Tuesday, December 20, 2011

For Senate: Sanchez is Out Sadler is In

Politics in Texas is anything but boring. Not only do we have a primary election coming up that is completely fluid, where you may or may not be living in the district that you are filing for, we also have a fluid Senate race.

Fluid in the sense that you never know who is going to hang around for the finish.

Witness the fact that a couple of days ago former Army General Ric Sanchez announced he was not going to be in the primary, and that spurred former State Rep Paul Sadler to toss his hat into the ring.

Sanchez was a big name, they were telling me. And he had the creds as a conservative Democrat, someone that some people in the Democratic Party think might have a fighting chance against a Republican in Red Texas.

And he’s Hispanic.

But the campaign never caught fire, chiefly, I think, because the Democratic base failed to get really excited about the guy.

And then his house burned down.

So he got out.

Seeing his opportunity, Paul Sadler, again not a guy with statewide name recognition, stepped in. From East Texas, Sadler is known for his time chairing the Public Education Committee. He lost in a runoff bid for the Texas Senate in 2004 and has since been working in the field of alternative energy.

Sadler will face two others in the April 3rd primary, Sean Hubbard and Daniel Boone. Yeah, I know, ol’ Dan’l won’t have a problem with name recognition, being one of the Heroes of the Alamo. I visited both of their campaign websites. Dan’l is a retired Air Force officer who has several businesses in and around Canyon Lake. Sean, who is about 12 years older than he looks, is actually qualified to run for Senate (I think) as the minimum age is 30 years.

So this should be an interesting one to watch, especially because we have a new guy with name recognition much like we had before with the perennial candidate from Universal City, Gene Kelly. You remember Gene Kelly. The candidate that Barbara Ann Radnofsky had to beat in a runoff election in 2006.

Coincidentally, Gene Kelly was also a retired Air Force officer.

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