When you Don't Have Anything Good to Say...

Shorter Dianne Edmondson: “Oh yeah? Well…uh… at least our candidate is not… uh.. I mean I hear that your guy is … uh, well, he bats for the other team.”

Bless her poor old heart; it must be hard to be any sort of leader in the Republican Party these days. Denton County’s Republican Party chairwoman Dianne Edmondson wrote a letter that was published in today’s Denton Record Chronicle ostensibly to defend Republican incumbent State Representative Myra Crownover.

Crownover is being challenged for her seat by Democrat John McClelland, a local activist and personal friend of mine who has been actively engaged in Denton County politics for several years.

I find it interesting and somewhat enlightening as to the state of the GOP in Denton that Ms. Edmondson couldn’t point to one tangible thing Myra Crownover has done in her tenure. All that Edmondson could muster was “She’s approachable, she’s effective and she’s represented us well for eight years.“

This GOP gal was able to fire off two shots at John McClelland though, showing that she is both sadly misinformed, and not above seeking the homophobe bigot vote on behalf of her party.

First, she calls McClelland a “newcomer”, who “moved in just to run for this office.” Not only is it not true, but it’s a ludicrous thought: Lets see, I’ll buy this house and take out a 30 year mortgage just for the privilege of spending even more money I don’t have in hopes of winning an office that will interrupt my paid employment for half a year, while only paying $4,200 a year in salary. It’s true, John did buy a house in Denton County last year. He chose this area for the same reasons a lot of us choose to live here.

I was among those who twisted his arm after that move to consider running for State Representative.

Second, and more disturbingly, she resorts to pointing out John’s role as Chairman of the Denton County Stonewall Democrats: “Google it, folks, to see if the positions that this group advocates match up with your values.” For those who don’t know, Stonewall is a group of Democrats who work to increase the visibility of the Democratic Party to homosexuals who may not otherwise be politically aware. Though John doesn’t wear his gayness on his sleeve, he doesn’t hide his homosexuality, and he is not ashamed of it.

John has never aspired to be a “gay State Rep.”, but he does desire to serve you as a State Representative who happens to be gay. If you talk to John about the real issues affecting our district, you’ll hear about the need for serious focus on education and education funding. You’ll hear about jobs, economic development, and transportation, and protecting our air and water. You’ll hear about reining in a culture of pay-to-play and corruption in the legislature. You’ll hear about decreasing home insurance premiums for Texas homeowners and protecting homebuyers from unscrupulous builders. You’ll hear a lot of concern over Texas’ new income tax that Myra Crownover supported, and how it will affect small business owners. You’ll hear about how to make health care more affordable for Texans.

But of course, to talk about any of those things just reminds voters of how thoroughly the Republican “greed is good” and “Father Knows Best” ideology has been rejected by the reality of today’s economic disasters and educational system failures. And none of those topics particularly satisfies the salacious appetite of a bunch of repressed middle-aged narrow-minded Fox News watching bigots, who would much rather put all that “economy stuff” behind them and obsess over someone’s sexual orientation.

Bless her heart, poor Diane Edmondson. When the radical right-wing took over the Republican party and proved once and for all that it couldn’t govern, its candidates were little better than boorish ideologues, and its ideas were demonstrably wrong, she toed the line. And this just may be the year that voters say “Enough!” and Democrats take a few seats on her watch.