When I called his office to ask about his position on the Health Care Bill, I told the staffer that she needed to get her resume' polished up because she would be looking for a new job in January
The TX-23 was redrawn by the courts in 2006 to have a much higher Hispanic population (the Hispanic percentage went up from 55% to 62%). Republican Henry Bonilla lost in a low-turnout general-election run-offin 2006, and in 2008 the GOP ran Bexar County Commissioner Lyle Larson, who was certainly well qualified and a proven vote-getter in the district’s biggest county, but running an Anglo from San Antonio’s westside was not an effective way to get votes from conservative Hispanics out in Eagle Pass andin the outskirts of El Paso, or from heavily Hispanic South San Antonio, for that matter. In the GOP primary, Larson had defeated Hispanic businessman Quico Canseco, who is originally from Laredo but has lived in San Antonio for a few years, and Canseco made the run-off for this year’s GOP nomination.
I think that “Zero” Rodriguez would lose to the conservative Republican Canseco, but if firmer CIA officer Will Hurd wins the nomination, it will be more difficult for us to beat Rodriguez. Hurd has many characteristics that make him an attractive candidate, and if he were running against, say, Chet Edwards or Lyle Doggett in those districts he would be the perfect choice, but we must face the fact that it will be difficult to convince Hispanic voters in TX-23 to vote against the Mexican-born, San Antonio-raised Rodriguez and for a Republican who happens to be a non-Hispanic black.
If Canseco was a RINO or a bad candidate, I would roll the dice with Hurd and demographics be damned, but I think that nominating Hurd over the also good Canseco in the TX-23 would be like nominating a Swedish-American Lutheran over qualified Italian-American Catholic in the Staten Island and Bensonhurst-based, overwhelmingly Italian Catholic NY-13.