As campaign season cranks into high-gear, heavy hitters are making their way down to Texas for a few marquee fundraisers in support of various Congressional candidates. Now, you can tell a lot about a candidate by whom they choose to draw in the high rollers. Seems to me that the Republicans down here in Texas are increasingly relying on the crazy fringe to bring out the checkbooks and media attention. Let's take a look at who's traveling down to Texas to raise the big bucks:
Candidate
Special Guest
John Carter, TX-31 -- Round Rock Republican, recently described health care bill as "Death for the Baby Boomers, Jail for the Middle Class, Free Healthcare for Illegal Aliens," on his own website, no less.
Michele Bachmann, MN-6 -- Fox News' favorite census conspiracy theorist and global-warming denier. Hosted fundraiser for Carter on October 17 in Cedar Park.
Michael McCaul, TX-10 -- Unremarkable Republican incumbent and heir-in-law to ClearChannel fortune. Misrepresents gerrymandered chunks of Austin, Harris County, and some of everything in between.
Rush Limbaugh -- Famous radio hate-monger, failed hypothetical NFL owner, McCaul's Daddy-in-Law's heavy hitter. Attended fundraiser for McCaul with Governor Rick Perry in May 2009 at undisclosed location.
Jack McDonald, TX-10 -- Self-made entrepreneur, chairman of Perficient. Leader in the Austin business and philanthropic community. Unstoppable fundraiser, drawing strong bipartisan support in R+11 district.
Dr. Madeleine Albright -- Secretary of State and Ambassador to the UN during Clinton Administration. Also, not a crazy hate-merchant dragging political discourse down into ever-deeper gutter. Special guest at fundraising brunch on October 30 for Jack McDonald at MPower Labs.
As if the Texas Republicans in Congress weren't inane enough, they need to import the likes of Limbaugh and Bachmann to do their fundraising for them? Limbaugh openly hopes for the Obama administration to fail and compares Obama to Hitler. Bachmann blames Obama for the swine flu outbreak and refuses to fill out her census form because she thinks it's an ACORN plot to steal her private information. (Seriously.)
Meanwhile, McCaul's challenger, the completely-not-insane Jack McDonald, is drawing serious support to his campaign from legitimate leaders such as Dr. Albright and talking about how the people of TX-10 can gain real representation in Congress on issues such as the economy, health care, and clean energy.
Currently, John Carter has no challenger to offer the people of Bell and Williamson County actual representation in Congress. But Central Texans can unite behind Jack McDonald, and make sure that the people of Texas' 10th District send a strong Representative to work on their behalf in D.C.
Meanwhile, the voters of TX-10 need to ask themselves: "Who better represents me and my views in Congress? ...
... Rush Limbaugh and Michael McCaul? Or Jack McDonald and Madeleine Albright?"
McDonald's campaign is still in exploratory mode. You can check him out on his website, www.JackForCongress.com, and make a donation or offer to volunteer. It's going to be a good race. Best of all, a McDonald victory may mean 100% less Rush Limbaugh in our backyard. And if that's not a reason to get involved, I don't know what is.
Rep. John Carter's $300 thousand income disclosure problem might impair the House Republican leadership's plan to paint Democrats as ethically challenged. The centerpiece of the plan was for Carter to lead the attack against Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY).
As recently as Monday, Politico reported that they hoped to exploit Rangel's dilemma for "maximum political advantage."
Convinced that Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) is on the ropes because of a tangle of ethical issues, House GOP leaders are debating whether to aggressively press for his removal as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee or try to drag out the controversy as long as possible for maximum political advantage.
House GOP leaders tapped Carter to introduce a resolution to strip Rangel of his Ways and Means Committee chairmanship on Oct. 7. Moments after Democrats defeated the resolution, Carter told Politico he wanted another chance.
This is one of those cases where you have a Delay district with a newer congressman that doesn't have a massive warchest like Lamar Smith. I'll echo Kuff's thoughts that if the DCCC were to drop even a couple hundred grand into this race as well as say Shane Sklar or Robert Ricketts- a lot could happen.
He knew I was running for the US Congress when he looked me in the eye and made his plea, right before we walked into the ceremony that marked his son's death five years ago. But he didn't know that our son is serving in Iraq right now. My husband and I understand his very real fear that his son's death will have been meaningless.
The town came together to dedicate a statue and plaque to his son - the first American soldier killed in Afghanistan after the September 11th attacks. He spoke of his son through his tears. The professional and patriotic soldier who had told his young wife he might not return from that fatal mission. Yet, while mortally wounded, he laid down suppressing fire that saved the lives of the soldiers in his charge.
A standard of any campaign is atttempting to get milage out of the "debate over debates" issue. Will incumbent X refuse to debate candidate Z? Why? Are they afraid of their record or the issues? What do they have to hide?
It's the same for every campaign in any district in any state. In general, if an incumbent is secure, they blow off their opponents, if not, they are obligated to debate. It's partially a sign of the how much of a real battle races are as well as the feelings and mood of those already in office. There are good and bad ways to accept or deny debates.
Clever ways? Rick Perry- by accepting one gubernatorial debate the weekend of the UT-OU football game, when no one will watch, and every radio station will be covering that or high school football. He accepts one, disarms calls for more debates, and ensures that the debate doesn't change his status in the race.
Stupid responses? John Carter by declining in such a manner that makes him look like a huge prick.
But Carter, as the incumbent, typically has less to gain in responding to Harrell than he has to lose. Carter has said repeatedly he won’t get into full “political mode” until October, after Congress adjourns.
However, in a previous interview this summer, Carter went a step further, saying that Harrell or any other challenger aren’t guaranteed the chance to debate him, despite their candidate status.
"People earn the right to debate me," Carter said in the interview. "I will determine how and not them."
Asked what would qualify someone for a debate, Carter said “credibility."
Then again, Rep. Carter has a history of making stupid statements to allow his opponent Mary Beth Harrell to respond effectively.
(Today's case would not have happened without the Voting Rights Act. Matt does a good job at pointing out the connections and why we must fight Texas Republicans that stand in the way of getting the VRA renewed. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
Hours ago, the Unites States Supreme Court released their ruling in the Texas Redistricting case. It was a strong statement in support of hundreds of thousands of voters in the most diverse parts of the state.
In a time where less Texans are insured, education is failing, and the culture of corruption is sweeping our nation, it is troubling to have the court rule FOR an incumbent protection plan. With no test in place and no restrictions, state legislatures can legally choose to ignore the plight of children and seniors, teachers and doctors, veterans and first responders, and waste time by constantly changing the boundaries of a political district.
The High Court made it clear that political gerrymandering is legal and acceptable as long as voters have their rights protected. The court was troubled by the simple fact that in Congressional District 23 over 100,000 Latino voters were thrown into a new district to protect the incumbent Republican and weaken the voting power of the minority.
Currently the Voting Rights Act (VRA) is in jeopardy and the House of Representatives has refused to protect the civil rights of every American.
Over at MyDD, a call went out for thoughts on candidates to consider adding to national Netroots Endorsed list. What started as a short comment, turned into a very long and detailed post which I have decided to post here in its entirety. Realize that these thoughts are meant for a national scale. Candidate that I don't argue for particular national focus, are ones that I am very much behind for garnering in state attention. So if you want to have some insight into how this blogger thinks, read on...
So let's talk Congressional seats.
Even though it is 2006, this will only have been the 2nd time that we have used the current map as Texas was victim to the DeLay re-redistricting scheme (the 2000, 2002, and 2004 maps were all different). Since 2004, Bush has become less popular in the state, as has the Republican Governor (drawing 2 independents in the race which may alter some downballot turnout).
We have 32 Congressional seats.
-21 Republican
-11 Democratic (counting Cuellar)
There are Democrats running in 31 of the 31 seats (with my hometown district of TX-11 going empty). The only Democrat with any serious challenge is Chet Edwards, last of the Blue Dogs that hung on in the 2002 'DeLay scrubbing' that knocked off 4 other incumbent Dems, which combined with the Party switch of Ralph Hall and the retirement of Democrat Jim Turner give us a list of seats that I describe as "if we can't win with scads of $$ and incumbent Congressmen, we ain't gonna win them with less money and the people put up this year". (which is why I look to areas we didn't fight for as hard last time where we have better candidates, changing demographics, and a less competition for dollars).
Let's look at the 4 seats we lost in 2004 and what we have this year, none of which I'd nominate for a national netroots candidate.
TX-1 Gohmert (Sandlin loss) - Roger Owen (crazy) TX-2 Poe (Lampson loss) - Gary Binderim (Dos has a report) TX-19 Neugebauer (Stenholm loss) - Robert Ricketts (even Stenholm lost by 58%) TX-32 Sessions (Frost loss) - Will Pryor (this was the most expensive race in 2004, over $8 mil, though Pryor is a good candidate and best of this bunch with some actual cash)
Outside of these, there are a select few candidates who have received netroots coverage among the Texas bloggers, then after that a smaller set that have maintained active fundraising in districts that are actually winnable.
Courage and Harris are Band of Brothers members. Harrell has a son in Iraq. Sklar is one of the few Dems to get the Texas Ag related endorsements.
Of these four though, Harrell is on the weak side of fundraising, and as of a couple of weeks ago, was still hunting around for a campaign manager. I fear that the netroots presence over at Kos that the campaign has built is about the only thing built, and little has changed about the district that makes an already difficult seat easier to pick up.
Of the remaining three, Harris (certainly engaged in the netroots as well) seems to have lagged behind in fundraising in comparison to Courage and Sklar as well, though the Net Neutrality issue seems to have raised the profile of his opponent Joe Barton of late, though I'm not sure if that is enough.
That leaves Sklar and Courage, probably our top two netroots targets among Texas bloggers. I will now attempt to run them through the 3 points given in this post. read on...
Just north of us in TX-31, Mary Beth Harrell is running for Congress and is keeping up her posting over at Daily Kos, where she has another recommended diary at the moment so go check it out.
I had the pleasure of meeting her the other week at a University Democrats meeting (though we are not in her district, it was nice to meet other Congressional candidates from the area). If you happen to live up in Williamson, Erath, Hamilton, Coryell, Bell, Milam, Falls, or Robertson County, help out her campaign.
