Democrats have a couple of interesting primary races this year, not least of which is the rematch between Former Congressman Ciro Rodriguez and current U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar.
Cuellar managed to boot Rodriguez out of his seat last time around thanks largely to Republican redistricting that took away familar San Antonio territory in exchange for a big chunk of Laredo. So the Laredo-based Cuellar was able to best the San Antonio-based Rodriguez in a race that came down to geographics. This time the race will be based on ideology and it will be interesting to see how many Laredo Democrats will stick by their man after he has practically shed his Democratic ties and donned a Republican cloak.
Recently, Ciro has become a regular celebrity over at Eschaton ever since President Bush gave Cuellar that curious face massage just before his SOTU speech. It has helped raise Ciro’s profile and contributed significantly to his campaign coffers.
There is good reason why Cuellar is Bush’s favorite “Democrat” as the folks at Burnt Orange Report detail.
Another interesting race here locally is state Sen. Frank Madla’s hotly contested re-election campaign against State Rep. Carlos Uresti. Like Cuellar, Madla is accused of being a DINO (Democrat in name only) who too often casts his lot with the Republicans. He has been especially hit hard on a vote to reduce funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program or CHIP.
The E-N had a story this morning that is apparently not online in which they note that Ciro is getting a lot of support from trial lawyers while Madla is getting lots of financial support from the traditionally Republican tort-reform groups. As I was driving in to work today I thought it was interesting that I would see clusters of Madla signs grouped together with Cuellar signs. How much you want to bet they are being put out by Republicans?
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