Polland on Election & Joan Huffman for SD-17

It's time to end GOP infighting - the barbarians (er, Democrats) are at the gates.

Gary Polland gets a dour assessment of the trends. In 2006, we lost Dallas county, and in 2008, Harris has flipped:

The last time Democrats won in Harris County and Dallas County (Texas' two largest) was in 1964 when LBJ smashed Barry Goldwater and now it has happened again.

But the defeat suffered this year is far more extensive and devastating. The GOP is now on the ropes in two key Texas counties and the state is essentially one bad cycle away from Democratic ascendancy and control.
... Taking the story locally to Harris County, the GOP had advance knowledge the Democrats would be aggressive this cycle. They will have spent approximately $2.5 million for joint judicial/individual judicial campaigns and there had been talk of significant independent expenditures. Despite these efforts the GOP tanked, losing almost every countywide race except three stars: Emmett, Bettencourt, and Lykos and four judges with opponents with bad names in a historic defeat. One bit of good news is the GOP winning 5 out of 6 races on the 1st & 14th Courts of Appeals, which was due to Republican strength in other counties, which offset the deficit in Harris County.

The Harris County GOP under Chairman Jared Woodfill failed because it had the wrong message or no message. It failed because it tried to sell a discredited brand, it had no war room to counter the media and Democratic echo chambers about real or imagined GOP scandals and it failed to tell the rest of the story about the success of Harris County government under GOP rule (yes, there was a story to be told).

Then Polland lets loose on the ugly cabal of Janek, Blakemore and Furse who "ran the worst GOP campaign":

Watching the first round with a campaign of lies, half-truths, and mud thrown on the GOP's best hope to hold SD 17, Judge Joan Huffman, TCR was truly astounded at the depths the cabal of Blakemore, Janek and Furse have gone. $300,000 of Kyle Janek's campaign funds were given to (Best of Texas PAC) Allen Blakemore for the sole purpose of character assassination to, in the end, elect Chris Bell? TCR is sorry Austen Furse let Blakemore and Janek run his reputation into the ground with the worst GOP campaign TCR can remember, and by the way, he finished a poor fourth. The extent of prevarications by the cabal is breathtaking, where do we start?

Janek delays his resignation until June which puts SD 17 at risk, because he did not have "a candidate" for special May elections.

The first lies about Huffman on the web and in the mail about vacation time off is discovered and Furse apologizes, as does Blakemore. At the same time they were apologizing, the next set of lies about Huffman were already in the mail, that took chutzpah, don't you think?

Janek, when confronted with the mud, claims he knew nothing about how his $300,000 was being spent and had not seen the lies. TCR does not know what is more pathetic, not knowing how your money is spent or lying about it.

Janek says Allen Blakemore does not attack Republicans. This is the biggest lie of all. See article herein.

Things got so bad that Texans for Lawsuit Reform, who had been neutral, endorsed Huffman, saying "Huffman's reputation for courage and public service are helping her stand up to a series of brutal and inaccurate attacks by one of her Republican opponents (Furse). These attacks are so outrageous that her opponent even apologized for them, yet they still continue," reads the TLR release. "TLR is adding its voice to the many others who condemn the attacks and support Joan Huffman."

He ends: "Despite all she had to deal with, Huffman is in the runoff, though behind Chris Bell. Observers wonder whether the GOP can unify and get the vote out in December?"

It boggles my mind that we are plagued by infighting at a time when the Democrats are poised to takeover. We need to focus on beating more Democrats and doing less beating of fellow Republicans.