Haigler is in the inner circle of the Tina Benkiser regime. She’s a member of the State Republican Committee who always carries Benkiser’s proposals when the committee votes on stuff for the party.

Haigler is also one of the principle actors behind a nasty rumor campaign that’s been smearing Bob Smither for weeks now. A few weeks ago she was claiming that he was a Nick Lampson plant because Lampson cosponsored missing children legislation after Smither’s daughter was abducted and murdered. Last week she told hundreds of Republicans in the district that if they supported Smither they didn’t belong in the Republican Party. She speaks for the inept Benkiser camp – not for the real GOP grassroots.

Neither party cares about what a politician’s views are, they care that they are a member of their club. Once you stop thinking about actual policy or principles (hard for most of us), politics becomes much easier to understand.

Ms. Gibbs is definetely a republican, at least what they have become. They or at least there leadership are no longer for limited gov’t in any manner. They have completely forsaken the Goldwater/Reagan ideas about limited gov’t. Now if we can only get the common republican voter to realize this, than the libertarian party may have a chance of growing rapidly and start winning elections.

Shelly Sekula-Gibbs is horrible. She’s a big RINO – Republican In Name Only. She’s even in favor of smoking bans at Houston restaurants. She’s a Statist Nanny-Stater. An embarrassment to the Republican Party.

Check it out at http://www.mainstreamlibertarian.com

CQ is read by a whole bunch of Beltway Insiders so this is very good news for Smither.

I actually think he has a chance. If you take the rep. voters and break them up. About a third will write in for the republican candidate, a third will pull the one-party lever vote effectively voting for no one, and a third will vote for Mr. Smither. This could get him about 20-25% of the vote there. If you add in another 10-15% for ind., third parties, and even a few democrats you pull up to possibly 30-35% of the vote. Then you take into consideration that the one-party lever voters effectively voted for no one, it raises his percent even a little higher. He could be at 35-40%, dem at roughly the same, and rep at 25% or so.

Whether or not Bob Smither wins this race, in my mind, depends almost entirely on whether or not he can raise the funds for a competitive race.

He’s currently at $10,000 or so. He needs over $300,000 to do well, over $500,000 at least to win.

If the LP can come through with some cash and quick, he’ll appear like a mainstream candidate, despite Sekula-Gibbs, and other groups like Club for Growth and the NRA will back him with major funds.

If this doesn’t happen quick, Smither will still do well, 20 to 30% ranges, but probably won’t win.

So empty your pockets NOW!!! Send Bob a donation at http://www.smither4congress.com

We’ve got libertarian-leaning Kinky Friedman polling at 18% for Governor, Carole Keeten-Strahorn, also polling at 18% for Gov. People are going to be very inclined to pull the lever for 3rd Partys in Texas this year.

That could be a HUGE benefit for Smither.

But I still think Bob has an outside shot of winning. Really, running a write-in candidate, one with a hyphenated name is sheer lunacy. Me bet, Sekula-Gibbs gets less than 10% of the vote.

I live in Ron Paul’s District, which borders Texas CD 22. I can tell you first hand that your mainline Republicans, who are not GOP insiders will not vote write-in. They will most likely vote for Smither.

Keep in mind the word “libertarian” is quite popular in the NASA/Clear Lake to Sugarland, highly entrepreneurial area. This is former Ron Paul territory too!

Regular coverage of the Smither Campaign thru November at http://www.mainstreamlibertarian.com

The best of luck to Mr. Bon Smithers, despite my opposition to the so-called FairTax.

Heck, with Badnarik and Smither running in the same state, at the same time, I would think the Texas LP could use this in future marketing efforts.

It is likely that some Republican voters will pull the party lever without writing in the Hyphenated candidate, and think they voted the whole Republican ticket. This won’t directly help Mr Smithers, but it will hold down the vote for the GOP endorsed candidate. Smithers at least has a chance of coming in second because he is on the ballot, and that should be good for future LP fund-raising letters.

The GOP leadership obviously won’t have us. Too bad for them! Maybe we just might get their voters thinking outside the R/D dichotomy long enough to do something real… it’s not like they have guns at the heads of the people pulling the ballots.

Do real grassroots, *IGNORE* the GOP write-ins (both of ‘em) and see what comes of it.

We should try not to insult the voters, or HofT blogs will be quoted in Republican mailings to them. We shouldn’t worry about the Republican leadership at all. Only voters matter.

Mentioning Ms. Hyphen-Hyphen-Too-Damn-Many-Buttons-To-Push too often, by us, by the local LP leaders, or by Bob Smither, probably isn’t such a good idea. He should refer to the Democrat as “my opponent” (singular) and find a way to tastefully discount the write-in candidates without even mentioning them by name.

Sure, and that’s great… targeting Republican (and Democratic) voters is the only way Smither or any Libertarian can win at this time. However, arguing that a weak Republican candidate should drop out of a race because a strong Libertarian candidate is in it doesn’t jive with the 10,001 other times that the shoe has been on the other foot.

If we are aggressive in getting our message out, I believe Smither has an outside chance in winning this thing.

Remember the chad wars? Even better: video click wars.
Turns out that it’s up to the GOP Country Clerks to decide what qualifies. Under state law, “voter intent” can be considered obvious … even if a voter only clicks “X” in the write-in box (assuming there is only one write-in).
If the Democrats were smart, they’d file 22 other write-in candidates … just to confuse the GOP counters.