You mean she..ahem, he (on the right) didnt win??
Posted on 04/14/2004 8:43:53 AM PDT by No Blue States
In a bizarre election marked by his opponent's past fondness for women's clothes, Burleson's Rob Orr convincingly captured the Republican nomination Tuesday for District 58 representative in the Legislature.
Orr, who repeatedly denied leaking photographs that showed opponent Sam Walls dressed as a woman and that surfaced less than two weeks ago, won the runoff with 60 percent of the vote to Walls' 40 percent.
Walls, the apparent front-runner after finishing first in the March 9 primary, said he is certain the cross-dressing revelations influenced the outcome of the election.
But in an emotional concession speech at Johnson County Republican headquarters in Cleburne, Walls said he would rather focus on the support he got from family and friends. He told the story of a friend who was killed in a car wreck. Walls had attended the funeral earlier Tuesday.
"I was having a rough week, but nothing like that of her family. And you know what? We went to offer comfort to them, and they wanted me to know she had voted last week so she could vote for me," Walls said in his speech.
Later, in an interview with the Star-Telegram, Walls said: "We finished the race, and I am richly blessed to have done this because of the affirmation of friends. Very few people get to know how many friends they have before they die. People other than me will have to figure out what happened."
Orr said his overwhelming victory was a clear message from voters that they want a legislator with traditional family values.
"We were already working our plan to have 100 couples each calling 20 couples to get them committed to vote for us when this information broke about the cross-dressing," said Orr, who celebrated his victory with about 150 supporters under a tent behind his Burleson real estate office. "It became almost a distraction to us working our plan. It was the last thing we wanted to happen."
Orr received 4,630 votes, and Walls got 3,031.
Orr, 48, will face Democrat Greg Kauffman, 49, a Crowley apartment manager, in the Nov. 2 general election to choose a legislator to represent the 145,000 residents of Johnson and Bosque counties. Kauffman lost to Arlene Wohlgemuth in the November 2002 general election.
Republican Party leaders had mixed reactions to the results.
Johnson County GOP Chairman Jeff Judd, who asked Walls to step down after the photographs were revealed, said Orr's victory will make it easier on the party in the fall.
"There is some division, which there is after a primary anyway. We'll have to regroup and come out behind our Republican candidate in November. But this issue could have dragged on for months," Judd said.
Party treasurer Roy Giddens, a Walls supporter, said he believes Walls could have won if his supporters had responded more vigorously to the negative campaigning.
"I'm an absolute believer in family values," Giddens said. "... Others saw it as a big moral dilemma. I never saw such a big dividing factor."
Statehouse runoffs usually don't attract much attention, but when the skeletons in the closet turned out to be dresses, the Walls-Orr race ascended from local headlines to national news.
Walls, the favorite after winning 42 percent of the vote in the March primary, refused to succumb to political pressure after stories about his past emerged.
One longtime member of a support group for cross-dressers said Walls was known as Samantha and was once the treasurer of the Society for the Second Self.
But through it all, the 64-year-old Walls -- well-known in Cleburne as the president of Walls Industries, a former Republican Party chairman, a member of the Harris Methodist hospital board and a sponsor of many children's charities -- continued to campaign.
Orr was trying to build on his second-place finish in the primary, where he received 33 percent of the vote, when photos of Walls in women's clothes began circulating.
Orr campaign consultant Lee Woods said the campaign was shown the photos, which were seized during a 2002 eviction from a Crowley trailer park, but never took possession of them. Instead, Orr alerted Wohlgemuth, who is vacating the District 58 seat to run for Congress, and Johnson County Sheriff Bob Alford.
Alford and Judd, the Johnson County GOP chairman, asked Walls to withdraw from the race.
Walls refused.
He released statements to the media and Republican leaders, saying that his cross-dressing was "very old personal information" and a "small part" of his past. He also said he would not give in to "blackmail" from opponents who were trying to force him out of the race.
Walls asked to address Johnson County Republican leaders at an April 6 meeting but instead sent a friend who read a statement to a crowd of more than 100 people.
After meeting privately for about 2 1/2 hours, the 20-member Republican executive committee read a statement that urged voters to turn out to show their support for "our conservative values and to vote their consciences."
Just to clarrify, the cross dresser or his competitor?
Was the address pastel?...Guess I shouldnt rub it in
Really? You think? Gosh, what insight!
The only question in all of this that's of any interest is "Why would a guy who knew that pictures of him dressed like that were in existence (he posed for them) subject his family to that kind of embarrassment by running in the first place? Then he has the chutzpah to talk about how tough this was on his poor family. Dude, you're the one who put them through this!
There is a pic of him in this thread.
He is the chick on the right.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1113826/posts
Orr, the real estate guy never sent anything telling us what he was about.
I voted for Walls, not knowing he likes dressing up as a woman.
Sometimes defeat is sweet.
I mean, sheesh, ya just can't DO that.
/sarcasm
You mean she..ahem, he (on the right) didnt win??
Now he will have more time to get in touch with his inner woman.
If so I guess she endorses this strange behavior.
She should have taught him that the necklace clasp goes to the back of the neck, how tacky.
At 1st I thought it was just dirty politics, that someone photoshopped Walls in a dress.
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