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Coleman Shocks Houston: Everyone Misses It

Curious ... why was THIS buried in the Chronicle???
Coleman endorses White

This is huge, folks. Essentially, we see the crack in the Sylvester Turner brigade and also potential signs that support within the African American community may not be as lock step this time around. This is about the best news to come around since the Bob Lanier endorsement (ok, that wasn't so long ago). But still ... it's amazing news.

Sceptics will make two arguments:

  • Coleman is a hired hand and will go where he's hired. Fair point, Coleman is a campaign hack by profession. But he also was onboard with Turner early on ... a sign I took to mean that much of the brigade of Buffalo Soldiers that got Mayor Brown over the finish line last time would be similarly invoked this time around. But Coleman is the #2 Buffalo Soldier in Houston (El Franco Lee being #1 ... and where's he at?). So hired hand or no, Coleman endorsing the more moderate candidate here is still big news.

  • This is the Lee Brown crowd working for yet another establishment candidate. This is a favorite of Orlando Sanchez ... also known as the candidate with pretty much the entire Lee Brown campaign team behind him. Foot, meet mouth. Pot, meet kettle. Weak argument, but I'm sure it'll be enough for people that weren't going to vote for White in the first place.

    Worth noting the article is that Turner does have a slew of high profile endorsements of his own: my own State Rep among them (*shakes head in disbelief*). More impressive on that list is Sue Schechter and David Mincberg. The rest (yes, including Hochberg) have constituencies to try to appease, if not ghetto passes to try to maintain.

    Kuff also points out a few endorsement deals making the rounds, including the Harris County GOP PAC not endorsing Michael Berry in his race. Additionally worth noting is that Berry is in violation of the law when he has "re-elect" on campaign lit. Way to win over the law & order crowd!

    That Kahn and McConn are battling neck and neck among the same crowd is telling. It would be most ironic if a region that went 55-45 for Ron Kirk in 2002 has a December runoff between two GOP candidates. Still, the lessons of Dionne Roberts indicate that a total unknown can make a runoff on race alone in this district, and quite possibly make a race of it in December. If there's no Sly in the runoff, this might not be a huge thing, if he's there with Sanchez, look for Derrick Wesley to be a surprise winner in December. Otherwise, I'm not sure which of the "Two Cons" to pick in the end. I did get a mailer from the John Shike campaign. Lovely pic on there of him with a wife and kid ... no telling if its the same one he wanted to videotape the divorce proceedings of so he could get the marriage voided in Pakistan, though. I dunno, I'm almost hoping he wins just for entertainment value alone!

    • Posted by gregwythe on October 23, 2003 07:25 PM