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Houston Mayor's race – uppity black man running

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Old promo picture of City of Houston skyline

What the heck is going on with the Houston Chronicle’s editorial board in this years Houston Mayor’s race? It looks like they’ve become an extension of Mayor Annise Parker’s re-election campaign team. And before you dismiss that statement as the ranting of some right-wing nutjob, keep in mind that I supported Parker in her runoff with Gene Locke – she touted that on her website. Plus, I’m not the only one noticing this – check out the takes of two Democratic Party bloggers:

From Marc Campos:

The Chron E-Board spanked Ben Hall again Saturday. I’m thinking the E-Board has their mind made up on who they will endorse in the mayoral contest.

Check out the hit job here.

and

It is just politics. Some supporters of The Mayor held a press conference yesterday to ask Ben Hall to get out of the race because he hasn’t been in H-Town long enough. Ben Hall said he would take it under consideration – NOT REALLY!

Check out the Chron.com report here.

I am surprised the Chron E-Board wasn’t a participant at the press conference.

From Nancy Sims:

However, this year’s Houston Mayor’s race has entered into the “absurd” zone.  The Houston Chronicle on Sunday editorialized that Ben Hall should back-off from his claims about the Mayor and tone down the rhetoric.  It was titled “Guess Who Needs to Stop Attacking?”  Click here to read more.

…

The Mayor’s team keeps talking endlessly about the “negative” campaign that Ben Hall is running.  Most of the public has not been privy to much from Mr. Hall except some biographical, introductory political commercials.  He has been a broken-record calling for a debate.

In fact, the most negative campaign moves have been visibly presented by the Mayor and her attacks on Mr. Hall’s residency and release of his tax returns.  Her campaign has been aggressive in defining Mr. Hall.

Don Hooper picked up on this after the first hit piece on Ben Hall by the Chron E-board:

I woke up on Wednesday morning and read the Houston Chronicle editorial that mockingly suggested debate topics for Ben Hall. After reading the editorial, one would have to believe that Houston’s financial condition is the result of Ben Hall’s previous residency in Piney Point.

…

The City of Houston is in debt because Annise Parker and other elected officials spend more money than the City of Houston receives in revenue. This is a relatively easy concept to understand and anyone who has looked at Houston’s financials would agree, except for the Houston Chronicle. The numbers are now in the billions in debt. Parker has been in Houston leadership for 16 years: an elected city councilmember for six years, city controller for six years, and mayor for four years. So, as a decision maker for 16 years, Parker has approved 16 city budgets – all included deficit spending.

The Chron’s E-board even undermines the work of their own reporters. Mike Morris did a nice job in this report of outlining the raises that Parker gave her inner circle at the same time she laid off 747 city workers. But the E-board came back two days later saying it was no big deal and attacked Hall for bringing it up.

After reading Morris’ blog post about Parker’s press conference yesterday, then one in which her “diverse” group of supporters called for Hall to step aside and let Parker get about the business of running the city, I’m starting to think that the real problem here is that some uppity black man dared to challenged a lesbian mayor. That’s a no-no for the “diversity” crowd. Former council member Bert Keller’s remarks were quite interesting:

“Business issues and financial issues are the problem that face the city of Houston. As a former councilman, I can also tell you that it’s complicated. I would ask Mr. Hall if he really knows what he doesn’t know,” said Keller. “I think he does not have the acumen to address the problems that are important to the C Club to west Houston, to Republicans and to our tax base.”

See, that uppity black man doesn’t have the “acumen” to run the city. Nevermind that Ben Hall graduated with honors from South Carolina University. Nevermind that Ben Hall has a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Duke University. Nevermind that Ben Hall has a law degree from Harvard University. Nevermind that Ben Hall was one of the most successful city attorneys that Houston has had. Nevermind that Ben Hall is an ultra-successful trial attorney.

Nope, none of that matters because a former city councilman says Ben Hall doesn’t have the “acumen” to run the city.

I’m beginning to understand what is happening here.

Comments

  3. Richard Morant says

    Seems to me that the City of Houston has been taken over for years now by an 'inside' group… many of whom seem to be intrenched in Gay Rights Politics too… The guy looks reasonable to me at this point. I bet he'll be hands down better then: Lee Brown and Obama ( even though he is of the same race… were they uppity too?) To me after years of racial politics, and the projections of Hollywood 'et al' showing us people of color Their portrayals, teaching us that inside these people are, in fact, people of quality, character and intelligence. Has left me waiting, wanting and yearning for someone to come along and show us the same qualities. I
    shudder at the spectre of the Jacksons, Sharptons, Conyers ( and crazy wife) and our own Queen Sheila, who seem to represent the dregs of the group of people of color. Now we get the chance to, at least, have the remote possibility of a man , much like it seems , the Hollywood portrayal of that group; and he's called Uppity.
    Bloody disgusting!

  4. Bert Keller says

    the ability to make good judgments and quick decisions, typically in a particular domain.

    "business acumen".. Mr Hall is well educated; please don't judge me nor insult me as a racist. I thought I knew you better than that. I guess if I disagree with you then, ahhh I must be a racist. sounding like a true democrat? Listen, our financial problems are a result of lee brown, who by the way is big time with ben hall. the firefighters pension who by the way is w ben hall and mayor brown allowing 2 hometown senators to give pension powers away to the state legislature. if yall don't know this than you have no acumen as well. quite spraying banter and get your facts straight.40{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the general fund goes to pensions and debt and it is growing faster than our revenue. ben thinks he can solve this, he tells the west side one thing and the 3rd ward another. you guys are uninformed and gullable. Not to mention she is the most honest mayor we have ever had. by the way I supported gene last time for all the same gullable rhetoric you guys espouse.

  5. Bert Keller says

    david shame on you. yuo owe me an apology! I guess since I supported gene locke last time then I'm a homophobe. disappointing to say the least. looking forward to seeing you in person soon.

  6. Karen Bazemore says

    The ONLY use of the word "uppity" was from your guy David Jennings who, apparently is "bigjollypolitics.com." No Democrat or supporter of the Mayor said that. The financial condition of ALL cities is due, in great part, to the deregulation of the banking and investment industries. With no one watching them, the ratings agencies ALL rated subprime mortgage derivatives as AAA, which is the required rating for investments by Pension Funds, municipal, state, corporate and federal. So they sold their worthless paper to Pension Funds, which lost billions because of this fraud that NOBODY has been held criminally liable for. Your side needs to do a lot more research before you assign blame. Google it and you will see.

  11. Karen Bazemore says

    Well Yvonne, be my guest! Prosecute John Corzine. Problem is when "your side" deregulated the financial industry and got rid of Brooksley Born, head of the SEC under Bush, who predicted all this would happen, it was deregulated for Democratic crooks as well as Reoublican crooks. There just happened to be more Republican crooks.