Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa spoke out against two of his party’s statewide candidates and apparently endorsed a third. Hinojosa publicly attacked U.S. Senate Candidate Kesha Rogers and Agriculture Commissioner hopeful Kinky Freidman while allegedly throwing his support behind Hugh Fitzsimmons.
According to Austin press, Hinojosa made the claim that senate candidate “Kesha Rogers is not a Democrat.” Rogers secured the Democratic nomination for the Congressional District 22 race in both 2010 and 2012. The Statesman article claims Rogers is associated with “political extremist and conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche.” Rogers has, in fact, appeared in a video uploaded to the LaRouche PAC YouTube account.
Hinojosa went a step further and called Rogers’ candidacy an insult. He noted Rogers “paraded around Texas with a poster of the president with a Hitler mustache” and “advocated for colonizing Mars.”
In a separate article, the Dallas Morning News (DMN) reported that the Texas Democratic chairman seemed to be making an endorsement in the Agriculture Commissioner race by encouraging voters to support Hugh Fitzsimmons over the other candidates in the race, including humorist and 2006 gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman.
In an email message sent out by Chairman Hinojosa titled “No Laughing Matter,” he advised Texas Democrat voters not to overlook the Agriculture race. The message then allows State Senator Leticia Van De Putte (D-San Antonio) who is running for the nomination for Lt. Governor to endorse Fitzsimmons as “the serious and thoughtful leader.”
A campaign spokesperson for Kinky Friedman, Rania Batrice, responded stating that some in the political establishment are pushing back against Friedman because of his push for marijuana legalization. Friedman ran for Texas Governor as an independent in 2006 and then failed again in his run for the Democrat nomination for Agriculture Commissioner four years ago.
“I’m disappointed but not overly surprised because Kinky doesn’t fit into a nice neat little box, and that’s what they tend to like over there,” Batrice said, referring to the Texas Democratic Party.
The DMN noted the unusual nature of a state party getting involved in contested races the party is overseeing in the primary election. Democratic Party spokesman Emmanuel Garcia said neither the party nor the chairman endorses candidates in the primary.
Republican Party Chairman, Steve Munisteri, said in a conversation with Breitbart Texas, that Republicans have a very strict policy about not endorsing or even commenting on candidates in contested races. He appears to hold to this no matter how controversial the candidate might be.
The 2014 Texas Primary Election will be held on Tuesday, March 4.
Follow Bob Price on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX
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