The most direct assaults revolved around the accusation that Brown is attempting to buy the African-American vote, allegations that are expected to ratchet up today as Brown and Locke plan dueling press conferences on the subject this afternoon.
Locke brought up an example published in today's Houston Chronicle in which Brown gave Rev. John Bowie a $150 contribution and later claimed him as a supporter on flyers distributed at his True Light Missionary Baptist Church the next week.
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He (Brown) said he and his wife have long supported churches and their efforts to improve conditions among African-Americans, but it was “not to get any votes.”
“It's an insult to the black community to say they are for sale,” he said. “It's an insult to the clergy leaders in this city to say that they're for sale.”
(Uh oh. Rick Casey has the story about how Brown attended Bowie's church, gave a donation of $150, which is customary - candidates visiting churches almost always make a donation of around $100 to the church - and then listed Bowie as a supporter on a campaign flyer. Big no-no. Particularly with Bowie being co-chair of TMO. Not cool.)
Parker hammered Locke on not saying he would replace the HPD chief or the chair of the Metro Board. Locke has received the endorsement of HPOU and has been the general counsel for Metro, and has received many thousands of dollars in campaign donations from Metro board members. Locke basically replied back with "unbossed and unbought," a la Jew Don Boney.
My admiration for Parker increases when she kicks butt with stuff like the following. She tells it exactly like it is about her opponents' promises that require spending money that is just not there:
“Not being someone of immense personal wealth myself who is trying to buy an election ... I can't just say we're just going to throw money at folks by offering financial assistance,” she said, noting the city's growing fiscal challenges. “We don't have any extra money and we can't blithely say we're going to offer financial assistance to companies that need help.”
I thought of "shooting fish in a barrel" after reading this exchange. Locke's response about catching fish was funny (albeit inaccurate according the Chronicle poll) until he started bringing too many fish species into the conversation:
“Mr. Locke is fishing in the dark,” Brown said.
“Yeah, but I'm catching fish,” Locke replied.
Brown repeated the assertion, after which Locke said he was catching “catfish over here,” perch and even flounder.
“No, that's over here,” Parker said.
This particular fishing contest lasts nine more days, and we'll probably have about five more weeks of fishing after that (runoff). Click here to find out where and when to vote!
2 comments:
All 3 candidates are a joke after the way they've been acting for the past couple of weeks. Particularly Gene Locke.
Anon, I wonder if other city voters feel your pain. (serious question)
I spoke with some politically connected people last night who said they think turnout is low because there have been so few controversies, so folks have no great burning passion to go vote yet for or against something or someone - and that all 3 candidates have been nice and polite with each other.
I believe that is changing. It will be interesting to see if the sword fighting among the top three leads to greater number of voters making up their minds, and finally going out to vote at the end of early voting or on E-Day.
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