CD 23: Tossing Out A Few More Links…
If you’re like me and suffering terrible withdrawal symptoms as a result of the end of the November elections, then take heart because, until December 12, you can still get at least one daily “fix” out of the Bonilla v. Rodriguez runoff in CD-23.
So grab your needles and rolled up $20s and, consider this today’s Political Methadone…or electoral crack…or…whatever:
Karl-Thomas from BOR has a diary up at Daily Kos on the early vote in CD 23 and how it bodes well for Ciro Rodriguez.
During the election cycle, I missed this great SACurrent piece on the “proper care and feeding of Congressmen” by Keli Dailey. It includes some biting criticism of Bonilla, to wit:
Look at Henry Bonilla. After almost 14 years representing Texas’s Congressional District 23, he’s shown incompetence and arrogance, prioritizing favor-trading over the needs of people like your fixed-income, tilted-wig, broken-down Gran. In 2003, Bonilla voted to send her to a prescription timeout in Medicare’s doughnut hole: Expect 3 million hack-coughing elderly to join her in Rx limbo by year’s end.
And, I also missed this “undercover” venture into Henry Bonilla’s “victory” party on election night. You must read it, because it’s hilarious. I’m excerpting my favorite part below:
One thing’s certain: there’s no Republican retinal scan in the Marriott Rivercenter ballroom. And the political antennae of the two women at the door scribbling out Texans for Henry Bonilla name tags do not detect anything strange about “Kay Dee†and Dave, the manic pair who descend on the table of extra disguises (Bonilla buttons, balloons, paddles, stickers) inside the entryway like Pottermaniacs at the summer’s most anticipated book release.
“It’s so fine,†Frank Guerra, the incumbent’s longtime PR ally, addresses the 150-person crowd and starts laying down bad-news asphalt sometime around 9 p.m. “We’re going to wait until the end, but we’re hovering at 50 percent.†50 percent plus one vote would prevent a runoff in this eight-person race — er, seven since Democrat Rick Bolanos dropped from financial exhaustion last month. Bolanos was still on the ballot and getting 2 percent of the vote, Guerra tells the dejected crowd, who respond by hanging their heads further into their lemon-lime Sierra Mists (the bitter drink of the evening, a bartender reports). The ballroom starts to look like a loafing area, an exercise yard for people on edge and witnessing, on two big screen TVs, how to lock a party out of the national agenda. Dave and I are drinking margaritas.
“I’m so mad at Uresti,†I overhear the congressman’s aide, Mark Sanchez, say by the buffet table, talking about one Southside San Antonio challenger (who ends up in third place with 11.7 percent of the vote).
“The Democrats just got out more of the early vote,†a frustrated Louise Underwood-Botts, a precinct captain from Bexar County’s north side, commiserates with me on my second trip to the buffet. I never actually say “damn those blue devils,†so I don’t outright lie.
The only fibber in the room is the candidate. He takes the stage around a quarter to 10 p.m. (when bloggers were already calling it a runoff).
“I’m optimistic we can put this thing away tonight!†is as much a fantasy as his interpretation of the decision that landed him in this crowded race in the first place. “The Supreme Court said because I’m a Republican, I didn’t qualify as a Hispanic!†he says, cuing laughter and applause from the largely white audience.
Actually, the court said the 2003 GOP-led redistricting effort redrew Bonilla’s district simply to enhance his political fortunes, and resulted in the impermissible dilution of Latino voting strength in CD-23, a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. (For the record, it was the Current who called Bonilla a vendido, not the high court.)
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at that event…
Popularity: 2% [?]
Do you know that you can 
