Live Texas House Race Tx-23

Texas Secretary of State Web Site ^ | 12/12/2006 | self

[FreeReign]

Why do you think Reagan is widely regarded as the best President in modern history? He ran as an unapologetic conservative and then he walked it like he talked it.

LOL! Brady.

[Redbob]

If electing a Republican requires a vote for Rudy G, I'm sorry, I'll just stay home: there's not a dime's worth of difference between him and Hillary on the things that matter to me:
gun control and abortion.

[Alissa]

the things that matter to me: gun control and abortion.

If we don't win the WOT, then you can kiss everything else goodbye!

[Theodore R.]

People who base their political views on biblical principles -- if they are intelligent enough to understand the correlation

[AuH2ORepublican]

"But Bonilla was in great shape before redistricting even happened. They should've just left West Texas the he## alone."

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The district lines drawn by the judges in 2006 gave Bonilla a more Republican district than he had in 2002 (when he nearly lost to Henry Cuellar; Bonilla was not in "great shape" prior to 2004). GOP redistricters were correct to remove most of Laredo and give Bonilla a more Republican district. The problem is that that idiot Justice Kennedy did not consider a 69% Hispanic district that stretched from Austin to McAllen to be a "Hispanic-majority district," and thus ordered Bonilla's redrawn TX-23 (which was 55% Hispanic) to have the Hispanic percentage increased to over 62%.

[hispanarepublicana]

Your FReeper name is among the most witty I've ever seen.

[California Patriot]

I suspect that many, probably most, Republican clubs around the country (whether their members' socioeconomic status is low or high) are primarily social clubs, safe places where people can speak freely among others with whom they have a lot in common. They are a kind of shelter from the liberal-dominated society. While I understand and sympathize with this, we need to be more active and hit the streets, speak out at liberal-dominated city council meetings, write letters to the editor, and everything else. While some Republicans are uncomfortable with nonwhites, just as some Democrats are uncomfortable with whites, I think the fundamental problem is unwillingness to "reach out" to anyone who is not in the club or already a friend. This unwillingness does much to contribute to the perception of our party as uninterested in Hispanics, etc. In fact, we are interested in Hispanics, but insufficiently interested in outreach or any other kind of activism.

[ZULU]

I think the Dems did a great job of mobilizing their cadres and getting the party members to the polls.

I think a lot of conservative Republicans - which means most Republicans in Red States, and independent conservatives stayed home for a number of reasons - the Amnesty for illegals, the budget, the lack of movement in the Iraqi War, Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzales, Dubai Ports, etc.

George Bush just did not come through with enough of a showing for his own constituents and this was reflected in local races. The Dems took advantage of poor House and Senate leadership over issues like Foley. Also, YOU CAN'T WIN THEM ALL. Sometimes you loose and this happens -its part of life.

What the Republicans have to do is present as firm and unvacillating a wall of opposition to the Bolsheviks as the Bolsheviks did when THEY were in the minority. What Bush should do - but I fear he won't - is sharpen up his veto pen, and start making some intelligent decisions - Gates was again, not an intelligent decision. The man disagrees with Bush on Iraq and wants to pull out, and his best credentials are the credentials that have gotten Bush in trouble before - the fact that he was an "old family friend".

What conservatives have to do is go out and work hard for conservative candidates in Republican primaries for 2008. But, if the Eisenbergs, Giulianis and McCains win, pack it in, and go off and form another party - one which which REEALLY oppose the Democrats, not suck up to them.

[Agrarian]

The Dems have fire in their belly and want to win. The GOP doesn't right now. Until that changes, we will continue the slide...

[AuH2ORepublican]

Thank you.

[John David Stutts]

I know freepers don't like to hear this, but a lot of the really over-the-top anti-illegal rhetoric is just killing R candidates around here."Conservatives" aren't voting because they've been told 24/7 for 2 years by bogus trojan-horse 'conservatives' like Michael Savage working on behalf of dems that this president & his party don't care about 'borders,language & culture'& they'd be better off with dems than voting for hispanic-loving rinos.And they bought it!

After the elections Bush said he thought possibilities for immigration reform may have opened with the dem congressional takeover. I wonder if the rats would want to give up the issue.

In TX we lost DeLay and Bonilla. In AZ we lost Heyworth. In CA we lost Pambo. All conservatives and border guardians. It seems oposition to illegal immigration is an issue that the GOP can only overcome in non-border states.

[CutePuppy]

I find myself watching less news

You are not "watching" less "news", you're watching less propaganda, as most of us are not getting "news" on TV, imcluding most of FNC programming, sad to say (Brit Hume program is possible exception). Glenn Beck on CNN-HNN is not s bad source of original news/info as well. We get the real news from sources like FR, where we can validate or invalidate the quality of the sources and importance of news, and get the background and related info and links from comments...

al-Media went all out to cover anything negative that can be attributed to Republicans/Bush and either gloss over or misreport anything positive that happened in the country or oversees that can be attributed to Republicans/Bush and anything negative that can be attributed to Democrats (Oil-for-Food, WMDs in Libya, Dems Congressional corruption, Frank Raines/Jamie Gorelick in Fannie Mae scandal, national security leaks, etc., etc.)

Compound this with the fact that a lot of positive things that happened in GWOT just cannot and should not be disclosed just for political reasons due to sensitive nature of information. Also, how do you tell people that Iraq now serves as a main source for our human intelligence (HUMINT) in GWOT and a Roach Motel for al-Qaeda as they have to keep sending personnel and funds and communications there, and their tactics of fomenting a sectarian strife is really ticking off a lot of Muslims elsewhere who saw for the first time that democracy in ME may not be such a bad thing? Bush tried a few times to point out the message in intercepted letters from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi, which implicitly explains why we should stay in Iraq (it has nothing to do with "winning the war in Iraq" in conventional territorial war sense), but that was drowned out by al-Media, yet only picked up by few Congress Republicans who could've run with this to neutralize Iraq casualties issue, i.e. there's important job to do in Iraq, our brave troops are doing it and it doesn't require more of our troops to police few violent gangland regions where Muslims kill Muslims no matter how much al-Media wants to concentrate on that aspect of Iraq.

So spare yourself the pain of "watching" the "news", we need you healthy and happy for upcoming battles. :-)

[CutePuppy]

and independent conservatives stayed home for a number of reasons - the Amnesty for illegals, the budget, the lack of movement in the Iraqi War, Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzales, Dubai Ports, etc.

That's what apathy, discouragement, weak or downright malicious Congressional leadership, lack of communication and, most importantly, missing the BIG PICTURE will do every time.

Mega-Dittos on primaries and Giulianis and McCains... my nightmare scenario in 2008.

[CutePuppy]

In TX we lost DeLay and Bonilla. In AZ we lost Heyworth. In CA we lost Pambo. All conservatives and border guardians.

Except that none of these seats fell due to border/illegals issue.

DeLay - false indictment. Bonilla - redrawn district and conservatives/independents apathy while badly outspent in a runoff (he got a lot fewer votes within a month, while not changing his position on border) Hayworth - issues other than illegals (Abramoff etc.) and his opponent didn't fight him on this issue, pretended he was conservative. Pambo - victim of environmentalists' campaign, badly outspent and out-manned, border was not an issue in campaign.

We shouldn't make conclusions on selectively attributing same reasons for defeat in different races, like al-Media and pundits want us to do, or we would repeat mistakes and/or make a turn in a wrong direction. When Clinton won in 1992, they said conservatives and Reaganism are over, yet the right lesson was that he was running as more of a conservative (DLC) than the "big government" "read my lips" G.H.W. Bush. Under Newt, GOP made a RIGHT turn, nationalized next election, and in two years, it was "The era of big government is over". We should connect the RIGHT dots, not the coincidental or the false ones conveniently provided for us by our opponents - they don't mean us well.

GOP failed to make Iraq a national issue, border security/illegals a national issue, these were fought locally in the districts where Dems used it where they could gain an advantage or passed on it where they couldn't. Dems played to their strengths in each district, it wasn't a national campaign, despite what they are saying now - that's why there are so many new "Blue Dog" Dems in new Congress, yet now you only hear Dems' liberal leadership that were kept quiet and incognito in the run-up to election.

[Lexinom]

If you don't want Rudy McRomney, help get the word out about Duncan Hunter, R-CA, Chairman of House Armed Services Committee, and declared running. We (conservatives) need to unite around one guy. If we don't start now, your nightmare scenario becomes reality.