There is an exciting contest this year to see who will lead the Texas Democratic Party for the next two years. There are three candidates -- current chairman Boyd Richie, Roy LaVerne Brooks and popular progressive David Van Os (pictured above).
It looks like the real fight will be between Richie and Van Os. Richie has been an OK chairman, but tends to pick the races the state party will support because he says they don't have the funds to fully support all candidates.
On the other hand, Van Os is a big supporter of the "254 county strategy". He doesn't want to cede even the reddest counties to the Republicans. Van Os is a fighter, and can best be summed up by his favorite quote -- Fight'em till Hell freezes over and then fight'em on the ice.
Brooks has been the party's vice-chair, and her supporters say it is time to remove that glass ceiling and elevate her to the leadership. She is a long-time Democratic activist and it's hard to guage her level of support. I imagine this election will require a roll call of the delegations.
--------------------
It looks like Boyd Richie gets to keep his position as party chairman. Richie got 4823.9 votes (63.24%), Van Os got 1520.2 votes (19.93%) and Brooks got 1283.9 votes (16.83%).
DVO is the left wing of the left wing of the Democratic party.
ReplyDeleteHe is way off base and would have been a disaster of a chairman.
Luckily less than 20% of the delegates bought his stupidity.
"Fight'em till Hell freezes over and then fight'em on the ice.
ReplyDeleteNow that's a quote to remember!
Like his strategy, too.
Time to take back Texas!
:)
Van Os is probably my favorite Texas politician. I hope he keeps on fighting.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I'm glad that Boyd won re-election. Boyd really does believe in building the Party across the state, but we can't get there from where we were in one cycle.
I think this contest boils down to Van Os being (understandably) upset about a relative lack of support from the State Party in 2006, a cycle in which the Party targeted its money rather than spreading it around the statewide races.
Obama should not have exerted his influence on the TDP chair election. Very disappointing.
ReplyDelete