No... Your a racist!

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