Posted on 11/26/2001 8:20:50 PM PST by GOPcapitalist
Over the last week, Houston Mayor Lee P. Brown has launched a racial attack against challenger Orlando Sanchez, a Hispanic Republican who is set to face Brown in a runoff election this saturday. The latest attack by Brown is only one of a long string of racist campaigning the mayor has employed in his reelection bid.
The most recent Brown attack comes in the form of signs paid for by the Brown campaign featuring a picture of Orlando Sanchez with the words "Anti-Hispanic" across them. The Brown campaign has been placing them in Hispanic areas of Houston to intimidate Hispanic voters, who supported Sanchez by over 60% last month in the first round of the mayoral contest.
Sadly, the signs being used by the Brown campaign are nowhere near the most inflamatory of the racial attacks his campaign has engaged in over the past month. Early into the runoff, a Brown campaign spokesperson claimed Sanchez was Hispanic in name only. And two weeks ago, Brown began running automated telephone ads featuring a racially inflamatory message from the sister of 1998 lynching victim James Byrd, Jr. The ad, which bears an uncanny resemblence to the notorious one run by the NAACP against George W. Bush last year, attacks Sanchez for refusing to endorse Brown's position on the so-called "hate crimes" law that passed during the last Texas legislative session. Byrd's sister blamed George W. Bush for her brother's death in the ad last year, but now it seems she has changed her mind and is blaming Sanchez.
Not to be undone by their own racist record, the Brown campaign, surprise surprise, now has the audacity to accuse Sanchez of racism. Last week, a Sanchez campaign representative appealed to local Republican volunteers for help on election day as poll watchers in Democrat precincts with a history of ballot fraud. As prescribed by the Texas Elections Code, any candidate on the ballot has the right to appoint poll watchers to monitor election workers in voting precincts and to report any violations of the law to the election judge at that precinct. Upon hearing of the Sanchez campaign's plans to appoint poll watchers, Brown released a statement accusing Sanchez of "voter intimidation" against blacks. The attack was echoed by Democrat County Chairwoman Sue Schechter and recieved heavy publicity in the left-of-center Houston Chronicle. Shortly after the Brown campaign's accusation was made, Texas Democrat Chairwoman Molly Beth Malcolm responded to it by issuing a complaint to the United States Justice Department's civil rights division.
Nowhere was it reported that while Brown was kicking and screaming over the as of yet to be appointed Sanchez poll watchers with accusations of "voter intimidation," his own campaign had appointed and stationed Brown poll watchers at early voting locations across the city.
Additional reports from early voting locations, none of which have recieved any media coverage, tell of Brown workers parking billboard trucks well within the "no-electioneering" markers in front of the polling place doorways. The same Brown workers have also been described as approaching voters on their way to vote (also inside the no-electioneering markers) and "crowding" them while issuing intimidating instructions to vote for Brown.
Brown's racial antics during this campaign are by no means new to his political career. Lee P. Brown, recall, was the New York City Police Commissioner during the Crown Heights Race Riots, a disaster that contributed to his leaving that position shortly afterwards.
Comparatively, the Chronicle has devoted several paragraphs out of two front page articles to Brown's frivolous charges of "intimidation" with the Sanchez poll watchers, though not once have they noted the fact that Brown has been using his own poll watchers for weeks at early voting.
I made this post because it contains news that is being supressed in the local media, which is adamantly pro-Brown. Please circulate it to any and all you know who live in and around Houston.
And if you are as outraged and disgusted by Brown's racist tactics as I am, please direct your comments to the Houston Chronicle's editorial page. Feel free to express your disgust with their bias as well. Name, address, and phone number are needed for verification purposes only.
viewpoints@chron.com
I don't live in Houston, but all race baiters like Lee Brown should not only be fired, but tarred and feathered. If there is a tarring and feathering there, let me know. I'll bring the beer.
But I have seen the Brown ads (I was in Houston for the holidays)... and he is such a vile bit of pond scum. Go Sanchez!
I've met Brown, he can't wipe his a$$ without an aide telling him where his backside is. But Brown does have one thing going for him, he makes Shelia Jackson-Lee look brilliant.
Liberal Whites and liberal Hispanics are split between Brown and Sanchez, but liberal blacks are solidly for Brown, and everyone else is for Sanchez, is that how it works?
Faced with this prospect, after only recently becoming a "noted" political force, is a fleeting moment indeed. They wish to maintain "power" (which has so far failed to see much improvement in their neighborhoods) as long as they can.
A friend has asked how far down the white population in Houston has to dip in order to become eligible for "minority" contract grants.
MAYOR: Orlando Sanchez
AT LARGE 3: Shelley Sekula Rodriguez
AT LARGE 4: Michael Berry
CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT E: Bernard Maristany
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