My stage three blog will be about an Austin American Statesman Article Written by Alberta Phillips. As with my last news article source, the article details the claim of a racist electorate in the Texas Railroad Commissioners race. Phillips is sympathetic to the reasoning of Victor Carrillo, who was defeated in the race by David Porter, an Anglo. This article was written for a growing Hispanic population in Texas, and in my opinion aims to levy a heavy charge upon the Texas GOP and its voters. Phillips believes that the GOP has not done enough to persuade voters, presumably white, to vote for Hispanic candidates over white ones. Phillips argues that while Governor Rick Perry has appointed several Hispanics to state office, the Tea Party movement is causing anti-immigration sentiments and by proxy anti-Hispanic sentiments. Phillips states that most of Rick Perry’s Hispanic appointments don’t win their next election. The Tea Party is a grassroots GOP movement that bases their ideology on personal freedom and supposed “old school” conservatism. The Tea Party also holds several prominent GOP members, including Governor Rick Perry, who appointed Carrillo in the first place!
Also in the article she claims that this racist voting is not just on the GOP side. She states that Harris County straight-party voting democrats elected all but 4 democrats, and speculates that the 4 democrats lost due to “uncommon”, or non-white, names. She mentions the fact that David Porter spent about $30,000 on a winning campaign, while Carrillo could not win and spent $600,000, yet Phillips fails to mention that Carrillo’s campaign was also hindered by personal tragedy and health problems. Phillips also fails to mention that Carrillo lost is several majority Hispanic counties. Phillips also informs the reader that Carrillo won his first election in 2004, yet unrelentingly disqualifies it as a lucky win and quotes Carrillo as saying "I saw it last time but was able to win because the "non-Carrillo" vote was spread among three Anglo GOP primary opponents instead of just one." So after being appointed by an Anglo Governor who is a Tea Party member and receiving an election win in 2004, is it still racism that cost him a victory? I believe the simplest answer to this is no. Racism exists, that is undeniable. Racism would also cause some voters to vote for the “white guy” over a Hispanic just because of race. Yet, I doubt that the “racist” voters of Texas could go to the voting booth and cause enough disruption to cost Carrillo the race! Pulling the “race card” on voters just seems like a bad thing to do! I have a hard time comprehending any positive action that Carrillo hopes to achieve by leveling racist accusations at me and other voters. It would seem that while Carrillo believes racism cost him the race, he is simply a sore loser and as a voting causation male I feel offended at being called a racist! If anyone is a racist it is Carrillo, and it is his fault for not running a good campaign. Carrillo obviously has not given any forward thought to getting elected to any office ever again, or else he would not accuse his electorate of racism. Carrillo needs to fade from the political lime light and realize that he can do nothing about it now. He is making the voters mad and that isn’t going to help his cause. What also baffles me is that election results are the “will of the people” and Carrillo can not concede that the will of the people is for him not to be in office.
Link: http://www.statesman.com/opinion/gops-message-of-adios-is-not-lost-on-336321.html
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Racial Bias in the 2010 Texas Primary?
We have seen political candidates voted out of office in nearly every election. Normally this is seen as the "will of the people" and gracefully accepted by the defeated candidate. This time however, two candidates are striking back at the voters who elected them the first time. A Houston Chronicle article describes the ordeal. During the 2010 Texas primary election Texas Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo faced off against little known CPA David Porter. Porter won the race for Railroad Commissioner by 21 percentage points. After facing the reality of his loss, Carrillo alleged that people were not informed on what it was that the Railroad Commissioner did or who his opponents were. Carrillo took it one step further by stating “Given the choice between “Porter” and “Carrillo” — unfortunately, the Hispanic-surname was a serious setback from which I could never recover although I did all in my power to overcome this built-in bias.” Carrillo failed to mention that he also suffered losses in traditionally Hispanic voting counties in south Texas.
Also in the story was Hispanic Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Leo Vasquez. He described his defeat as having "many similarities" to the Victor Carrillo race; a no-name candidate spending little money and successfully achieving victory. Vasquez failed to mention that his girlfriend/campaign manager was still married to another man while they were living together. Steve Hotze, a local social conservative leader, believes the provocative relationship along with Vasquez's handling of a voter-registration lawsuit and property tax issues caused Vasquez to be voted out of office. Vasquez contended that the relationship was not in question while he was giving money and performing other grass-roots work for the Republicans.
It would seem that while both the candidates suffered legitimate losses, they both believe that racial bias played a part in their loss. That seems like a very heavy accusation to levy upon voters, especially when Carrillo also lost in Hispanic voting counties. Vasquez seemed to imply more than directly state that race was a factor in his loss. This accusation of racial bias on the part of the voters seems like more of a grudge against losing than it does an actual representation of the Texas and Harris County electorate. After all, these candidates were incumbents, and were not seeking their first election to office. It was also noted in the article that in the Supreme Court Place 9 race more than 1.1 million ballots were cast that gave Eva Guzman a win over Rose Vela. This means that some of the "racist" voters who voted for porter, also voted for one of the Hispanic women in the Supreme Court election.
Carrillo suffered with personal tragedy in the death of his brother and father in the year prior to the election. He also underwent surgery for a benign brain tumor. These issues kept Carrillo from launching a full on political campaign. These tragedies would keep anyone down, but they still are in no way related to racism at the voting booth. It is simple to find other reasons why both of the candidates in this article lost. As the ending quote from Republican consultant Ted Delisi states “In the end, a bad campaign is just a bad campaign.” Playing the "race card" seems to just make them look like a sore losers.
Artical Link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6898049.html
Also in the story was Hispanic Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Leo Vasquez. He described his defeat as having "many similarities" to the Victor Carrillo race; a no-name candidate spending little money and successfully achieving victory. Vasquez failed to mention that his girlfriend/campaign manager was still married to another man while they were living together. Steve Hotze, a local social conservative leader, believes the provocative relationship along with Vasquez's handling of a voter-registration lawsuit and property tax issues caused Vasquez to be voted out of office. Vasquez contended that the relationship was not in question while he was giving money and performing other grass-roots work for the Republicans.
It would seem that while both the candidates suffered legitimate losses, they both believe that racial bias played a part in their loss. That seems like a very heavy accusation to levy upon voters, especially when Carrillo also lost in Hispanic voting counties. Vasquez seemed to imply more than directly state that race was a factor in his loss. This accusation of racial bias on the part of the voters seems like more of a grudge against losing than it does an actual representation of the Texas and Harris County electorate. After all, these candidates were incumbents, and were not seeking their first election to office. It was also noted in the article that in the Supreme Court Place 9 race more than 1.1 million ballots were cast that gave Eva Guzman a win over Rose Vela. This means that some of the "racist" voters who voted for porter, also voted for one of the Hispanic women in the Supreme Court election.
Carrillo suffered with personal tragedy in the death of his brother and father in the year prior to the election. He also underwent surgery for a benign brain tumor. These issues kept Carrillo from launching a full on political campaign. These tragedies would keep anyone down, but they still are in no way related to racism at the voting booth. It is simple to find other reasons why both of the candidates in this article lost. As the ending quote from Republican consultant Ted Delisi states “In the end, a bad campaign is just a bad campaign.” Playing the "race card" seems to just make them look like a sore losers.
Artical Link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6898049.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
