This week’s amusing but ultimately meaningless bit of campaign trivia: The Lone Star Iconoclast, the newspaper of Crawford, Texas – yes, Bush’s hometown – endorsed John Kerry last week. “The re-election of George W. Bush would be a mandate to continue on our present course of chaos,” editor W. Leon Smith wrote. “We cannot afford to double the debt that we already have. We need to be moving in the opposite direction.” The editorial said that it endorsed Bush in 2000 and in 2003 editorialized in favor of the war in Iraq, but Bush “let us down.” According to a report in Tuesday’s Daily Texan, residents of the burg west of Waco are hopping mad, and some businesses have pulled their advertising.
Major election news – perennial candidate Jennifer Gale has abandoned her bid as a write-in candidate for Congressional District 10. Presumably, her enormous constituency will now go for the more serious write-in contender, Lorenzo Sadun, a UT professor and Democrat who is doing his level best to wreck Tom DeLay’s attempt to redistrict Austin into political irrelevance. Sadun is opposing GOP nominee Michael McCaul.
A documentary by BBC reporter Greg Palast, Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, will show at the Paramount Theatre (713 Congress) at 7pm Tuesday, Oct. 12, with Palast introducing the film in person. Tickets are $12, available from Star Ticket outlets and the Paramount box office; call 469-7469 or go to www.startickets.com.
This article appears in October 8 • 2004.