In 2004, I remember that that we would be able to only keep Lloyd Doggett’s seat after the Delay redistricting. Lloyd is out of Austin, which is a safe seat. However, Chet Edwards put a spoke in Delay’s plans. His opponent was Arlene Wolgemuth, the architect of the plan to kick kids off of CHIP.
Now, Texans kinda have a "pull one's self up by the bootstraps" attitude. However, if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to get a little help if you need it. In 2003, over 150,000 kids were kicked off of S-CHIP due to Ms. Wolgemuth’s efforts. She actually went around bragging about it. This is one of the things that Chet Edwards ran on.
More after the jump.
Chris Bell just wrote an Op-Ed piece about the ad that Chet ran.
It’s called simply "Work" and can be found easily by searching for "Chet Edwards and CHIP." Some believe it’s the main reason Edwards is still a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
It was 2004 and Edwards was fighting for his political life along with five Democratic colleagues from Texas who had all been targeted by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s redistricting plan.
Democrats may get key election chip
Here is the ad:
Chet Edward went on in 2004 with 52% of the vote in 2004 in a heavily republican district. In 2006, Chet won with 58% of the vote. His republican opponent got 40%.
The reason I bring this up is that insurance is a big deal in Texas. Sure you will have some who will argue against an expansion of the CHIP program. However with 1.4 million uninsured kids, this is a big deal. A lot of people who do have insurance are hanging by a thread.
We held a protest against the veto on Galveston island last week. Not one person dissed us. People actually honked and gave thumbs up. People stopped to get phone numbers of people to call. There will be another protest scheduled for this Wednesday on the island. Someone is bringing kids in a van. We had about 40 people at the last one. Our goal is to let as many people as possible about what is happening.
MKC