By Juan Montoya
What on earth was the right-wing fringe of the Republican party in the Congressional District 34 runoff thinking when its adherents were persuaded to vote for Jessica Bradshaw from Austin over Texas Southmost College trustee Adela Garza?
Was it the fact that Bradshaw will never be able to raise enough funds to fight Filemon Vela, whose campaign fund grows even more now that he has clinched the Demo nod?
Or was it the fact that Bradshaw's community involvement in Cameron County boards and entities are nonexistent?In her literature, her supporters blamed Adela for "losing" 600 jobs at UTB as a result of the separation between the UT System and the community college. The fact that it was the UT system which first voted to separate just got in the way of a good blame issue in her campaign, apparently.
As the man used to ask the dog who ran after car tires after he caught one: "Now aht are you going to do with it?"
The Tea Party candidate can count on the die-hard right fringe to return to the ballots on November and cast their votes on her behalf. As it stands now, she and her supporters only have to attract some of the 22,574 votes cast for the Democratic candidates in their runoff to try make up the nearly 13,000 difference between the 9,591 cast for both candidates in the Republican runoff.
For the most part, the only aggressive plank in the Demo runoff between Vela and Denise Blanchard was that Vela wasn't a "true" Democrat," benign fodder compared to the venom spewed by the Bradshaw campaign against Adela.
At a 53 to 47 percent split between them, it'll be difficult for Adela's supporters to reconcile themselves with their candidate and get themselves to vote for Jessica. Besides, remember that the mainstream GOP lined up behind Adela. Bradshaw must have those 4,248 votes cast against her to close ranks against Vela.
Therein lies the rub. Vela, before he saw the light on the road to Washington D.C., was a solid GOP contributor and supporters. In fact, Blanchard's supporters distributed flyers documenting this fact.
Her supporters are hoping that the hard-core right-wing national PACs who would like to nail this seat for the GOP will pump millions into her campaign to see Bradshaw win. To us, that's an unlikely scenarion given Vela's former GOP roots.
If Republican voters and moderate Democrats unite as they have in the past, the scorched-earth policy followed by the Bradshaw campaign will come back to haunt them in November.
For the most part, the only aggressive plank in the Demo runoff between Vela and Denise Blanchard was that Vela wasn't a "true" Democrat," benign fodder compared to the venom spewed by the Bradshaw campaign against Adela.
At a 53 to 47 percent split between them, it'll be difficult for Adela's supporters to reconcile themselves with their candidate and get themselves to vote for Jessica. Besides, remember that the mainstream GOP lined up behind Adela. Bradshaw must have those 4,248 votes cast against her to close ranks against Vela.
Therein lies the rub. Vela, before he saw the light on the road to Washington D.C., was a solid GOP contributor and supporters. In fact, Blanchard's supporters distributed flyers documenting this fact.
Her supporters are hoping that the hard-core right-wing national PACs who would like to nail this seat for the GOP will pump millions into her campaign to see Bradshaw win. To us, that's an unlikely scenarion given Vela's former GOP roots.
If Republican voters and moderate Democrats unite as they have in the past, the scorched-earth policy followed by the Bradshaw campaign will come back to haunt them in November.
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