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Posted on 04/07/2004 10:37:21 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
SAN ANTONIO - U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez uses a stable full of buzzwords when he talks about this year's Democratic primary in District 28 - "abuse," "irregularities," "wrongdoing," "integrity of the vote."
Tuesday he ratcheted up his rhetoric by producing a chart that directly compared last week's ballot recount to the so-called "Box 13" skullduggery in South Texas that some claim stole the 1948 U.S. Senate election for Lyndon B. Johnson.
But Rodriguez still stops short of claiming that it was outright vote fraud in Webb and Zapata counties that allowed his opponent, Laredo lawyer Henry Cuellar, to take a 203-vote lead in last week's districtwide recount.
"I'll leave that to my attorneys," Rodriguez said after a Tuesday news conference in his hometown of San Antonio.
"But what was found in Zapata and Webb counties is similar to what they found in Box 13 - magical, mysterious votes that were just enough to put (Cuellar) over the top," he said.
While Cuellar is now officially considered the nominee, the Rodriguez campaign has said it will file a lawsuit this week to challenge the recount results.
Cuellar trailed Rodriguez by 150 votes out of more than 48,000 cast when the manual recount in Zapata County turned up a box of 304 previously untabulated ballots.
Cuellar, whose mother was born in that county, received about 80 percent of those votes to take a 20-vote lead. In the recount in Webb, where he lives, Cuellar added 177 more votes while Rodriguez didn't get a single new one.
"This absolutely does not pass the smell test," said U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez of San Antonio, who appeared with Rodriguez Tuesday. "There's nothing wrong with a recount as long as you're counting the votes that were actually cast."
Rodriguez demurred when asked what evidence he has to prove that there was electoral funny business in Zapata and Webb counties, while some of his supporters challenged the media to flock into Webb and Zapata to ferret out the alleged scheme.
Cuellar Tuesday again called on Rodriguez to graciously accept the recount results, and a campaign spokesman suggested that Rodriguez wasn't offering any proof because there was no proof to offer.
"If there was a single shred of evidence, we would have seen it or heard it or read about it," said T.J. Connolly, who runs a San Antonio public relations company hired to field recount-related questions. "All we've seen coming out of the Rodriguez campaign has been baseless charges and a lot of emotion."
The Democratic Party chairman in Zapata has denied that any funny business took place in his county, while the party chairman in Webb asked for another recount to clear up the confusion in his county.
The Texas Democratic Party turned down that request last week, saying any lingering questions would be best answered in a courtroom under oath.
By openly playing the LBJ card, Rodriguez sought to further tarnish the legitimacy of Cuellar's startling recount rally.
Rodriguez's bar chart showed that the number of ballots that Cuellar gained in last week's recount dwarfed the 200 or so votes in ballot box No. 13 in Jim Wells County that was discovered after the August 1948 primary.
The Box 13 votes allowed Johnson, then a Hill Country congressman, to claim an 87-vote win over former Gov. Coke Stevenson in one of the state's most infamous elections.
Three decades later, a political operative in Jim Wells County admitted that the Box 13 ballots were manufactured by order of a local Democratic boss to steal the nomination for Johnson.
Gonzalez, who served on a congressional panel that examined Florida's "hanging chads" controversy in the 2000 presidential election, said that technical and procedural safeguards can only go so far to protect election results.
"The process still lends itself to all sorts of mischief," he said.
Meanwhile, the Cuellar camp issued a separate press release Tuesday criticizing the Oil & Petroleum Exporting Countries for cutting oil production.
"U.S. Congressional District 28 Democratic Nominee Henry Cuellar today blasted (OPEC) for agreeing to cut oil production by 4 percent, which amounts to 2.5 million barrels per day," the press release states.
"Cuellar plans to ask for direct intervention by the Bush Administration and Congressional leaders to persuade OPEC to restore production to no less than previous levels," it states.
"Increases in gas prices hurt us all, but are particularly damaging to those who can least afford it," Cuellar states in the press release. "As your Congressman, I will work hard to make us more energy independent through increased exploration at home and investing in emerging technologies such as fuel cells and hybrids."
(Staff writer Tricia Cortez contributed to this report.)
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