Pete Sessions is running for re-election in US House District 32. He is the GOP candidate and faces Democrat Grier Raggio and Libertarian John Jay Myers in November's general election.
After the jump, why the candidate no one likes will win anyway.
Pete Sessions will win because few people are paying close attention. How else could the man in that photo above be coasting to victory on a family-values platform in one of the most conservative areas of the country? If that photo doesn't convince you that the electorate isn't paying attention, then consider this exchange in the comments for a FrontBurner blog item by Wick Allison about Pete Sessions' appearance on Meet the Press. Allison calls Sessions' performance "painful to watch." Now, Wick Allison is not just some Internet blowhard. He's founder and owner of D Magazine and former publisher of William F. Buckley's National Review, so he's someone who ought to be in the know. Let's listen in as he discusses Pete Sessions with a reader.
# John Jay Myers @ July 19th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Do not let it be said that you don’t have an option.
Pete has proven time and time again that he isn’t fiscally conservative.
I went to a town hall of his where he pulled out a white board and started asking people what they thought he should do. He wouldn’t commment much, he would just say “good idea” then right it up on the board.
The guy has been in office for 14 years and he is just now asking people what they think?
What’s funnier is it really boils down to a few things:
End corporatism.
End the wars and let’s stop paying to be the worlds police,we can not afford it.
End entitlements over time. If the states want to take up the slack let them, but let them pay their own bill.
Problems solved.... what’s for dinner?
# Wick Allison @ July 19th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
@ John Jay and Neal: Would one of you please, please, please run against him in two years? You both made more sense in a paragraph than he has in 14 years.
# John Jay Myers @ July 19th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Wick.... I am running against him now.
Pete Sessions can not win this next election. It is a slap in the face to everyone who claims to be fiscally conservative.
Supporting the troops is not giving your former assistant a $1.6 million dollar military contract. (When your former assistant doesn’t know anything about the military)
Ponzi schemes, bail outs, endless wars, big oil, strip clubs (actually I don’t care about the strip clubs) but the list goes on and on.
You know I can’t run as a Republican, because I don’t want to tell people how to live their lives, I can’t run as a Democrat because I have taken economics.
So yes... I am running as a Libertarian, and I could use some support.
It is me against two big government bookends. There is no such thing as a wasted vote in this race.
# Wick Allison @ July 20th, 2010 at 12:09 am
@ John Jay: Let me do what you failed to do. Folks, allow me to introduce John Jay. Here’s his website: http://www.johnjaymyers.com/ Send money!
Now, if even Wick Allison is not paying enough attention to the District 32 race to recognize one of the candidates when he comments on Allison's own blog, you can bet the average voter in District 32 is not paying any attention at all. That's why Pete Sessions is coasting to re-election, even though few seem particularly fond of him and many are downright hostile to him, even among Republicans.
That's not to say that if people were paying attention to the Libertarian candidate, John Jay Myers, he'd deserve your vote. He calls Republicans authoritarian and Democrats ignorant. Insulting people whose votes you seek is a poor way to introduce yourself. His prescription for America is a simplistic call to "stop paying" and "let them pay." Too many libertarian arguments, while professing noble principles of liberty and freedom, boil down to this attitude of let-someone-else-do-it. That attitude solved few problems before and it won't work now.
There's a third candidate. Folks, allow me to introduce Grier Raggio. Here's his website: http://raggioforcongress.com. Not that this is going to change the outcome of the election. :-(
John Jay Myers' response to my blog can be read here.
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