It’s really nice of Donna Garner- from WACO, who has never met EITHER candidate running for HD 67 (Jeff Leach and Jon Cole)- to try to pass judgement on our candidates up here based on highly selective reading and video reviews. But, Donna; Collin County has a record of sending great conservatives to Austin, while Waco sends…Doc Anderson?? Donna, it might be good to work on cleaning your own ‘house’ first.
As for her concerns about donations to Jeff Leach from people like Toomey and HillCo, she lists some- gasp- DEMOCRATS- they gave money to. But fails to list others they ALSO donated to… including Ken Paxton. Toomey and HillCo are ‘Access donors’, who tend make donations across the ENTIRE political spectrum to LARGE numbers of representatives, so they are listened to. Their selective criteria is based on who is more likely to WIN, as opposed to a political philosophy.
But she seems unconcerned that Jon Cole received $10,000 from the Texas Medical Association. But TMA is a conservative organization of doctors, right? Hardly; it is primarily run by the academic clinicians who are essentially advocating for accepting Obamacare (as long as the Medicare ‘Doc-fix’ is implemented). Their site laments the loss of ‘family planning services’ money from the state budget (money associated with stripping funds from Planned Parenthood). And they have been critical of Gov. Perry’s rejection of expanded Medicaid and the Insurance exchanges that would signal rolling over and accepting Obamacare. TMA has sent large sums to Jeff Wentworth (the most LIBERAL Republican in the the Capitol), Todd Smith, and Bill Ratliff- all Strauss associates, as well as a LARGE number of Democrats. (but they have ALSO donated- a SMALL amount- to Dan Flynn). They are far less ‘access donors’, being far more selective in who they give money to. They are clearly looking for more direct support of their specific positions.
Donna cannot complain about groups who donated to a small number of Democrats donating to Jeff, while ignoring a group who donated to a LARGE number of Democrats- and has some distinctly LIBERAL positions on some State issues posted right on their web site- donating 5 digits to Jon Cole. One must remain consistent. Between Hillco – Toomy and the TMA, one thing is clear: TMA donates more consistently to more liberal member.s
None of us in NTTP LIKE this money game that is played in Austin. But, until the citizenry either steps up to make such donations themselves, or actually are willing to put in the personal work that allows success of very low-budget campaigns (or find other mufti-millionaires willing to take a $600/month job), it is how it is. We remain comfortable that Jeff Leach- like Ken Paxton- will remain philosophically unchanged by these ‘access donations’. You can count on that we will watch the winner of this one- either way- like a hawk to ensure they vote in support of their conservative constituency.
