Friday, November 9, 2012

RPT Victory Chair Ed Emmett Goes on Obama-Style Apology Tour and Under-Cuts Texas GOP Before the Election!

The following article is from Bob Price and was posted on Texas GOP Vote:


RPT Victory Chair Ed Emmett Goes on Obama-Style Apology Tour - Before the Election!



Ed Emmett - Political Treason?Did Harris County Judge and Republican Party of Texas Victory 2012 Chairman Ed Emmett committ political treason last week with his Obama-style apology tour. The "tour" began when an email sent on behalf of Emmett and his picture appeared on Houston's Fox 26 to apologize for a mailer that was sent out supporting Harris County Republican candidates and criticizing two Democrat elected officials and one candidate. The apology email was sent to the Harris County Democrat Party Chairman which, I understand, was forwarded to Democrat precinct chairmen across the county.
 Also copied on the letter were Democrat Sheriff Adrian Garcia, Democrat County Attorney Vince Ryan and Democrat District Attorney candidate Lloyd Oliver.

According to Fox 26, the mailer was approved by Republican Party of Texas Executive Director, Beth Cubriel before the mailer went out. Judge Emmett said he had not seen the mailer nor approved it prior to it being mailed and that this was the only mailer of this type from Victory 2012 that was sent out without his direct review and approval.

Harris County GOP Chairman Jared Woodfill and District Attorney Candidate had to spend valuable pre-election campaign time responding to media wanting clarification about the mailer.

District Attorney-Elect Mike Anderson, in a statement released last Friday, before the election, said,"I am unsure what Chairman Emmett’s motivations were in issuing this statement yesterday. I find the whole matter to be distracting to my campaign and to the campaigns of my fellow Republican candidates.

The mailer, mailed the week before the election to 90,000 swing voters, cost the candidates nearly $50,000 to prepare and send out. That investment was all but wasted after Emmett discredited the piece. It featured Democrat Judge Kevin Fine, Democrat County Attorney Vince Ryan and Democrat District Attorney Candidate Lloyd Oliver. It claims that Judge Fine "harshly questions rape victim... after her attacker was found not guilty." On County Attorney Ryan, it repeats KRTK 13's claim that Ryan "refuses to investigate corruption" of a fellow Democrat official. And finally, the mailer highlights Democrat DA candidate Oliver's well publicized statement that victims of domestic violence "just need boxing lessons".
Republican Mailer - Page 1
The mailer also contains statements from four county-wide Republican candidates. Emmett said on television and in his letter, "In some instances it [the mailer] is misleading and in others it is simply false." In what I have been told were very heated discussions with the County Republican Party, Emmett was asked to specify exactly what was misleading or "simply false". Emmett refused to answer. That they are misleading or false is simply not the case, and I will detail that later in this article.

In a conversation today with Judge Emmett, he told me the statement he felt was false was candidate Robert Talton's statement that County Attorney Vince Ryan was under actual investigation. Ryan has been investigated numerous times by Channel 13 and the Houston Chronicle. Emmett himself has been quoted in these investigative articles. Emmett said he felt the statement implied a legal or criminal investigation.
Republican Mailer - Page 2
Emmett volunteered to be the Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas Victory 2012 Campaign. As such he took on the responsibility of trying to elect every single Republican candidate in the state of Texas. That does not mean he is responsible for their success, but rather, he is responsible for making sure he does everything he can for a straight party victory. Despite that, candidates in Harris County have told me that Emmett refused to make endorsements of many local candidates. It is widely known that he did not want at least two of our county-wide candidates to win.

Sources inside the Harris County Republican Party told me that Emmett also refused to participate in automated calls pushing a straight Republican ticket vote. And, in the last week of the election, he took what should have been an internal disagreement over strategy and made it public to the detriment of many of our local candidates. I understand that Emmett might not support straight party voting. After all, he needs Democrat votes to win. But if he feels that way, he should not have accepted the position of Victory 2012 Chair.

Ed Emmett knows Harris County is a 50-50, dark purple county. Yesterday at the Houston Realty Business Coalition breakfast he said so. He went on to criticize fiscal conservatives stating that if current day conservatives had been in power in Houston's early days there would never have been a Houston Ship Channel.
Ed Emmett Email
Ed Emmett's Letter (Click Here to Read)
Emmett knows that every vote counts. And, he also knows that for him to win his re-election in Harris County, he needs Democrat cross-over votes (of which he had many in 2010). Does that account for his actions last week? I will leave that for you to decide but let's take a look at what happened in Harris County before and after his letter.

In looking at our judicial races, every single Republican judicial candidate won the majority of the votes that were cast before the election (combination of mail-in and early votes), as did County Attorney candidate Robert Talton and District Attorney Candidate Mike Anderson. In some cases the lead was very slim.
Traditionally, Republicans out-vote the Democrats on Election Day. Typically, any Republican candidate who was ahead or even slightly behind, on the early vote, would win the election day vote. After Emmett's letter, that would not be the case.

No one from the Democrat party complained about the mailer. Much like President Obama, Emmett apparently took it upon himself to go on out and apologize for Republicans sending out this email giving the Democrats a powerful get out the vote election day tool. They had this tool all weekend and Monday to fire up their precinct chairmen to get out their vote. And, as Emmett also explained in his HRBC speech, he knows the Democrats have over 400,000 identified Democrat voters to go to and turn out as compared to about 170,000 identified Republican voters. He knows they have the tools to use something like his gift.
I have traveled all over this county watching our local candidates put their time, effort and money into winning this election. The mailer cost the featured candidates somewhere close to $100,000 to prepare and send out. This election was not about win-lose check boxes on a board. It is about people's lives and their futures. For Emmett to play with their lives for his own political future is unforgivable.

The sacrifice these candidates make to become public servants is amazing. And this year, in particular, it was extremely expensive in both time, money and emotional wear and tear because of the Democrat induced extended primary season. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were invested by these candidates. This doesn't count the time away from their jobs and the associated lost revenue from that. Nor does it take into account the time these candidates spent away from their families during the campaign. Why would Emmett treat them so cavalierly?

Our judicial candidates who lost, lost by the slimmest of margins. And our Republican candidates who won also won by very slim margins. Many times these margins were way less than one percent of the total vote. Just look at the very important Tax Assessor-Collector race where Mike Sullivan won by less than 2500 votes (0.22%.) Every possible vote counted and Ed Emmett may have well caused many of them to go the other way.

It begs the question, why would Emmett take this very public action knowing the potential consequences. The answer is very clear. It was for his personal self-interest. He needs Democrat votes to win his re-election in 2014. But one must ask if Emmett's political career will survive to get to that general election. Will a strong Republican candidate challenge him in the 2014 Primary? We shall see.
Local Democrats
Let's look at the merit of Emmett's attack on the mailer. There is certainly no question about the accuracy of the charge made against Judge Fine. The Houston Chronicle reported, “I felt interrogated. I felt like he was attacking me,” said the victim, a second-year college student at a local university who was 18 at the time of the crime. “The way he talked to me, he made it harder for me. He made it seem like he was on their side the whole time, like I was a liar.” This statement in the mailer is neither misleading or "simply false" as Emmett said in his letter.

Lloyd OliverOn District Attorney Lloyd Oliver, the mailer claims he said domestic violence victims need boxing lessons, this also is well documented. As I reported in an earlier article, he said this and worse. He actually equated domestic violence to sexual foreplay. The Houston Chronicle also reported on these statements. This statement in the mailer is also neither misleading or "simply false" as Emmett said in his letter.

And finally, on County Attorney Vince Ryan's refusal to investigate Democrat officials and Robert Talton's comment that Ryan is being investigated, these allegations are also well documented in my article on Ryan detailing multiple investigations by the Houston Chronicle and KTRK-13 Undercover’s Wayne Dolcefino. The articles referenced in my post quote Emmett many times being critical of Ryan's lack of transparency. These statements in the mailer are also neither misleading or "simply false" as Emmett said in his letter.

There are real consequences to these elections. Mike Sullivan will be in charge of voter registration and will do a good and honest job in that department. But when the Democrats sue him, as they will, instead of being defended by Republican conservative County Attorney Robert Talton, they will be defended by the Democrat Party hack, County Attorney Vince Ryan who has repeatedly proven he cannot be and unbiased public servant. Thank you very much, Judge Emmett.

Our candidates don't "deserve to win" because of their time, effort and money they put into these races. They must win the battle of ideas and win the votes of the people. But what they do deserve is for Republican elected officials, especially one that has chosen to be the head of the Party's Victory Fund to not work against their campaigns and that is exactly what Emmett has done in this case.

Emmett's actions did not go without notice. During the Victory 2012 election watch party, at a point when all the candidates were still winning and Ted Cruz was waiting to come on stage to accept his victory, Emmett was booed by the crowd when he was introduced. It wasn't loudly, but it was certainly noticeable.
State Senator Dan Patrick and former Harris County Tax Assessor/Collector Paul Bettencourt bravely stepped forward this week to explain on the radio about everything Emmet did and didn't do in this race. It takes a lot of political courage for someone in their position to take on a sitting County Judge. Emmett attacked Patrick, telling me that Dan Patrick, "never set foot in a single call center. Not a single one."
To be clear, Judge Emmett and Victory 2012 did a great job helping candidates across the state of Texas. Emmett said they raised over $2,000,000 for candidates across the state. Emmett said, "Nobody did more than I did," in regards to setting up and operating statewide phone banks. Over a million calls were made by the phone banks including over 800,000 by volunteers. As an example, State Rep. J.M Lozano benefited directly from these phone calls winning an election many thought he would not. But all that said, the timing of Emmett's rebuttle of the mailer had to have hurt many of these very close races in Harris County.

Has Ed Emmett committed political treason? I guess that will be up to the voters of the next Republican Primary to decide.

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