Ciro Rodriquez has been the democratic congressman of Texas's district 23 since 2007, he previously represented the 28th district from 1997 to 2005, and has been in public office for over 30 years. In 2006 Rodriquez defeated Republican representative David Bonilla, which was the second time a republican incumbent was defeated by a democratic challenger since 1988. I believe that this race will be interesting because of the growing unpopularity of democrats, i would love to see if Ciro will be able to keep his republican competition at bay.
Rodriquez's competition for representative is businessman Fransisco Quico Conseco. When asked about his chances of winning during the primary Canesco claimed that "You can't win this without being Latino, the 23rd is a Hispanic district and it is cut for a Hispanic candidate". It seems that Canesco may have been right because he easily beat his competition for the nomination. However Francisco has one disadvantage that Ciro does not, which is that he has never held any political positions before. Canseco claims that his business knowledge and an "anti-politics" campaign is exactly what will win him over with the people.
In Hernson's first chapter he states that one of the common features about congressional elections is a tendency to focus on the individual candidate rather than the their affiliated party. So far judging by Canesco's webpage it seems this may be true. On his homepage are the bolded words "CIRO IS OUT OF CONTROL" and beneath it is a video clip of Ciro being belligerent with an audience member at some kind of press conference. Canesco makes no mention of the democratic party but instead chooses to attack Ciro's character as a candidate proving Hernson right.
It will be interesting to see if Ciro uses these same "candidate focused" tactics in response to Canesco. And also whether Canesco will continue to low blow Ciro through out the race.
This race seems really interesting with all the low-blows and cadidate bashing going on. I almost wonder if one cadidate chooses to talk about the politics more than about why his opponent is horrible, if that will have a positive or negative effect on his campaign.
ReplyDeleteThis seems like a good race to watch, I cant wait to see if they talk more about the politics then trying to dog the other person later on in the race. I like how you inform us on the candidates background and gave us some of their history. This looks like it may be a mud throwing race so it seem very interesting to watch.
ReplyDeleteReading about this race it looks like so many other races going on in the country during this election cycle; an inexperienced Republican hoping to claim a seat that has been Democratic for years. I am very interested to keep up with the race to see if Canesco's tactics are successful in beginning his political career.
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