KCOH on District 146

Who needs the internet when you've got the instant feedback of people walking into the campaign HQ telling you that KCOH is talking about our campaign here in District 146?

Not sure what percentage of talk I ended up getting via the online feed, but it sure was an entertaining sampling of thought in the district. Clearly, Borris Miles is making an early mark on the race as his filing for candidacy seemed to be all it took to get the tongues wagging on Michael Harris' show.

Throughout the portion of the show I picked up, the talk centered on whether or not competition was good for the district. And, true to form, Al Edwards defenders hit their phones hard. Difficult premise to defend, actually ... that competition might be a bad thing ... that Al Edwards is above being challenged for his latest, most embarrassing session in the Lege.

One lady, who sounded like the biggest of Al Edwards supporters out there, claimed within a one minute span that a challenge was "a waste of time" before reversing herself to a "no, not really" answer as to whether a challenge was a bad thing. Clearly, Team Edwards does not feel the need to be weighed down by internal consistency.

One of the better calls that came in was a guy that said competition is a good thing if it means the community is better served as a result. Amen, I say. And that's not a bad summation of Borris Miles' reason for running. The district has been ignored while Al Edwards was out saying he would serve as long as Strom Thurmond (a comparison that didn't fly over too well since it was made on the anniversary of a certain event involving Rosa Parks and a Birmingham bus), building a little feifdom rather than helping Houstonians build better neighborhoods through the tools that a State Rep can help with. The man went through a pretty fair list of things that ought to and should be addressed in the district (everything from a trash dump, to cheap hotels, to prostitution, to crime, and several points surrounding).

Outside of that, most others seemed to indicate that a little competition never hurt anyone. Worth noting, however, was that there was little reference to Al Bennett - the other guy in the race. Nary a bad word about the other Al that I'll offer. He's a good enough guy, but this isn't his race. Borris Miles is the real deal: a success story out of Third Ward that's got a track record of work in his community ... and it's good to know that someone over at KCOH seems to get that as well.

ADD-ON: Oh, nearly forgot one of the funnier moments of the show. Back to that lady calling to defend Al Edwards. She mentioned two things that Al Edwards had done with great effect in the district. One was getting $63,000 bucks for the OST Corridor over a two year period. Guess we shoulda known the pickings were slim for accomplishments when a $63,000 bit of bacon for home was all he could hang his hat on, but the really funny thing was that this was for the OST Corridor and the only reason that funding came through was because it went to a TIRR District that Al Edwards has been fighting in his district because he doesn't like how it overlaps districts with Garnet Coleman. So I guess you could say he was opposed to the TIRR tax district before he was for it?

Other note was the lady's telling us all how HB164 had just magically cleaned up Third Ward of crime and drugs. HB164, of course, passed with near unanimity and had bipartisan support. But all that pales by comparison to the seemingly immediate effect it allegedly had. See, the bill was signed into law back in May 2005. Guess all it took was one act of the Lege to do away with drugs and crime in Third Ward, huh? That, or Team Edwards needs to work on their talking points some more.