Why Isn’t Van Taylor Talking About His Guard Service On The Border?

GOP nominee Van Taylor commanded a Marine platoon on the border for a month in 1997 in a drug-fighting mission and made that experience a centerpiece of his primary campaign. But during that campaign, he did not say how long he served.

…

He said the secrecy of the mission requires he not disclose where he served.

That’s according to the Waco Tribune-Hearald.

While I don’t proclaim to be familiar with the ins-and-outs of military regulations requiring him not to say where he served, I do find it odd he’s been specific about the roughly 100 days he spent in Iraq, but not about his time on the border. From Taylor’s campaign website:

Van then volunteered for duty with the Marine Corps’ C Company, 4th Reconnaissance Battalion and was activated to fight in Iraq where he fought with the 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company. As a Captain, Van led missions behind enemy lines for the 4500 Marine Task Force Tarawa, including the leadership of the Task Force’s first platoon to enter Iraq before the start of the main invasion.

During the war to liberate Iraq, Van’s platoon encountered, and defeated, several Fedayeen ambushes, participated in the operation to rescue American P.O.W. Jessica Lynch and rescued 31 wounded men-under-fire during a counter attack by several thousand Iraqi soldiers. Van was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal with “V” for Valor, the Combat Action Ribbon, and the Presidential Unit Citation.

Obviously, that’s fairly explicit. Granted, it’s not “down-to-the-whites-of-their-eyes/how-many-men-I-killed” detail, it’s fairly specific for a war that’s still going on. Why, then, if he is willing to be so specific about his exploits in the Middle East, will he nothing about the time he served with the Guard on the border? That question asked, let me say that I don’t doubt Taylor was on the border.
I believe the reason Taylor won’t discuss his service on the border is because of events that occured on the border involving National Guardsman in 1997, which is when he spent his month on the border.
The name Esequiel Hernandez Jr., probably means nothing whatsoever to the average person. But, to those familar with the activities of the National Guard on the U.S.-Mexico border, it’s a very important name and one that made news again recently in the wake of discussions about sending guardsman back to the border.

When Hernandez died, he became the first civilian killed by U.S. troops since the incident at Kent State University in 1970.

This particular incident clearly cast a pall on the 1997 National Guard border activities of which Taylor was a part because of the age of Hernandez and other factors related to what happened. All accounts of the incident are fairly similar. The Pecos Enterprise offered this account a year later following what were new developments in the case in 1998:

U.S. Marine Cpl. Clemente Banuelos shot the Redford, Tx. high school sophomore May 20,1997, while the marine was on a federal drug interdiction operation and Hernandez was
tending his family’s goat herd.

According to officials at the justice department, there was “insufficient evidence” to prosecute Banuelos under federal criminal civil rights law. The federal investigation followed a grand jury trial held last August in Marfa in which the jurors decided not to bring criminal charges against Banuelos in the affair.

In a public statement released Feb. 27, justice department officials said that “the department concluded that there was insufficient evidence to rebut Corporal Banuelos’ claim that he shot Mr. Hernandez because he thought that Mr. Hernandez was about to shoot another Marine.”

Military officials said that Hernandez fired twice at the Marines with an ancient .22-caliber rifle and was poised for a third shot when Banuelos shot and killed the goat-herd[er].

However, civil charges which seek compensation for the Hernandez family out of the tragedy are still pending and U.S. Congressman Lamar Smith has initiated a new inquiry into the matter. Many questions, apparently, have been left unanswered despite the justice department’s shut-down of the investigation.

The federal government did end up paying the Hernandez family $1.9 million in compensation.

Keep in mind, Taylor wasn’t part of this particular incident. Though a deputy sheriff with the same surname is mentioned, Van (Nicholas Van Campen) Taylor’s name appears nowhere in news coverage related to the incident nor is it recognizable on cursory review of the report of the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration and claims Oversight’s investigation (report, appendix here, here, and here) of the Death of Esequiel Hernandez, Jr. led by Texas Congressman Lamar Smith (R-San Antonio), which was published in 1998.

Clearly, though Taylor’s campaign doesn’t want anyone casting too close an eye on his border service and realizing it was during a time period (or at least the year) when the Guard was subject to tremendous bad publicity for the Esequiel Hernandez shooting.

One other option is that, because of the Hernandez incident, Taylor and others may well be under some requirement not to disclose specifics related to their duties. However, I believe it is more likely that they’re keeping mum about to avoid anyone making a corelation between Taylor’s service and the year in which the Guard got so much bad publicity.

Given that the Guard being sent to the border is again a major issue, you can bet Taylor’s camp doesn’t want anyone to start looking at anything that happened anywere or to anyone during the year in which he spent a month on the border. That goes double for it being discussed in a period where newspapers are editorializing about the Guard being sent to the border and specifically mentioning the tragic shooting from 1997.

On another Van Taylor note, you’ll recall earlier that we broke the story that Taylor’s father and House Speaker Tom Craddick are both major shareholders in Mexco Energy Corporation (a company in which Van Taylor also holds stock).

I ran across this resolution (HCR 216) passed by Craddick in the ‘05 Regular Session quite by accident.  In this resolution, Craddick priases his fellow stockholder for his service in Iraq. While the service of American troops in Iraq is certianly commendable (and resolution worthy), given that Taylor’s residence is stated as Dallas in the resolution, it makes one wonder that, if it were not for the business connection, Craddick probably wouldn’t have been the one to carry this HCR.

Of further interesting note from HCR 216, we note mention of McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm that has represented Enron and employed the likes of Bobby Jindal, Jeff Skilling of Enron fame, and (on the left), Chelsea Clinton.

A Month On The Border Nine Years Ago Does Not Equal Enough Experience To Tout In A TV Commercial (How Much More Can The Taylor Campaign Take?)

Many of you may remember this lovely TV commercial from Van Taylor’s primary run down in CD-17. It turns out, however, that the “time on the border” the candiate was talking about was only about a month—nine years ago.The Waco Herald-Tribune blew the lid off that one in Sunday’s editions:

GOP nominee Van Taylor commanded a Marine platoon on the border for a month in 1997 in a drug-fighting mission and made that experience a centerpiece of his primary campaign. But during that campaign, he did not say how long he served.

“I think a lot of voters are going to be surprised that after hearing Mr. Taylor tout his strong experience on border control issues that he only spent one month on the border nine years ago,” said Edwards, D-Waco.

That’s pretty bad when it comes to truth-in-advertising. However, this snippit from the article nearly made me lose bladder control I laughed so hard:

Taylor said Edwards’ criticism constitutes a “personal attack” and that his experience is sorely needed in Washington, D.C.

“If every member of Congress had the experience on the border I have,” Taylor said in an interview this week, “they never would have let it get this out of control.”

If you’ve picked yourself off the floor, daubed the tears from your eyes and made a special bathroom run if necessary, you’ve realized just how stupid that very statement makes Van Taylor sound. Every campaign, there are things that a Republican candidate says that are so dumb you just pray they end up in a TV commercial or mailout, and that’s one of them.

Think about it: What Van Taylor is really saying, is this:

We need more people in Congress who have experience in a particular problem area that is years old and outdated.

Saying that Taylor’s expecience is truly relevant is about like saying someone who was a police officer for six months in 1964 has all the knowledge and information necessary to lead the war on drugs today. It just makes no sense.

More humor:

At one place where Taylor was stationed, he observed only three strands of barbed wire separating the United States and Mexico.

“That won’t keep the bull out of the heifer pasture,” Taylor said.

He said the secrecy of the mission requires he not disclose where he served.

Was that because he was really in a bar in Tijuana or something? I’m sure that, after nine years, he could probably get a waiver from the national guard or something. Maybe it’s time to start a movement to actually get Van Taylor to disclose his full military record.

All of this, however, brings up a very important point: how much more of this can Van Taylor’s campaign take before it becomes more of a joke than it already is? There have already been several other similar scandals, and now they’re thrown one that could be as bad as the fact that he’s so heavily tied to oil companies?

Taylor can pour as much of his personal fortune as he wants into his campaign, but he’ll never be able to buy enough good publicity for himself—or bad publicity for himself—to offset the load that has already been dumped on him.

And, it’s not even Labor Day! If this kind of stuff is being thrown out as issues now, what worse things are hiding in the opposition research on him that won’t be thrown out until the final days of the election?

His Cheney fund-raiser was a flop. I’m already hearing from folks on the ground in the district that he’s having trouble recruiting volunteers and that the GOP base is not at all excited about his campaign since he’s less well-known than the Dragon Lady was last time. Plus, since it was only a two-person primary, a larger percentage of the GOP electorate is still pissed at him. All and all, things are not looking good for his campaign at all.

Will The Real Van Taylor Please Stand Up? (& A Craddick Connection)

Republican Congressional Candidate Van Taylor is desparate for the voters of CD-17 to think of him as a run-of-the-mill, salt of the earth, kind of guy.

It turns out, however, that Taylor is, in fact, a real-life blue blood Oil Barron.

We’ve mentioned this before, but it wasn’t until former Texas Congressman Martin Frost revealed his real name over at Fox News today that we realized just how blue his blood runs.

His real name? Nicholas Van Campen Taylor. Not exactly a local-boy-sounding name.

Think “Nicholas Van Campen Taylor” is a mouthfull? He’s got a sister named Christie Hardin Van Vraanken Taylor. Now, until I saw that “Van” in her name, too, I thought maybe “Van” was a family given name and not part of another surname. But, I’m guessing “Van Campen” and “Van Vraanken” are two aged blue blood pedigree names.

Van Campen is evidently Dutch or German, and Van Vraanken has to be Dutch.  (Nothing bad about that, but those names sound like people with lots of bling)
On a more interesting note, though, it turns out that Mr. Nicholas Van Campen Taylor (doubting he’s putting it on the ballot that way) is listed on some SEC documents that, surprise, surprise, connect his daddy to none other than Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick.

Turns out there is an outfit called Mexco Energy Corporation that lists Nicholas Van Campen Taylor as a shareholder along with his sister and his dad.

And, guess what? Daddy, Nicholas C. Taylor, who owned over a million shares in the company, served on the board with none other than Speaker Thomas R. Craddick!

Here’s what the documents have to say about our esteemed Speaker, who holds (or held) a paltry $5,000 shares:

THOMAS R.  CRADDICK,  54, was elected to the Board of Directors of the Company  on March 2,  1998 and is a member of the  Compensation  Committee. Since 1968 to the present,  Mr. Craddick has served as State Representative for the State of Texas.  Throughout  his tenure of the past 15  sessions of the Legislature, Representative  Craddick has served on various committees and  conferences,  most recently  serving on the Legislative  Budget Board, Legislative Audit Committee,  the State Affairs Committee and the Revenue & Public Education Funding, Select Committee,  along with serving as Chairman of the House  Ways and  Means  Committee  and  Chairman  of the  Republican Legislative Caucus. For more than the past five years Mr. Craddick has been Sales Representative  for  Mustang  Mud,  Inc.,  as well as the  owner  of Craddick Properties and Owner and President of Craddick, Inc. both of which invest in oil and gas properties and real estate.

The Compensation Committee, huh?

And we wonder about no windfall profits tax and no gas tax relief? Hell, the Speaker of the Texas House serving on the board of an oil company with the daddy of a congressional candidate who earned somewhere between 100,000 and a million bucks from Exxon. Texas Republican Politics at its finest!

(Oh, and just remember two things: (1) you heard about the Craddick Connection here first and (2) did somebody say blogs do nothing original?

Van Taylor’s Campaign Getting Boost From GOP ‘Netroots’

This should no doubt encourage you to support Chet Edwards and also help him out in Barbara Boxer’s poll, via the Waco Tribune-Herald:

An Internet fundraising effort by the popular Republican-leaning Web site RedState.com steered 183 contributions and $10,000 to Taylor from readers like Sierra across the country this week.

…

Taylor welcomed the help. He trailed incumbent U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, by a large margin in fundraising reports filed shortly after Taylor’s expensive Republican primary victory March 7 and is trying to recharge for the general election in November.

“I’m not an incumbent; I can’t go to Washington and raise huge amounts of (political action committee) money. It is going to require grass-roots activists here in Central Texas and, honestly, around the country to contribute,” said Taylor, 33.

Edwards posted about $1.3 million and Taylor reported about $200,000 in filings with the Federal Election Commission as of March 31.

Interesting food for thought.

CD-17: Edwards Challenges Van Taylor To Tell Voters The Truth About His Exxon-Mobile Holdings

The stock holdings that are helping Republican Van Taylor mount his campaign against Congressman Chet Edwards in CD-17 have now become Taylor’s biggest political liability.

In financial disclosure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Taylor noted he held somewhere between $5  million and $25 million of stock in the company which yesterday reported $8.4 billion in first-quarter earnings amid record high gasoline prices.
From Edwards’ Press Release:

“Since voters are hurting every time they fill up their car or truck, they deserve to know how much Van Taylor is making as a result of ExxonMobil’s record-breaking profits and high gas prices.”

From The Waco Tribune-Herald:

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