Posted on 10/04/2002 9:50:55 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Dallas Repubicans know he's not a moderate and the rest of the state doesn't know him.
I'll agree that Rylander is probably the strongest, followed by Combs and Patterson. Abbott and Perry are somewhere in between and then Cornyn. But I think the weakest is going to be Dewhurst for lt. gov., not Cornyn. Cornyn's got a lead but he's also got a race on his hands. That's why info about Kirk's shady connections and past needs to be spread. It's all there and all documented, but the media won't touch it for fear of hurting "moderate" Kirk's reputation.
Do any of you on FreeRepublic think that "white guilt" over the dragging death of the black James Byrd of Jasper is helping the Ron Kirk campaign this year? Could it be that "moderate" Anglos want to "prove" they are "not" "racist" and are going for Kirk. Or is it sheer ignorance about Kirk?
I'm inclined to say that it's ignorance rather than Byrd. Voters here have heard the Byrd thing overplayed and shoved down our throats since the 1999 legislative session. They used it to push and eventually pass hate crimes legislation in the '99 and '01 sessions, they used it to smear Bush in his presidential campaign in 2000, and those of us in Houston got it again as a smear against the GOP candidate in our '01 mayor's race. People have gotten sick of it and pretty much the only ones it resonates with any more are the blacks and the white liberals. As for white guilt, the only ones that have it are the leftist reporters in the media who feel "guilty" that there aren't any black senators.
People flock to Kirk because his media-supported campaign strategy is to portray himself as a "moderate" who will be a "bipartisan" supporter of Bush. This is complete nonsense as at BEST he'll be another Tom Daschle. More likely he'll be another Cynthia McKinney.
Also, Isn't Cornyn practically not campaigning? Does Cornyn think that his wipeout of Jim Mattox four years ago insures that he will also be elected senator?
Cornyn's been up on the airwaves pretty frequently for about a month now. He's making lots of campaign stops all over the state, while Kirk's only hit the money crowds in the big cities. But Kirk's clearly got the media on his side in this one, and that's what Cornyn's gotta overcome.
Freepers can help by spreading the word about Kirk's national defense record. Spread it to Texans by word of mouth, bombard the conservative-friendly national news people with complaints about Kirk's weakness, whatever you can do to get the word out there because the local media has been trying to downplay it and ignore it.
They apparently share the same type of politics. I just did a google search on Lindh and Hyland. It pulled up 44 hits, most of them news articles where Hyland was quoted about Lindh's trial as a "friend" or "associate" who knew Lindh personally. Several of them recount anecdotes where Hyland talks about what he and Lindh did in Yemen.
He is an ultra-liberal trying to masquerade as a conservative, friend of business while campaigning here in Texas, but what he says when he is with the big-bucks liberals in his New York, San Francisco and Washington DC fundraisers is extremely liberal.
No intelligent Texan will vote for this turkey.
Dewhurst IS campaigning -- more than Sharp is. So my friend probably forgot about the Dewhurst-Sharp race. It seems to me that Sharp is not much stronger than he was in 1998. This time though he has ads being promoted by the one-time conservative icon, Nolan Ryan. Dewhurt is doing the best he can, but I don't think Cornyn is doing much at all.
Wouldn't it be odd if Texans reject Greg Abbott for attorney general because of his handicap, but the Georgians reelect the liberal Senator Cleland largely out of sympathy for his handicap? Greg Abbott is a solid conservative -- maybe that's why he could also be in trouble. The liberal former mayor of Austin, Kirk Watson, is a strong candidate.
BTW, Carole Rylander is also a former mayor of Austin. That woman is always running for some office, holds it a term or so, then moves on. But she has mastered public relations as comptroller almost as well as Bob Bullock and John Sharp did earlier. Ultimately, all this politics is public relations.
Yes, Deport, the black base is fired up. A Republican woman from Killeen called C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" Friday morning. She said that Demos in TX have a plan to bring out all the dispossessed to the polls. Each of the dispossesed will be called twice on election day and reminded to vote. On the third call, if the dispossessed person has not voted, a Demo van will immediately come to the residence and carry the dispossessed individual(s) to the polls. They are being told that they must vote Democrat one more time to preserve their lifelines. I expect a minority turnout increase of well over 500,000 through this effort, being largely funded by the pockets of Democrat gubernatorial nominee Tony Sanchez of Laredo. It was this kind of active Demo strategy that led to the Democrat sweep in TX in 1982, and the reelection defeat of ascerbic Governor "Bill" Clements to the Democrat Mark White. Please tell me that the Republicans have a get-out-the-vote strategy. I bet that they don't because most Republicans would feel insulted if someone called them and offered them transportation to the polls. Republicans feel it is THEIR responsibility to get to the polls, not the mission of some corrupt political machine.
I'm not sure where you're going with your arguments, but at best you're talking possibilities not probabilities. Are you trying to energize Cornyn supporters by making this race appear closer than it is or do you truly believe what you typed? I don't see your scenario unfolding at all.
What I have seen is Dim polls showing Kirk running neck and neck with Cornyn. All other polls I've seen show Cornyn ahead; some by substantial margins. The fly in your ointment will be the significant numbers of undecideds who, I believe another poster stated also, trend conservative.
What we can't quantify this election is the level of voter fraud the Dims are likely to try. You can probably recall some of the horror stories from the Lyndon Johnson school of dirty politics. 200%(?) turnouts in south Texas counties and lost voting records? It could happen again with the Dims. That will be the only way Kirk can win. IMO, of course.
FGS
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