Madla vs. Uresti

I’m being deluged with political campaign mailings and phone calls this past week. It seems I’m in the crosshairs of this Democratic primary skuffle between incumbent state Sen. Frank Madla and state Rep. Carlos Uresti.
I got two mailings just the other day, one from each side. The Madla piece, like his previous mailers, features a pouty-faced little girl on the front cover who is apparently upset by the prospect of having bad old Mr. Uresti representing her in the Senate. On the inside page , the same girl is in Mr. Madla’s arms with a big grin on her face. This is obviously the positive mailer for Madla as compared to his last one which accused Uresti of single-handedly handing the keys to the state Capitol to the Republicans.
In this flyer, Madla makes the one argument that works best for him - contrasting his years of experience in the Legislature with Uresti’s.
“This is no time to elect a rookie to the Texas Senate,” the flyer declares.

From the Uresti campaign I got one of his negative mailers that goes after Madla for his now infamous statement that “when I get to the State Capitol, I lock the Democratic Party in my trunk.” (I got one of his positive mailers last week which played up his biographical information and touted his military service.)
You can see a video clip of Madla making the statement over at Red State and also at Burnt Orange Report.
The trunk video is plaguing Madla in the same way that the picture of Henry Cuellar being embraced by President Bush is dragging down his campaign.
And Uresti continues to pound Madla for the one vote that has probably caused him the most grief - a procedural vote in which he did not block a Republican proposal to make harsh cutbacks in CHIP funding from going to the full Senate. Madla voted against the measure on the Senate floor, but by that time it was too late. It was that one vote that angered many Democrats and encouraged Uresti to launch his primary challenge in the first place.

For the record, I’m firmly in the Uresti camp. I will probably be voting later this week while early voting is still going on. One of the things that has driven me into the Uresti camp is that on my drive to and from work I keep seeing Madla campaign signs grouped with Henry Cuellar signs at places that are notorious for being big backers of Republican candidates, such as the San Antonio Board of Realtors. I wish that I could vote against Cuellar too, but unfortunately I am in Henry Bonilla’s district where there are no Democrats challenging him this year (at least none who have made enough noise for me to notice). So in that race I have committed to supporting the Libertarian candidate Cecil Lamb, who is a good guy even though I disagree with most of his stated positions.