Monday, October 13, 2014

George Clayton, DINO

George Clayton is the Democratic candidate for Texas House District 102. He is running against Linda Koop, the Republican candidate. I call Clayton the Democratic candidate loosely. Sometimes, people use the term RINO (Republican In Name Only) or DINO (Democrat In Name Only), but that's mostly done when one faction of the party wants to write a person out of the party. In this case, however, George Clayton appears to be trying to write himself out of the Democratic party tent.

After the jump, Clayton's strange response to The Dallas Morning News's endorsement of his opponent, Linda Koop.



The News endorsed Koop in an editorial on September 10, 2014. George Clayton wrote this online comment to the editorial:
Warmest congratulations to Linda Koop upon receiving the endorsement of the Dallas Morning News. Several months ago I responded to an invitation of the Democratic Party to run for the legislature as a democrat. The Dallas County Democratic Party Chairman and several other officials were among those who visited my home for over two hours in an effort to persuade me to run as a candidate of their party. Being a life long Republican this decision was not easy to make. However, I agreed to run as a democrat and was soon off to Austin to meet with another committee of Democratic Party officials who assured me that my candidacy was unique and that I would never lack support, financial and otherwise. That support never developed even though assurances were many. My campaign was to centeralize around education issues. That also never developed. I felt lied to and betrayed. In fact, I was. My brief association with the Democratic Party has been a dark experience. Although I will continue with my campaign schedule, I have to agree with the Dallas Morning News Editorial Board, Linda Koop is on her way to Austin and I congratulate her thereon.

The strangest thing is that this isn't the strangest thing George Clayton has ever done in politics. Read what Clayton has done in past runs for public office by doing a search on coverage of "George Clayton" on this blog. Full disclosure: I even endorsed him for the SBOE in a past election, reluctantly, by a process of elimination (the SBOE is that dysfunctional), but I still found him to be... well, read the archives.

3 comments:

Mark Steger said...

I'm not the only one who finds George Clayton's campaign more than a little strange: "George Clayton's Hilariously Terrible Campaign for the Texas House."

Mark Steger said...

For an account of a candidate forum between Clayton and Koop, read "Texas House District 102: Koop vs Clayton."

mccalpin said...

Not to be cynical (heh), but it looks like the Democratic Party flat out used him. He believed that he would get the Democratic Party's active support, so I am sure that they asked hom to raise some of his own money first. If they got lucky, he would have raised enough money that Linda Koop would have raise even more money herself, which would have the potential of diverting money from other races that the Republicans will have a harder time winning (like the Dallas County DA's race where money may make the difference). Then the Democrats would get the best of both worlds - they don't spend any money, but force the Republican to spend more in multiple races.

All they had to do was lie to Clayton about "supporting" him.

And you wonder why people are cynical about political parties.

I feel a certain sympathy for Mr. Clayton...that he was innocent enough to believe their pitch...that's almost enough to earn him some votes...except that he'd be crucified down in Austin by double dealers on both sides...

Bill