This is an old story I'm just getting around to writing. Sorry for the delay -- I've been doing orientation up at the KSG school. -- Phillip
Congressman Ciro Rodriguez defeated Republican Henry Bonilla last December to regain his seat to the Texas 23'rd CD. At the time, the San Antonio Express-News described the win as follows:
The soundness with which Rep. Henry Bonilla, the one-time Hispanic poster boy of the Republican Party, was beaten Tuesday night was the equivalent of a political earthquake.
Congressman Rodriguez already has a formal challenger, however -- and the challenger, named Jim McGrody has launched such a comprehensive website that it gained the attention of the paper. In Bruce Davidson's column titled, "'Nerdy' game plan for candidate" he writes:
He has addressed the entire Texas Republican Party platform line by line, agreeing with most of it. And he has unveiled Compact 23, a list of key positions and principles.
McGrody also has detailed how his voting record would differ from incumbent Rep. Ciro Rodriguez's with his Vote Count Database.
[...]
But McGrody, a 67-year-old retiree, is betting that he can use his Web site, Internet marketing skills and a fast-growing e-mail list to communicate with voters repeatedly for only a small amount of money and better than his well-funded foes.
To be certain, McGrody's website is quite impressive. Granted, his policies and positions are terribly out of line and leave much to be desired for the people in his district. But he has certainly capitalized on the benefits of the internet in terms of establishing your presence and communicating to your audience.
Note: The following is a general overview of a new blog I am working on called Progressive Wave. It is a re-post from Daily Kos. Simply put, we are looking for a large number of bloggers to cover our new representatives and senators in Congress. For Texas, we'd appreciate any bloggers who would be interested in covering Nick Lampson or Ciro Rodriguez. If you're interested, please post here or email me at my address in my profile. Thanks!
It's great to see citizen journalism in action. A project here at Daily Kos is picking up steam - where we 'adopt' a congressional committee and keep tabs on their progress. It's a great idea, and by all means one that we should encourage; after all, a democracy thrives when its citizens participate actively within it.
Before the election I was thinking of taking a similar principle and applying it to our newly-elected Congresspersons and Senators in the U.S. Congress. Many of our newly-elected representatives come from extremely close races (such as Patrick Murphy in PA-08 or Joe Courtney in CT-02), or they are in areas that will make it a challenge for them to be re-elected every time they are up (Nick Lampson in TX-22 or Nancy Boyda in KS-02). While the Netroots-endorsed list has only included challengers, it's inevitable that we will have to begin defending our incumbents, beginning in 2008.
Not only did Ciro's win in TX-23 make for a very nice Christmas gift to Democrats, it also is an investment. As many in Texas know, Bonilla (the only Mexican-American Republican in Congress) was the poster boy for the Republican Party's 'outreach' to Latino voters. Meaning of course, the photo-shopped version of someone who looks like you but sells you out and screws you over in reality.
Not only that, but it's an open secret that Bonilla had his eyes on becoming a US Senator for Texas. For now, we've taken away his launching pad and platform to run for statewide office. As Paul Burka said today...
Bonilla may have stayed at the party too long. He has always wanted to move up to the Senate, and it seemed a possibility four years ago when Phil Gramm announced that he would not seek reelection. But Gramm and Rick Perry could not agree on a scenario that would have led to Gramm's early resignation and Bonilla's appointment, and the moment passed. Since then, Bonilla has had a run of bad luck: the U.S. Supreme Court said that his safe district violated the Voting Rights Act last spring--the only district on Tom DeLay's map that didn't pass muster--and a three-judge panel drew him a 61% Hispanic district in which he had no long-term (and, as it turned out, no short-term) future.
In addition, Ciro should be able to hold this seat, becoming a Democratic Progressive Hispanic Representative in the majority party. That takes a load off the DCCC in 2008 when they will be fighting all over the country letting us focus in Texas on holding Lampson and taking out the like of McCaul and others instead.
The soundness with which Rep. Henry Bonilla, the one-time Hispanic poster boy of the Republican Party, was beaten Tuesday night was the equivalent of a political earthquake.
The seven-term incumbent, who as late as Tuesday harbored dreams of becoming a U.S. Senator, was essentially fired from office and replaced by Ciro Rodriguez, a former congressman known more for being a good man than a good campaigner.
Defying every political truism of Bexar County politics, Bonilla started the night by becoming the rare well-known Republican to not only lose early voting, but to lose it badly.
Last night's victory in TX-23 was a huge one, the majority of the credit for which must be placed at the hands of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The DCCC spent over a million dollars in the last month helping build out Ciro's campaign and the hard work of Adrian Saenz, Meghan Gaffney, and Vanessa Gonzalez put him over the top. Their work as well as that of others that went unseen, was critical in making this a winning race.
The TDP, while constrained by the McCain-Feingold laws, did its part and devoted voter information, a secondary field program in 6 counties, some fundraising, and a few statewide e-mails (though woefully inept in that department as usual). Still, it's more than I'd ever have expected out of the TDP prior to Boyd Richie and should be congratulated.
And of course, there are thanks to be made to LULAC & MALDEF who fought ongoing legal battles to keep early voting going, True Blue Action, the TexRoots, Labor, and many other players.
But the one group that would have you believe they did it all and were the first out of the gate and into bloggers inboxes with their "look what we won" e-mail, would be the Lone Star Project. While they have done plenty of good stuff in the past, their release last night and this falling-over-themselves piece is best summed up by McBlogger.
I wasn't going to write anything about this, but goddamn if there wasn't an email last night, mere hours after Ciro Rodriguez won, from LSP taking credit for the damn thing. Matt [Angle], I'm going to terminate my address on your f***ing list if you don't stop with the auto-fe****io. Seriously, how much did LSP raise for Ciro? From my perspective, this was the candidate, DCCC, LULAC and MALDEF. LSP didn't even like the LULAC map that produced this district; now you're the ones responsible?
The winners are never going to call bullshit, so it falls to us. Matt you do a hell of lot and there is no need to take credit for everything. It distracts from the real work ahead and breeds resentment among people who work really hard, cycle after cycle. People you're going to need at some point in the future.
Sometimes, modesty is an asset.
Indeed. Now on to the rest of the analysis and impact of this race as that's off the blogs' collective chest.
With the Bexar County vote 100% in and only 8 precincts out in Medina county, we can start looking at what happened in TX-23. So with that, I give you this wonderful quote from CQ politics.
The outcome will determine whether the Republican Party will get a little holiday cheer at the end of their worst election campaign in many years, or get one last bitter taste of unexpected defeat.
As my roommate just pointed out, having been in SA all day, Ciro was first elected to Congress in 1997 in a special election. That race, featured 9 Democrats (including now State Senator Carlos Uresti who went on 2 months later to win HD 118 which Ciro vacated after winning his seat in in TX-28), 5 Republicans, 1 Independent, and 5 write-ins. That 1997 race also went to a run-off after Ciro won 46% of the first round vote. He got 67% of the vote in the runoff against Democrat Juan Solis, III.
Former U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez defeated seven-term Republican incumbent Henry Bonilla in a runoff on Tuesday, adding another Democrat to Congress and deciding Texas' final congressional seat.
Rodriguez's win gives Congress another Democrat after the party won control of Congress in the November elections. Texas added one Democrat already in the suburban Houston 22nd Congressional District once held by Republican Rep. Tom DeLay.
95% of the vote in Bexar is in. Ciro holds with 56.3%.
I've been pouring over data and just updated the County Comparison post. Seeing the counties that are out are still for Ciro, and that Bonilla's highest turnout counties are in, and Bexar County has just updated to 65 of 151 counties in, I just can't put the math together anymore expect to say this:
Burnt Orange Report is calling TX-23 for Democrat Ciro Rodriguez.
(The only thing that would mess things up is if the data is off. Along those lines, the SOS says there are 92 Precincts that Bexar can report and Bexar says there are 151 precincts that it can report. Either way, the amount reported on each page is the same % of precincts.)
Update: Bexar County just updated. Now says 75% reporting for the county. Ciro at 58.4% in Bexar.
Update 2: Check the posts below for more updates on existing totals and charts. Ciro's won this things. Congrats to the DCCC to whom major credit must be placed for winning this election. Those folks have been great and put their money where their mouth was. Looks like we just saved ourselves some time and money in 2008. And to think, Ciro had originally dropped out of this race back when he first filed before dropping back in. Looks like he's just dropped back into Congress.
Update: Ciro just won Culberson County, hahah. Bonilla had 53% of the vote there last month. Ciro just won it with 53.4%. Of course, there were only 146 votes out there compared to 397 last month.
Update 2: Ciro also won Brewster County, taking it away from Bonilla.
