Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
Such is the message of Texas Republicans:
There’s a situation brewing around the state that I wanted you to know about. Barack Obama’s financial influence is being felt in key legislative races; I am seeing it in the field reports I’ve been reading these last several days.
Are you seeing it in [YOUR TOWN]? I’d appreciate any news or anecdotes you might have about local races.
In just 13 weeks voters will go to the polls for what promises to be the most important election cycle in decades. The stakes are high. We have skyrocketing property tax burdens. Businesses are struggling with the new margins tax. Spending by local government is out of control. And everyone is worried about the stability of our economy.
Barack Obama and his team are focused on drawing Texas’ district lines and consolidating power with the grow-government crowd. That’s right – Obama is committed to spending money here so he can influence our redistricting battles
It really is hard to overstate what this note from Empower Texans PAC means. Particularly when you have GOP state legislators calling on Libertarian candidates to withdraw for fear of Democrats being elected:
Tom Craddick, Suzanna Hupp and the Republican Party are shameful. The Republican Party of Texas started the 2008 cycle attempting to silence the voice of the voters by asking judges to remove candidates in Midland and Fort Worth. They failed. Now Craddick has a new tactic- remove a third party option all together.
PDiddle first reported on this story Sunday calling it "Republican Desperation".
Suzanna Hupp and Tom Craddick are rightfully concerned. We have strong Democratic incumbents and challengers like TexBlog PAC endorsed Chris Turner, Diana Maldonado, Sherrie Matula, and others like Robert Miklos, Joel Redmond, Joe Moody, and many many more.
The scary thing is the blatant disregard the Republican Party has toward Texas voters. Their desire for power and control means they are trying to actively remove third party candidates from the ballot.
Today, Laylan Copelin is reporting that Craddick is meeting with Libertarian's in the Speaker's office to ask them to remove their names. This is tantamount to being called into the principal's office and being asked to go to a different school or just drop out.
Just a year ago, I would never have believed for a moment that the Republican party would be feeling this insecure about their position in 2008. Certainly, trends have been pointing to a longer term realignment, more towards parity, rather than a Democratic resurgence, but there must be some real bad internal polling in the Texas GOP for them to pull out all the stops like this.
Good news all around, it seems.
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