Nasty TX-17 race

Amazingly, this race has devolved in the past week. I'm not even talking about attacks on Chet Edwards, this is just between contenders in the GOP primary!

Anderson, who has repeatedly highlighted Taylor's lack of roots in the district, is now on the receiving end of criticism as Taylor questions Anderson's residency and campaign style in recent ads.

Ads released Wednesday suggest Anderson is not paying taxes on the Calvert home where he lives about 50 miles southeast of Waco and claim Anderson has used newspaper letters-to-the-editor written by liberals to promote his campaign.

That's not even the worst of. Taylor says he was forced to go on the offensive after Anderson sent out a mailer that compared him to (drumroll please)... John Kerry.

How offensive. Even as a liberal, I'm shocked by that. I mean, John Kerry has three purple hearts (like in the JibJab video) and had the good sense to know the war he fought in was a bad idea. Taylor's nothing like that.

There is also this business of the letters-to-the editor. I didn't read any of them because, surprise, I don't even read my own newspaper everyday. But, Taylor is fairly convinced that anderson planted liberals to write mean letters about him. I'm not sure how you would know someone is a liberal or not. It's not like we have a special tattoo or anything (except the Hello Kitty tattoo on my ass). It leads us to the money quote, though.

Anderson he did not know who wrote the letters he used. He said he assumed newspapers vetted letters before printing them.

And that's why I don't like Republicans. Vetting letters for political affiliation? What kind of fascist state does he think we live in? Even a Nazi is entitled to writing a letter-the-editor of a newspaper. It's supposed to be an open forum for the public to add their input into the discussion of the day, which I happen to think is a great idea (cough*blogs*cough).

That little Freudian slip lets us in on what his idea of freedom and democracy are all about.

Last week I wrote that I was going to endorse one of these guys in the GOP primary. It was going to be a serious attempt to get some views from the candidates and offer my opinion to any Republicans that read this blog and will be voting in my district. So here goes.

OFFICIAL COMMON SENSE ENDORSEMENT FOR GOP PRIMARY IN TX-17: Common Sense is witholding its endorsement in this race. As crunch time neared, neither candidate was able to keep from stretching the truth or to act in any adult manner. There are already plenty of children in the House of Representatives, Common Sense feels there is no need to send another one there.

I know that seems like a cop out, and I will be the first to volunteer that I didn't meet with either of them. I offered to, but was politely refused or ignored. I didn't take that as a personal affront.  I do take it personally that neither candidate has seen fit to answer my, the constituent's, questions about their stances on the issues. I know that Van Taylor says he doesn't like the spending being done by Congress, but will he vote with the Democrats to block a huge spending bill? And all I really know about Anderson is that he was a staffer for Pete Sessions; does that mean he will vote exactly like Sessions or does he have his own views?

The election day in their primary is less than a week away and voters don't have that information. They've been campaigning for months and all we know is that they want to play slap-hands with each other over who really lives in the district and over who is more in love with those dirty, dirty liberals.

Comments

[anna]

i love a good GOP pie fight.

mmmmm pie....

[Nate]

It can almost be depressing if you think about it. They are the party in power because they pull shit like this all the time... and it works.

[nobody girl]

apparently the taylor camp found out they were liberals from FACEBOOK. ha! so i guess anderson was trolling myspace and facebook for athiest, bush-hating liberals?!?

and really, how dare the editorial page print letters from partisans. the evil media empire has fucked it all up again!