Posted on 02/17/2004 8:09:02 AM PST by woofie
SAN ANTONIO -- A tornado of media coverage has descended on the race for Texas's 20th Congressional District, training its full might and fury on a divorced San Antonio marriage counselor with no staff, no experience in electoral politics and a campaign war chest of $150.
"I do everything myself," said Becky Whetstone, who has declared her candidacy as an independent aiming to unseat Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, the Democratic incumbent who happens to be her ex-husband.
No matter that Whetstone, 45, a former advice columnist, does not have a chance of winning the race, according to political analysts here. What has ignited the firestorm of interest in her candidacy is a spectacle whose script, for all appearances, seems tailor-made for daytime television: an allegedly wronged woman bent on exposing her powerful husband and bringing him down -- or at the very least humiliating him in public.
In a flurry of interviews and national television appearances, Whetstone has painted Gonzalez as a control freak who dislikes children and pets, a spendthrift who cannot manage his own financial affairs and a bully with an explosive temper.
She says she will divulge even more in a forthcoming book, tentatively titled "The Congressman's Wife." But she insists that revenge is the furthest thing from her mind.
Asked about a bumper sticker that urges voters, "Don't Get Mad. Get Becky!" she disavows it as the unsolicited work of a supporter. "I don't deny I'm angry about what happened," said Whetstone, who regales visitors with details of what she calls Gonzalez's abusive behavior during their marriage, and complains of a divorce settlement she considers miserably inadequate. "When something incredibly unfair and one-sided happens, anger is a healthy reaction. I'm taking the energy from the anger and standing up for something I believe is the right thing to do."
Her candidacy has attracted so much ink and airtime that almost no one in San Antonio can name Gonzalez's Republican challenger, Roger Scott. "More people know about her because she's [Gonzalez's] ex-wife, but nobody knows about me as his challenger," acknowledged Scott, 29, himself a political novice who works for an aerospace company.
Gonzalez, a third-term congressman whose late father, Henry, represented the 20th District for 37 years and chaired the powerful House Banking Committee, is not giving interviews on the subject. With a safe seat in a solidly Democratic district, and as the son of a San Antonio political legend, Gonzalez appears to have little reason to fear for his job.
But in a statement released last month, soon after Whetstone announced she was running, Gonzalez scoffed at Whetstone's candidacy as having no merit beyond what he called "entertainment value."
"I do not believe that anyone wants to have a painful matter like a divorce exploited for personal fame or financial gain," Gonzalez said in his statement. "Yet Becky has made no secret about her intent to write and find a publisher for a 'tell-all' book, while aggressively promoting her website and herself as an online relationship counselor."
Reporters seeking further insight into Gonzalez's side of the story are quietly referred to friends of the former couple who describe Whetstone as a political charlatan whose fixation on settling scores with Gonzalez has led her to whip up a media frenzy.
Before she met Gonzalez, Whetstone wrote an advice column for singles and the lovelorn for the San Antonio News-Express. She fulminated against easy divorces, warned readers against bad relationships and counseled them that "getting dumped isn't the end of the world -- it's an opportunity for learning, growth and enrichment."
In the mid-1990s, she was introduced to Gonzalez, who was then a judge, by a matchmaking mutual friend. Each was divorced; she had two children, he had one. She was 37, and he was 50; each thought the other too old, Whetstone said.
"I was, like, whatever," said Whetstone, whose date-by-date recounting of their early courtship, first kiss and growing intimacy leaves little to the imagination.
(More)
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Uh, yeah.
This lady seems like a real winner. She's running a spiteful, pointless campaign against her ex-husband. No doubt Charlie says to himself, "I am so glad I got out of that mess."
Then again, her ex is your classic liberal ethnic sellout politician and all-round scumbag, just like the father he inherited his seat from.
So9
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