Although I am 5 hours away in snowy North Texas, thank goodness a fellow blogateer covered the event (thanks Martha!).
Quan said a lot of great things in his remarks (including some good things about Harris County’s criminal justice system, which I hope Kuff is going to blog on.) But, he had me at this: “Hunker down is not a solution, it’s a slogan.” I loved that!
Anyway. Quan will have a tough race against incumbent Judge Ed Emmett, who is generally well regarded and has his performance during Hurricane Ike as Exhibit A for his re-election. I don’t know what kind of fundraising chops Quan has, but he will need to pile up some dough to get his name and message out there. From what I saw of him at this event, I thought his message was a strong one, his challenge will be to convince enough people to change horses. I think he’s about as good a candidate as the Democratic Party could have hoped for this year, and the crowd at this event was certainly fired up about him. We’ll see how it goes.
We all know how I made Emmett’s ditty a drinking game during Ike. Unlike a few in the “D” column, I am not very impressed with the Judge and I think Gordon Quan is the guy that can unseat him.
I do wonder one thing: Emmett has been a non-Latino-attacking Republican; meaning, he hasn’t used immigration or Latinos as a crutch to lean on during a tough race. Will this be the year we see a change in strategery?
Ay veremos.
