Climbing On Board The Noriega Train

Until now, I haven't had much to say about the upcoming race for US senate in Texas next year. I guess I've been waiting for a candidate to excite me. But I've been watching and listening to how things are shaping up.

It's now starting to look like it's coming down to a choice between Mikal Watts and Rick Noriega. Quite frankly, being a North Texan, I didn't know much about either one and I've never been able to jump on the bandwagon of a candidate I don't know anything about.

Watts is a rich lawyer, willing to finance much of his own campaign. Noriega is an energy company executive and National Guard officer. To someone not familiar with either, it looked to me like both could really turn out to be DINO's, and Texas already has too many of them.

But slowly, my fellow left-wing bloggers began to help me see the light. Blogs that I really respect such as Boadicea, Dos Centavos, South Texas Chisme, Texas Liberal and McBlogger (among others) let it be known that they supported Noriega. This forced me to take a closer look at the man, and the more I found out, the more I began to like and respect him.

Couple this with the fact that the more I find out about Watts, the more I am scared of him. He seems to be the real DINO in the race. He's already let it be known he doesn't support a woman's right to govern her own body. I suspect he probably wouldn't help poor people very much either.

But the thing that shoved me off the fence finally was a post by North Texas Liberal yesterday. He wrote that Noriega would be in Fort Worth to help celebrate Rep. Lon Burnam's birthday. If you've read this blog much, then you know that Burnam is my favorite legislator. He is a true left-winger and not a bit ashamed of it.

If Noriega is willing to come up to North Texas and stand with Burnam, then he's my kind of candidate. You won't see any DINO's giving Burnam a helping hand.

So today, I'm proudly getting aboard the Noriega for Senate train. It is my fervent hope that Rick Noriega can drive that train all the way to Washington, where I have no doubt that he'll make an excellent senator.