Texas Campaign Diary: A Busy Sunday

Sunday, the Houston Alumni Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority hosted a candidate’s forum in their beautiful community center. They heard from, and grilled state and federal candidates. The audience was extraordinarily well informed, and it was particularly nice to see a huge number of young people.

The moderator, who also writes a column on the economy for the Houston Chronicle was well informed and kept up the pace, from education, to local services, to the economy and loss of jobs, to trade and immigration (and the tremendous impact on our social services), to tax reform and social reform, to the Iraq War.  Judging from the applause, four billion dollars a week for a war of choice is not popular.

We’ve completed our two new commercials, and they are now posted on www.radnofskyvideo.com. The first is “Rail Safety: Sen. Hutchison asleep at the switch” run up to the election, starting Thursday in San Antonio.  The commercial, featuring Fluffy the Puppet, emphasizes my opponent’s ties as a puppet to special interests who seek to avoid federal regulation, while the Welded Rail and Tank Safety Act S 763 remains dormant. Having co-sponsored the legislation, she’s watched it move nowhere.  San Antonio typifies the problem of derailments and the danger to residents, who remember a killer release of chlorine a few years back in sparsely populated region, and a derailment near downtown 2 weeks ago.

Luck held, and the recent derailment involved no chlorine. No one would have had time to escape the deadly release had chlorine been involved in the recent wreck.

The second commercial will play in Houston and Austin starting Thursday and emphasizes Texas’ ranking of 41st in federal funding, as my opponent touts her seniority in bringing dollars to Texas. It follows our post debate commercial emphasizing she’ll resign if elected and her refusal to pledge to stay the course in the Senate, repeatedly and pointedly refusing to pledge she’ll stay 6 years.