Kos and Ciro Rodriguez
Daily Kos also blogs about the recent endorsement of Henry Cuellar by the Club for Growth:
Cuellar beat Rodriguez by 203 votes in the 2004 primary after DeLay’s illegally funded redistricting gambit forced the two sitting congressman into the same district.
There are districts where political realities force us to accept Democrats of Cuellar’s mold — he’s one of the most conservative Dems in the House. This isn’t one of those districts.
Cuellar wasn’t an incumbent, but Kos couldn’t be more right about party registration in the 28th. This is not one of those districts. It’s not a swing district, it’s a very, very safe Democratic seat. Having Cuellar representing the seat is like having a Blue Dog Dem instead of Nancy Pelosi representing San Francisco. Well, no, it’s worse. It would be like having a Republican instead of Nancy Pelosi representing San Francisco.
But here’s the rub. The voters of the Texas 28th congressional district think they voted for a Democrat when they voted for Cuellar. Despite being partisan Dems, primary voters in Texas aren’t thinking right now that Cuellar worked for Republican Governor Rick Perry or voted for President George W. Bush. But as my poll shows, when voters are reminded about some of Cuellar’s votes over the last two years, they have serious doubts:
So here is my request to Kos, MyDD, Off the Kuff, Dos Centavos and the rest of the blogosphere. Show that the Internet has the power to inform voters even in districts that are not on the sunny side of the digital divide. If primary voters in South Texas know that Ciro voted like a Democrat when he was in Congress and that Cuellar has been voting like a Bush/DeLay Republican, then Cuellar will lose. Please help Ciro Rodriguez win this election. The primary is less than 2 months away.
Don’t accept a Democrat of Cuellar’s mold.
[Update:] BOR’s quotation marks say it all:
Rep. Cuellar is an incumbent “Democratic” Congressman “representing” the 28th District of Texas.
January 18th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
South Texas is not San Francisco. NAFTA and free trade are very popular in South Texas, hence Cuellar’s strong support for both. Very interesting “polling” results, but methinks Cuellar beats Ciro again. Laredo voter turnout is key, and with so many contested local races in Webb County, it will probably be high. Morales is the wild card, but will probably steal more of Ciro’s votes than Henry’s.
February 8th, 2006 at 11:56 am
When you play it totally straight, almost as many primary voters oppose CAFTA as support it (41 percent to 43 percent). But when you mention that manufacturing jobs will get moved overseas, 72 percent of primary voters have serious doubts. That’s a far cry from “very popular.”