Saint Olson

Wow. This is quite glowing and also, amusing. A gushing love letter to Pete Olson can be found here, at Campaigns and Elections. You know, I was battling it out right in the heart of TX-22 last election cycle and Olsen was not exactly Mr. Nice Guy. No. Indeed, his mail and TV were quite nasty against Lampson, taking things out of context to paint Lampson as a Nancy Pelosi liberal, which he is not. Olsen's appearance at a candidate forum with Lampson in Clear Lake is still being talked about because of how surly Olsen was. I give him credit for this:

Olson’s emphasis on a grassroots, neighbor-to-neighbor effort propelled Team Olson to knock on more than 150,000 doors during the 2008 cycle, hold more than 100 meet-and-greet events and build a network of supporters across the district. Team Olson took nothing for granted. No precinct was ruled out in the primary because conventional wisdom viewed it as “out of reach.” Indeed, Olson devoted extra time to areas seen as tougher for his candidacy, making personal and repeated contact with voters. Another key element in the strategy was message discipline: Know who you are and stick to your message.

But, Lampson did the same and more. No need to tell a fairy tale to the cute, small children in TX-22 over how this race was won. C&E might have wanted to flesh this out a bit about the fear mongering that went on in 22 over the black, Muslim man running for President. Because that worked against Lampson in a big way.