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Thursday, January 05, 2006
Candidate Filings Reveal Grassroots Democratic Fires Burning Hot in Texas
The last day for candidates to file for places on the ballot in Texas in 2006 brought exciting news.
Contrary to what the political reporters of the major daily newspapers predicted, a full statewide ticket of Democrats will be taking on the Bush-Perry-DeLay Republicans in the general election. By the filing deadline of 6:00 p.m. January 2, Democratic candidates had filed for the statewide offices of U.S. Senator, Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General (yours truly), Comptroller, Land Commissioner, Railroad Commissioner, Texas Supreme Court, and Court of Criminal Appeals. They are all strong, Fighting Democrats who are going to fight fiercely to take Texas back from the slime of corruption and insider self-dealing that Bush-Perry-DeLay Republicanism has heaped onto the people of Texas.
The Democratic filings for U.S. House seats equally demonstrate the resolve of Texas Democrats to fight back. Democrats filed for 31 of the 32 U.S. House seats in Texas. The most telling sign of Democratic fires burning hot is that 20 of the 21 Republican incumbents in the U.S. House from Texas will be facing Democratic challengers in the general election. The fires are burning so hot there will even be contested Democratic primaries in some of the Republican-held districts, with a total of 25 Democratic candidates filing in those 20 districts.
Grassroots Democratic lawyers stepped up to make a strong run at breaking into the monolith of Republican corporate justice on the Courts of Appeal, with a full slate of strong Democrats running for every seat that is up on the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin and every seat that is up on the 4th Court of Appeals in San Antonio, and the fiery Jim Sharp returning to make another spirited run for a seat on the 1st Court of Appeals in Houston.
One of the strongest signs of the realigning public mood is that Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the current Republican State Comptroller who announced last June that she was going to run for Governor against Rick Perry, filed as an Independent rather than in the Republican Primary. None can legitimately dispute that Strayhorn's move reflects deep division within Republican ranks. It should be noted that Bush press secretary Scott McClellan is Strayhorn's son.
And how about this juicy tidbit: three candidates filed against Tom DeLay in the Republican Primary for his seat in the 22nd Congressional District.
The number of Democrats who filed for state legislature seats against Republican incumbents is not yet available since some of the filings are done in different counties and some in the state office. All reports so far indicate that grassroots Democrats filed heavily for those seats also.
What makes all this especially exciting is that this outpouring of Democratic fire is not a top-down thing. The new candidates are grassroots Democrats. Some are blue-collar working people, some are peace and justice activists, some are anti-war military veterans, some are proven reformers, and some are small-town community activists. They come from the people. They are leading a movement to reclaim Texas for the people from the bottom up. There is a fire burning in many bellies in this state. Bushites, beware; your jig is up. The people you fooled first are hip to your tricks, and they are going to roar.
posted by snarko! at 10:38 AM
 
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