The eight day out campaign reports have been filed with the Texas Ethics Commission, and as expected the GOP is dumping money into House races.
In Travis County, the big bank is in House District 47, where GOP donors dumped $224,827 last month into Donna “Who’s Tom Craddick?” Keel’s campaign against Democrat incumbent Valinda Bolton. That’s not House race money, that’s congressional race money, and $140,000 of it comes straight from the Republican Party of Texas.
“It just highlights how nervous and frightened the current leadership is,” said Bolton’s campaign manager Elizabeth Hartman (we would have asked the Keel campaign about this, but since they are officially blackballing the Chronicle, that seemed like a waste of a phone call). “They can see the writing on the wall and they’re doing anything they can to support the speaker and his agenda.”
While some of the donors just scream ‘party orthodoxy’ (“If you take money from James Leininger, you’re for vouchers,” said Hartman, who said that the $10,000 from the San Antonio hospital bed tycoon and single issue donor belies any claim that Keel is pro-public education), one contribution stuck out like a bad memory. $7,500 from Clayton W. Williams Jr. of Midland, TX. Yes, Claytie “rape jokes” Williams is backing Keel, which would almost be funny if the Republican hit machine hadn’t been trying to smear Bolton as soft on sex offenders. “I saw that and thought, if that’s not hypocrisy, then what is,” said Hartman, “Taking $7,500 from the man who said, ‘just lay back and enjoy it.'”
This article appears in October 24 • 2008.
