Great stuff- I've added the videos into the extended text. -KT
Ciro Rodriguez, the voters of the 23rd congressional district of Texas, and everyone who helped out won a great victory yesterday. And with that win, Democrats knock off Henry Bonilla, who went in one week from labelling Rodriguez as a terrorist-supporter, to reportedly making a gracious concession call, where he offered to work with Rodriguez during the transition.
We went down to Ciro's victory rally at the packed Harlandale Civic Center on the south side last night,and posted a video segment of Ciro's victory speech. Earlier in the day, we got short video interviews of Rep. Joe Baca of California and John Courage explaining why they were out supporting the GOTV effort for Ciro. The videos are at my blog, B and B.
Thanks again to everyone who helped make this victory a reality!
I attended the GOTV rally at Palo Alto College on the south side of San Antonio this afternoon and got a number of pictures of the event. I've posted them at my blog, B and B.
Clinton gave a great speech, emphasizing the need to turn out the vote. It is all up to us, he said. Do we want to join the 29 districts that voted out the GOP and sent Democrats to Congress, or will we join the dozen or so districts that came up just short?
Prior to Clinton's arrival, former San Antonio mayor Henry Cisneros brought down the house. "I do not understand a man like Henry Bonilla, who grew up in this area, and yet has voted time and again and again against the interests of the people of this area. It's time to tell him, Ya basta! Ya acabo'! Ya vete!" (Video here)
It's all up to us to send Bonilla home in favor of Ciro Rodriguez.
Update: I finally figured out how to embed the YouTube videos into my blog posts, so I've added a post with the Cisneros video and also one of Clinton remarking on Bonilla's expressed happiness that Clinton was coming to town to campaign for Ciro.
(I almost forgot about the SBOE primaries. In District 5 (my stomping grounds) support Fredericksburg incumbent Dan Montgomery (R), to keep some semblance of sanity on the Board. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
We've got Rodriguez v Cuellar, Bell v Gammage, Uresti v Madla, and several GOP incumbents in the state legislature being challenged by candidates funded virtually exclusively by wealthy religious conservative James Leininger. But behind these high-profile races, there is much more.
In the ongoing political fight over the content of Texas public schools' textbooks, two GOP primaries for the Texas State Board of Education are worth keeping an eye on tonight. Religious extremists are looking to replace two members of the state board with two of their own. They already control at least five seats of the fifteen on the board. Apparently no Democrats are running in either race, so the GOP primary is where all the action is.
(Cross posted at B and B. Many here are no doubt familiar with the details of this race, but I thought I'd post this here just in case there are those who have only been following peripherally.)
There is a heated Democratic primary campaign going on for the state senate district that encompasses my neck of the woods. The long-time incumbent, Frank Madla, is being challenged by state representative Carlos Uresti.
This district is geographically huge. (Here's a map.) It contains much of southern and western Bexar County, a broad finger into my area of northwest Bexar County, and a vast expanse of sparsely-populated west Texas—practically all the way to El Paso, several hundred miles away. Despite that great rural and desert expanse, nearly half the voters of the district reside in the San Antonio metropolitan area.
A couple months back, upon hearing of Uresti's challenge to Madla, I asked for more information to help me make up my mind who to support and vote for. Sure enough, the local blogging community has come through, providing extensive coverage of this race. (No doubt they wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't asked. Right?)
In particular, San Antonio bloggers Matt at Just Another Blog, Cincinnatus at The Jeffersonian, and Eddie at The Red State have posted repeatedly about events in the Uresti-Madla battle. Joining them has been Houston blogger Charles Kuffner at Off the Kuff and the Austin group blog Burnt Orange Report, which published interviews of both candidates in late January.
This has been an extremely negative campaign, virtually right from the start in December. The rationale for Uresti's run is that Madla has not represented the people of his district well and not been a good Democrat. Uresti's supporters, which include all of the blogs mentioned above (I have not seen a pro-Madla blog), have not been shy in tearing down Madla's recent record.
