recruited him to run for her open seat.
Republican Cynthia Dunbar, a lightning rod for controversy on the State Board of Education for her ultra-conservative views, appears to have told supporters she will not run for a second term on the board and likely will be replaced on the ballot by Austin intellectual property attorney Brian Russell, who currently serves on the State Republican Executive Committee.
Another clue she may not be running: Her website, cynthiadunbar.com, brings you to a pretty looking website that mentions the State Board of Education relatively little. Completely ignored is cynthiadunbar.com/index.htm, which directs you to a campaign site as of this posting.
He may not be quite as virally appalling as Ms. Dunbar or her colleague Don McLeroy, but Brian Russell is also a Christian Conservative that would put politics before education.
As Austin's member on the State Republican Executive Committee, he signed a letter about the 2009 Speakers race. The letter implied that the Anybody-but-Craddick Republicans were "working against their own Party."
He is the Austin contact and "Volunteer" with the Texas Eagle Forum. If you don't remember, this is the far-right conservative organization from where Cathie Adams hailed.
Hopefully, the Republican primary voters will pass on Mr. Russell. The party has a reasonable looking candidate in Rebecca Osborne. Unfortunately, she no longer has Cynthia Dunbar's absolutely repugnant record to fight against. And Republican primaries tend to favor the more conservative.
That also means that the Democratic candidate also won't be able to fight against such repulsiveness. With Lorenzo Sadun stepping aside, now could be a prime opportunity to help Judy Jennings. She's currently the only Democratic candidate for the SBOE 10 seat, which is the only seat Democrats can reasonably hope to gain in 2010 . Right now, it looks like we'll need our candidate to be strong. We need a candidate that will win over Texans in the fight for truly better schools.
Update: We still do not have direct confirmation that Dunbar will step aside, but the Statesman has it that, in an email, she said a statement would be released later. They also hear from other SBOE member David Bradley that she will not be returning.
Update by Matt: This statement just came in from Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller:
"If this report is accurate, then it appears that Cynthia Dunbar realized her extremist track record made her a damaged brand in next year's election. But the only difference between her and Russell is she wrote a book savaging public education and he hasn't done that yet. Nobody should be fooled here. He holds the same anti-science and extremist views that Dunbar does, which is why she recruited him to run for her seat."
In her 2008 book, One Nation Under God, Dunbar called public education a "subtle tool of perversion," "tyrannical" and unconstitutional. During the 2008 president election, Dunbar attacked then-candidate Barack Obama as a Marxist and a terrorist sympathizer who wanted another attack on America so that he could declare martial law and throw out the Constitution. Dunbar has also been a leader of efforts by the State Board of Education's far-right faction to politicize our children's social studies classrooms and to promote creationist arguments against evolution in science classrooms.
In March of this year Russell successfully persuaded the State Republican Executive Committee to pass a resolution demanding that all Republican state board members obey the Texas GOP platform by supporting creationist arguments against evolution in new public school science curriculum standards. He also has served as treasurer of Legacy PAC, a Christian-right political action committee. In 2004 he served on a committee that drafted the Texas Republican Party platform, which called separation of church and state a "myth," demanded that public schools teach "intelligent design"/creationism in science classrooms and opposed including medically accurate information on contraception and disease prevention in sex education classes.
Education First, a non-partisan, informal organization of voters from State Board of Education District 10, which includes Fort Bend, Brazoria, Austin, Williamson, Bastrop and North Travis counties (among a number of others) has launched a website and blog.
The website EducationFirstSBOE10.org is geared to advancing the groups goals of raising voter awareness and interest in the State Board of Education, in particular the SBOE district 10 election of 2010.
(Sadun is one of 3 Democratic candidates known to be looking at this race, and one of two who is an active participant in the Burnt Orange Report community here. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
I am happy to formally announce my candidacy for the State Board of Education, and to announce it first on Burnt Orange. Although the district is Republican-leaning, I am convinced that a well-organized Democratic campaign can win. Please join me.
