Well, we got most of the predictions correct. A little off on how many voted and we did think that Claudia Williamson had a chance to win, but that it was a long shot. The Mayor got only about 25% of the Hispanic vote but more then made up for it on the African-American turnout. And yes we forgot Addie Wiseman, but we did say that the Women would win and we of course meant to include her.
Mayor Brown deserves a pat on the back for just having to put up with all that negative campaigning on the part of the Republicans. He is a winner for just staying positive without getting too mad at his opponent. But he was also tired and that showed in the final and only debate.
The Big winners were the Democrats, local, state and national, the Gay Community for helping elect Brown and Ada Edwards, Labor including the Police Officers Union, and the African-American community including St. Rep. Garnet Coleman and Commissioner El Franco Lee and the many Black ministers.
The Losers were the Firefighter's Union, Jack Rains, Charles Miller, Michael Stevens and Vidal Martinez. Also add John WorldPeace and his henchman the owner of that pesky phone dialing service, Dan Kear. Kear should be sued just on principle based on his rude and out of line phone messages. Yes, you can add the Mayor of NYC and even the occupant of the White House. But Karl Rove should get the blame for getting the President involved in a local political race. Also add Gary Polland the Chair of the Harris County GOP. He did not understand that Houston is a Democratic City and using the symbols of the national GOP would cause Democrats to go vote for Lee Brown just on principle even if they were not wild about him. You would think that the GOP would learn that you can't spend millions on TV (go look at Phil Sudan's race against Ken Bentsen last year) and not put troops in the street to get out your vote.
And give credit to the Brown campaign team headed by Craig Varoga. He put his limited resources into a Get out the Vote campaign and did not run Spanish radio or TV and limited Black radio. That was the correct decision and it paid off in the end.
*Yes, the author was a proud paid consultant to the Lee Brown campaign.
George*
gstrong@political.com
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