Please explain this to me, if you can, ok? [View All]

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

I'm still kinda reeling over this particular race from November 2.

We had a great Dem run for state representative. She was smart as a whip, fantastic people skills, great qualifications, a real go-getter, warm, compassionate, courageous, and spoke out for the poor and middle class. Her biggest issues were health care for kids, education and the environment. People who talked to her LOVED her. Even a lot of republicans. They described her as responsive and smart. She was one of only THREE Democrats the Dallas Morning News endorsed.

She had HUNDREDS of auto worker union guys from the next city over working on her campaign. She had an entire campaign staff. She was one of the Dean's Dozen in Texas.

She worked the grassroots hard and I worked them for her, too. She had money coming in, fantastic visibility, she attended PTA meetings, homeowner's association meetings, stuff out the WAZOO. Meetups every week. A freaking ARMY of volunteers. (I'm not kidding you she must have had 300 volunteers.) We registered a couple thousand people to vote in this district.

Not only that but many people in this district were unhappy with the incumbent, a good for nothing republican who voted for things that even made republicans cringe. He used his taxpayer funded offices in Austin to run his private prison consulting business. A local paper busted him on it and he ADMITTED TO IT. The only thing he could attack her on was to say she supported John Kerry (well frigging DUH) and that she just moved to this district 10 days before she had to file. Well she moved here from 5 miles to the east, not exactly carpetbagging and she had family who lives here. Plus she DID move here before the file date, so what's the problem? He had NOTHING on her. And she had a pile of dirt on him as high as the sky (he had just been named Christian Lawmaker of the Year by some organization because he voted to deny poor women access to birth control, and he had just moved in with his 23 year old girlfriend while still married to his wife).

His own freaking DAUGHTER endorsed our candidate in the last week of the campaign.

She lost.

Now how the HELL did that happen? I poll greeted for her for 12 hours that day. She stood at the voting site of one of the most heavily republican precincts in the city and greeted voters and answered their questions and they were saying in exit polls they were voting for her 2 to 1 over the incumbent. Where I poll greeted was the incumbent's neighborhood and I had republicans tell me they were voting against him because he is "an asshole."

I still don't know what happened. She didn't lose by much, but it's horribly frustrating. I look at her and think "how in the hell could she (or we) have fought harder than she did? And she lost."

Democrats in this district have decided to make his life hell and sic the Ethics Committee on him for that prison company business stuff. I'm going to watch his every move like a freaking HAWK for the next four years. But I don't know if our candidate will want to run again, and how do we find someone who is going to top that AND beat him? It's like people went to the polls, saw his name and said "Hm, that looks familiar" and voted for him.

Oh and might I add, he didn't even have a CAMPAIGN until some local republicans saw ALL her signs everywhere and they called him and bitched him out so he ponied up for some signs then sent out some mailers and did some autocalls. She had been doing that all along. The guy hardly had to break a sweat.

HOW DO WE BEAT THAT?