Well tonight was the Morrison/Delay debate that Delay tried to bow out of. He made various excuses as to why he wouldn't do it. It would only benefit Morrison. There would be no media coverage. There would be more candidates than potential voters. Guess what. Tom Delay showed up!!!
Also, his all excuses were debunked.
More after the jump.
The excuses debunked? There were over 250 people at the debate. Five tv stations were there, including FOX. Pacifica radio was there. And I think that I saw the Houston Chronicle there. The only excuse not debunked was that it would benefit Morrison. He looked pretty good next to Delay. Fjetland the independent, and the other Morrison looked good next to Delay.
Some gems from Delay:
Pollution is not bad in Houston.
We don't need light rail in Houston. We just need to build more highways.
A 23% flat tax would benefit poor people.
There were lots of others. Delay did get laughed at and heckled. He was not thrilled about it. He did stay after to talk to the reporters, then quickly left. Richard stayed on and talked to people.
I did get to watch KHOU news when I got home. It had 3 segments. One with the head of the high school debate team who set up the debate. He stated very clearly that Tom Delay had told them that he was too busy to come to the debate. That Delay was attending fundraisers.
The second segment was Delay stating how wonderful it was that the students had set up this debate. He stated that he had never cancelled out of the debate. The third segment was with Richard. He commented on how hard the students had worked to set up the debate. That they had done a fine job. Richard also said that he was glad that Delay had changed his mind and came to the debate anyway.
One last thing. Prior to the event, we did a Morrison visibility event at the major intersection by the debate site. Over 50% of the cars going by were honking, waving, and giving us the thumbs up. There were a few negative people, but not many. All and all a good night.
I do feel that we have a pretty good chance of unelecting Tom Delay.
MKC