TX-19 Democrat Andy Wilson responded early to Randy Neugebauer's shameless incivility and has updated his statements to criticize Neugebauer's equally shameless fund-raising from right-wing responses to his rude House behavior.
Hotline On Call today spotlights the inequality between fund-raising for these two candidates. It may be that this race is only starting. Wilson is running an uphill battle, but has been benefiting lately from this publicity and the strong race for Governor that Bill White is waging against Rick Perry.
For progressives among us, I have checked and Andy does support a woman's right to choose and will NOT be another "Blue Dog" Democrat. He is a strong campaigner, is young, has a great family (check out the web site for more), has thoughtful positions and a great presence on TV and radio. He would be a great guest on the Daily Show or on Rachel Maddow and deserves our support.
More background:
This is an area that only 2 decades ago was strongly Democratic, and in which Democratic candidates have continued to do well when strongly backed. Neugebauer only came to office as a result of the gerrymandering efforts of Tom Delay. Delay later got kicked out of office under a cloud, but we were left with "baby killer heckler" Neugebauer.
Randy Neugebauer is also responsible for passing out t-shirts saying "I'm Mad Too, Randy!" as his first obstructionist non-contribution to the health care reform discussion, and has been blocking progress on this and every other issue of importance to the progressive agenda for his entire time in office. He is tied for the most conservative voting record in Congress and earns a solid F at 12% in the NAACP Civil Rights Legislative Report Card. This is an ultra-right-wing "worst of the worst" who needs to go.
It is time for this community to back the forward-looking campaign of Wilson, an engineer for a semiconductor company who understands the need for technological innovation in energy (wind and solar are strong here) and who makes repeated reference to the positive economic policies of Democrats in earlier decades. Andy's campaign is built on the need for this region to turn away from the false economic policies of Republicans in the past decade that have literally wrecked the nation's economy.
As a personal note, I have met him, and think he is a very strong candidate. He understands the need to innovate to get our way back to fiscal sanity and sanity in public policy, and will not be just a simple budget-cutting hawk. If anyone can succeed out here in West Texas, it will be someone like Andy Wilson who understands the issues and has strong roots in the region.
His web site is http://istandwithandy.com. You can also donate directly on ActBlue at the following locations:
The Progressive Electorate 2009-2010 (This one is by the Progressive Electorate and Daily Kos Community!)
Stop Randy Neugebauer!
Send Randy "Baby Killer" Neugebauer Home
Defending Healthcare Reform
Other links:
http://twitter.com/...
http://twitter.com/...
Lubbock Left
-----
UPDATE: Feedback I received immediately after posting this diary indicate that Neugebauer is using the "Baby Killer" incident to raise funds into his campaign account which he uses to line his own pockets. He is also apparently attempting to cover it up. He (or someone) unleashed a search bomb earlier today and now any search done on "Neugebauer Yacht" finds 10 pages of a fake website with "Randy Neugebauer Yacht" tagged all over.
Here's a statement from Andy Wilson on this incident: "Randy Neugebauer's shameless behavior doesn't stop at trying to raise money off actions that he himself has already acknowledged were inappropriate and offensive. Now, facing renewed scrutiny surrounding his attempt to pay himself for use of his own party-boat Yacht with campaign funds (per his theory it'd be a great way to raise more money) Neugebauer is scrambling to bury the embarrassing story with a google bomb."
This interference deserves an investigation, and the yacht issue seems to merit looking at by the House Ethics Committee. At the least, this is dirty pool by someone who doesn't have any friends among any of the people he used to do business with as a real estate speculator, which is how he apparently made his money.
Here's a further update in a story just published by the Texas Observer: "Birther, Deather, Yachtsman, Hypocrite: "Baby Killer" Neugebauer Milks His 15 Minutes "