Pruett 4 Congress

Robert Pruett’s former campaign website, PruettForCongress.com was hijacked by unknown miscreants, who, for some reason or another, didn’t want his message to be broadcast while he was in a runoff election with his opponent, former Republican HD 135 candidate Winston Cochran. Pruett and Cochran are locked in a head-to-head race for the Democratic nomination to run against Congressman Ron “Doctor No” Paul in CD-14. Dr. Paul is the Libertarian who Republicans in CD-14 keep returning to congress for reasons that are unknown and unknowable by me.

Who could have committed this heinous act, an attempt to deprive Robert Pruett of his 1st Amendment rights, among other things, is anyone’s guess.

But it is a moot point now, because like the Phoenix Bird, Pruett’s website has arisen out of the ashes of its funeral pyre and re-emerged as http://www.pruett4congress.com/.

Just in time, I think.

Now I cover Fort Bend County and CD-14 is a sprawling thing that spreads west from Fort Bend and hugs the Gulf Coast over several counties. Here is a map. The Fort Bend part of CD-14 is the crescent-shaped piece of land that abuts right on the “F” of the word Friendswood that appears on the map.

In Fort Bend County, every early voting location will have Robert Pruett on the ballot. All you have to be is a resident of one of the voting precincts that occur within CD-14, in general, in the area of Fort Bend County north of Westpark Tollway/FM 1093, then westernmost Fort Bend starting around Weston Lakes where CD-14’s eastern boundary wends its way south along the eastern boundaries of Precincts 1008 and 1024. Here are the CD-14 precincts in Fort Bend County, along with their Election Day voting locations.

3004: McMeans Junior High, 21000 Westheimer Parkway KATY
3006: Irene Stern Fulshear Community Center, 6920 Fulshear-Katy Road FULSHEAR
3019: Simonton City Hall, 35011 FM 1093 SIMONTON
3038: Seven Lakes High School, 9251 S Fry Rd KATY
3014: Katy ISD Administration Building, 6301 So. Stadium Lane KATY
3122: Fielder Elementary School, 2100 Greenway Village Dr KATY
3130: Cinco Ranch High School, 23440 Cinco Ranch Blvd KATY
3132: Roosevelt Alexander Elementary School, 6161 So. Fry Rd KATY
3133: Univ. of Houston - Cinco Ranch, 4242 S. Mason Rd KATY
1008: Orchard City Hall, 9714 Kibler ORCHARD
1024: Friedens Church of Christ, 7526 Avenue I BEASLEY

TX-14 Runoff Early Voting Starts Today

The last “big” race in Fort Bend County, in part that is, is the race for who is to be the Democratic candidate to run against Ron Paul in Texas CD-14.

I have posted on this race twice before and have made no bones about my preferences in this race, preferences for which I have been mildly criticized. But I am not going to rehash about all of that.

Oh, wait, yes I am.

The runoff election pits attorney Winston Cochran against Galena Park Police Chief Robert Pruett. I would post the campaign websites of both candidates again for your perusal but it would appear that the Pruett website, formerly at http://www.pruettforcongress.com/ has apparently been hijacked. Try the link and see for yourself.

I have heard about two criticisms about the Pruett candidacy from the other camp. One, that he is undereducated, and the other, that he has been known for coarse and rude behavior in carrying out his duties as a law enforcement officer.

Let me address the second point first.

What? You have got to be kidding!

Now, as to the second point, how much education does the US Constitution require a United States Congressman to have? Let’s look – Article I Section 2:

“No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen.”

That is the sum total of the prerequisites to be elected to this office.

Oh, by the reasoning given, given the choice between a fancy lawyer with a fancy law degree and a lowly police chief with whatever degrees he has, or doesn’t have, we should opt for the one with the highest level of education.

Whether this is a fair way to judge who you should vote for depends on how you would answer this question:

Who would make the best President:

1. a guy who graduated from Yale with an overall GPA of 76 (81 in his senior year), then took some time off, then came back to earn his J.D. degree from Boston College, or
   
2. a guy who graduated from Yale with an overall GPA of 79, a degree in History, then took some time off and came back to earn his MBA from Harvard Business School (overall GPA 3.5).

If you opted for the Yale guy who then went to Harvard, then George W. Bush is your man and John Kerry is clearly the more under-qualified.

Which of the two candidates, on the other hand, Cochran or Pruett, is the lifelong Democrat? The one who we can depend on in the close votes?

Pruett claims to be a lifelong Democrat. That fact is not easily proven since his primary voting record indicates participation in the Democratic primaries only in 2008 and 2010. However, I am willing to take the man’s word for it.

Cochran also claims to be a Democrat. His primary voting record, it seems, is even more dismal than Pruett’s. Cochran has never voted in a primary election, Democratic or Republican as far back as the online voting records go. Except for the 2010 primary. He voted in the Democratic primary in that one. So we have actually uncovered a Texas Democrat who did not participate in the 2008 Democratic primary process.

Mind-boggling.

But most damning is the absolute fact that Winston Cochran was on the Republican ballot in the 1992 primary for the House District 135 seat. He was. Look for yourself. Here is the screenshot.

But here is the real problem. TX-14 is a pretty safe Republican district. So winning the primary is only the beginning of an uphill battle. Take for instance the primary voting records. In the 2010 Democratic primary, a total of 16,436 votes were cast, spread semi-evenly over the three candidates. On the other side of the aisle, despite the best efforts of mainstream Republicans to unseat their Libertarian congressman, Ron Paul garnered 80.76% of the vote and that translates to 45,947 votes.

This is a very uphill battle for any Democrat, a sometime one or lifelong one, it doesn’t really matter. Ron Paul has a lot of popularity among his constituents for some unfathomable reason. But here is my best guess. My best guess is that if there is some reason to vote against Ron Paul, like him getting caught on the runway in a stripper bar (something that arguably could even up his polling among his constituents) Robert Pruett could more easily capture that vote than Winston Cochran.

Pruett looks like a guy you don’t want to mess with. He acts like it. He dresses like it.

He looks to me like the kind of guy who would appeal to Independents who are sick and tired of not being represented by “Dr. No.” He looks to me to be the kind of guy who might appeal to mainstream Republicans who are tired of having a Libertarian ideologue as their standard bearer in Congress.

So I still think Pruett Can Do It, even if his website doesn’t load anymore.

Texas CD – 14 Candidates Speak at the Fort Bend Democrats’ Candidate’s Forum

Finally, we have one last contested primary race in Fort Bend County to post video on. The only other contested race that I haven’t covered from the candidate's forum last week is the race for County Chair. The incumbent County Chair, Elaine Bishop, failed to show up at the forum, making my life easier at least.

However, two candidates for the Democratic nomination to run against Ron Paul in Texas’ 14th Congressional District did appear to state their respective cases. There are actually three candidates in the race, Jeff Cherry, Winston Cochran, and Robert Pruett, but Cherry did not make an appearance.

Perhaps because he was outed as a Republican in Democrat’s clothing. He was actually videoed at a Teabagger rally stating that he was going to run in the primary against Ron Paul. He changed his mind just as he changed his party.

This leaves Cochran and Pruett.

Now I have previously endorsed Robert Pruett on this blog, and I stand by that endorsement. I think Pruett can do it.

But Winston Cochran, who went first to speak, spent much of his time defending allegations that he is not really a Democrat. And I will allow that what he says is the absolute truth: in 1998 he ran for statewide office for the Court of Criminal Appeals. He ran as a Democrat.

Here’s the video.


His website can be found here.

No argument. Here is a screenshot of the election results of that election from the Texas Secretary of State’s website:

Yep, that’s Winston Cochran there, listed as DEM losing to Cheryl Johnson the REP.

But that’s not the whole story, is it. Six years prior to his run for Court of Criminal Appeals he ran in the Republican primary for State Rep in HD 135. Here is the screenshot for that from the same Texas SOS website:
Fair is fair. That is Winston Cochran placing 3rd in a field of 4 in the Republican primary.

Now admittedly, that was 18 years ago. Lots of things happen in 18 years. But in coming to a conclusion on whether to support Pruett or Cochran in this primary, I had to ask myself the question that I often do in cases like this: when does the statute of limitations run out on the crime of Voting While Republican?

Robert Pruett then got the microphone, admitted to a couple of physical issues that arose in his long wait to speak at the forum, and then concluded with dignity.



This is where you can find Robert Pruett’s website.

I still think he can do it. By sheer contrast he is going to make Dr. Paul look like the Libertarian ideologue that he is.