Ben Barnes and the Akins/Morales booklet
Politics is so interesting. Sam Attlesey wrote an article this morning about a booklet that Morales was passing out at the AFL-CIO meeting last Monday. The funny thing is that the booklet is just a modification of the booklet that Marty Akins was handing out last year against Sanchez. The voting records and Bush "Pioneer" pages are in both books. The front pages have unflattering pictures of Tony Sanchez but the question for Akins was, "Searching for Sanchez" and Morales used, "Tony you've got some questions to answer".
This whole thing makes me laugh. Marty Akins has been flying around with Tony Macaroni and yet he obviously gave his booklets to Morales to use against Tony. The booklets by the way are pretty cheesy. The back covers are the same.
I think that Morales took a bunch of these booklets and unstapled them, took out some old pages and inserted a few new pages and restapled the booklets. I'll bet that back page was 60# red card stock and if you look closely you would probably see that it was restapled.
Now where is the connection here? Let me see. Ben Barnes.
Ben is the one who got Akins out of the governor's race. Then a few days before Morales came into the governor's race he gave the interview with Peggy Fikac about what kind of governor could shepherd through a tax increase. Then Mr. Tax increase himself, Dan Morales, entered the governor's race. Coincidence? I doubt it.
So here we have this scenario that I have presented before. Ole Ben has a mule, Tony Sancheese, who is the Party choice for governor. But Tony sat on his backside for a year and would not run. So ole Ben brings in Morales at the last minute to shake Tony up. Or maybe it was planned all along.
The next step is to see which mule runs the best against WorldPeace and let the worst mule drop out for the sake of Party unity under the guise of mom's sick or my kids need me, yada yada yada.
But then WorldPeace makes an issue of Morales stripper wife and all of a sudden ole Ben has two lame mules. What to do?
Can't run both mules. That would split the Hispanic vote and let the Blacks (who don't vote for Hispanics) and the Whites determine who will be the White Democratic candidate for governor.
And then there is the WorldPeace lawsuit to stop the Hispanic debates, if they were every really going to take place.
So the chess game advances. But how is ole Ben going to make all this come out? And in the end, neither the Sanchez mule nor the Morales mule can beat Perry. So what is ole Ben up to?
I still think the original plan was to let both mules kissy fight in order to get a lot of Hispanic press and draw attention away from WorldPeace. The press could hype the debates and all the forums and lesser debates could be canceled; like the B'nai B'rith forum in San Antonio and The New Texas Democrats forum in Fort Worth that were canceled last week.
But then the WorldPeace lawsuit stopped the debates and stopped the press for the mules and will probably create press for WorldPeace.
So ole Ben has to sit and wait to see what happens on Tuesday when the debate lawyer responds to WorldPeace.
In the meantime, early voting starts in just 36 days. And it seems that about 35% of the vote these days is early voting; probably due to the aging voting population. So how does Morales mount a credible run against Tony in 5 weeks? Dan still doesn't have a web page up. In fact, when we called a few days ago and granny answered the phone, she didn't know what a web page was.
Stay tuned.
Oh, yes. $5 will get you $20 that Joe Gunn fudged the AFL-CIO endorsement of Sanchez. You see in Hays County the vote was 67 for Morales and 40 for Sanchez. I think that is representative of the state. Joe did some fuzzy George math to help out Ben's Sanchez mule. Shame on you Joe.
John WorldPeace
The next governor of Texas
A real Texan for ALL Texans
No more corruption. No more Monicas
January 20, 2002
______________________
Democrats spar over loyalty
01/20/2002
By SAM ATTLESEY / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – One of the most intriguing pieces of campaign propaganda that cropped up at last week's Texas AFL-CIO convention was a booklet with an unflattering picture of Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Tony Sanchez on its cover and the words: "Tony, you've got some questions to answer."
The booklet raises numerous questions about the Laredo businessman's party loyalty as a Democrat and his failure to vote. It was compiled and distributed to union delegates by backers of Mr. Sanchez's chief primary rival, former Attorney General Dan Morales.
On the back cover, the names of 27 national and state Democrats ranging from Lyndon Johnson to Mr. Morales are listed above the question of what do they have in common?
"Tony Sanchez didn't vote for them," was the answer, the material charging that since he became eligible to vote in 1960, he has voted in only three general elections. It cites Webb and Bexar county records in saying he has never voted in a Democratic primary.
GOP donations
The booklet also says that Mr. Sanchez has given Republican George W. Bush more than $300,000 in his campaigns for governor and president.
And it claims that his Laredo bank gave $100,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2000 to help defeat Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in the disputed Florida recount. The booklet also claims that since 1994, 83 percent of the money Mr. Sanchez and his wife have contributed to political candidates went to Republicans.
The Sanchez campaign didn't let the charges go unanswered. They fired back with their own one-page piece of propaganda under the title: "Tony Sanchez: A long record of Democratic support."
It said Mr. Sanchez has contributed to more than 150 Democratic candidates and consistently contributed to party committees, including $30,000 to the Texas Democratic Party. And it says Mr. Sanchez has never made a personal contribution to the Republican Party and neither he nor his bank gave to the Florida recount effort.
"Sanchez has voted in a primary, and it was the Democratic primary," the material says, not mentioning which year.
Endorsement won
Mr. Sanchez sought to meet the party loyalty questions head on during his address.
He acknowledged that he had made mistakes and that he supported Mr. Bush in the past although he said it was a "gut-wrenching decision."
He said he has supported hundreds of state and national Democrats through the years. "My one mistake was giving Dan Morales $2,500," he said. "But I have learned my lesson the hard way, and I guarantee you that's never going to happen again."
The delegates were either not bothered by the party loyalty questions or they forgave Mr. Sanchez: He won the overwhelming endorsement of the group.
The Sanchez-Morales battle was the main show at the convention, but Democrats were able to toss a few jabs at Republicans.
Mr. Sanchez constantly referred to GOP Gov. Rick Perry, who assumed the office after Mr. Bush vacated it to move to the White House, as "the acting, accidental governor."
Republicans have dismissed such references as political attacks.
Sam Attlesey is deputy chief of the Austin Bureau of The Dallas Morning News.