Keffer will run again

Republican Bill Keffer, who lost his District 107 seat to Democrat Allen Vaught last fall, is already raising money for another shot at Vaught in 2008. Vaught beat the incumbent Keffer by 3 1/2 points in 2006 in a bit of a surprise, even given the Democratic successes in November.

Keffer certainly has some strengths in District 107, which covers parts of Lake Highlands and East Dallas. He was a two-term incumbent who didn't even have an opponent in 2004. In addition, a Libertarian candidate got three percent of the vote in 2006, which probably hurt Keffer more than Vaught. Plus, Vaught is probably tarred by the foolishness that went on in Austin this year, even if he kept a low profile.

But Vaught has his share of strengths. He is an Iraq war hero, which should cut into Keffer's well-known national security stance. He also has tremendous support from a variety of education groups, who see Keffer as public education's mortal enemy. That support probably was the difference for Vaught in 2006.

Plus, Vaught's brother isn't state Rep. Jim Keffer, a key player in last session's attempt to unseat House speaker Tom Craddick, another Republican. As near as I can tell, the Craddick imbroglio didn't cover anyone with glory, and left voters wondering why the House was doing that instead of doing something useful, like passing electricity rate relief. (Though, to be fair, Bill and Jim often disagree on matters poltical.)

One other point: Keffer was a columnist for our Lake Highlands magazine for a couple of years in the 1990s. How that will affect the race is anyone's guess.

Comments

[Aren Cambre]

Vaught and Dallas County's entire '06 results were a freak of a wave of anti-Bush sentiment driving party line ballots. I will welcome Dallas County's return to the red side of politics in '08, and I will help put Bill Keffer back in his proper place.

[Michael Mosteller]

I voted for Vaught over Keffer in the last election because Bill Keffer never showed me why I should have voted for him at all. Like many idiotic Republican campaigns in 2006, Keffer went on the platform of fear and ignorance that has turned me away from the GOP and made me a newly-independent, former card carrying Republican. Instead of listing his accomplishments while in office, Keffer would rather I be afraid of what "liberal, trial lawyer" Allen Vaught would do to our state with all his lawyer buddies clogging up the courts with frivolous lawsuits. Every ad of Keffer's I got was an attack ad on Vaught. I am so sick of this type of absurd, pathetic campaigning. Every Vaught ad talked about his experiences being a soldier in Iraq and how he wanted to make education a top priority in this state and stop TXU from further clogging up our air with more coal plants that no one wants. Those are issues that I want my state representative working on instead of worrying about mythical evil lawyers rolling back tort reform and making my taxes higher in a Republican state with a Republican governor. Keffer like most of the other Dallas Republicans got exactly what they deserved in 2006. If they want my vote back, they better try to earn it and stop trying to live off the Rush Limbaugh tactics that make politics even more annoying to the apathetic masses.

Aren, care to give me some of Keffer's accomplishments that show why we voters were so wrong to vote him out?

[Michael Davis]

This is interesting.

I worked in a House race in southern Dallas last year in which we took out a 14-year incumbent in our own party. We won, but it's tough for any freshman rep to get something done when you have hardly any pull in the House. I hope Vaught gets another term to spread his wings.

The one thing that concerns me is that Keffer's #1 contributor was the Stars Over Texas PAC which is ran by Tom Craddick's daughter. Did Keffer ever address this?

[Alex]

Dallas is blue, get over it and follow all your white friends to Frisco.

[Jeff Siegel]

Ah, robust political discourse. Gotta love it. But a word from the blogmeister -- this is an Advocate blog, so it needs to be civilized polticial discourse. No name calling, please -- unless you're calling me names, and that's always allowed.

[Aren Cambre]

I was impressed with regular newsletters Keffer sent over email, and I agreed with his positions on issues. He discoursed with me about property tax issues over email with thoughtful responses to my hot-headed opinions (remember all those special sessions?).

Vaught hasn't done much to make himself known (and don't tell me that you can't do much your freshman year--don't forget Jerry Patterson of Houston, now Texas Land Commissioner), so I have to judge him on his viewpoints on issues, which of course will align much more closely with the democrat platform than the better party's platform.

And Jeff is a neenerhead.

[Aren Cambre]

Alex: if Dallas County is blue, why did the bluest large city in the county elect a nominal Republican for mayor?

[Nathan]

Aren,
Leppert repeatedly stated that he not take a law enforcement stance on immigration issues. One of his first decisions in office will be to possibly support the creation of an immigration affairs office, a move that will be in clear contrast to the Farmer's Branch ordinance and one that will increase the size of local government. Tom Leppert, when asked, stated that he would have no problem riding in a local gay pride parade. When asked how to pay for additional police officers, Leppert was unable suggest which current spending to cut in order to pay for the new officers. Should it be that hard for a republican to find unnecessary spending in the city's current budget? I think that the Texas Republican Party needs to get ready for a surge of republicans of the Guliani and Swartzenegger variety.

[Alex]

The city of Dallas voted for Gore and Kerry and as minorities increasingly move away from their traditional strongholds in the city and into the inner-ring suburbs (pretty much exclusively in Dallas County) you can expect to see an increase in the number of Democratic voters in "the suburbs" and in Dallas County as a whole.

You may not have noticed, but many of our new neighbors here in east Dallas are from the blue states. They're the ones who can afford the prices here (and in the park cities for that matter, I couldn’t believe the number of Democratic signs in UP! It’s not Lakewood, but still) and they are increasing the number of, um, white liberals inside LBJ. This makes fundraising and organization easier for lower level politicians like Vaught. The Democrats haven’t been playing ball for 20 years, but the new reality is close, expensive races. Does that mean Republicans will never win again? No, but there aren't many new Republicans moving to the County-- sans Coppell I suppose. Point is the 2006 vote wasn't shaped by low Republican turnout or high Democratic turnout, as its vogue to report, but by slow and significant shifts in the demographics of the county.

Is that more robust political discourse?

And Leppert won because Oakley was sleazy. I voted for Leppert, IJS.

[Jeff Siegel]

Here's what always confuses me when trying to decipher a local race, and this is local (as opposed to a U.S. Senate race). Yes, George Bush's poll numbers are in the tank, but will people vote for Allen Vaught because they didn't like the Scooter Libby commutation?

I don't disagree about the demographic changes; I'm just not sure they're relevant yet. And since I'm the neenerhead who is always raising turnout as an issue, I'd like see some good, hard numbers that address what's going on. It's not enough to say we're seeing a demographic change. Are those people who are part of the change actually voting? In the 2004 presidental election, according to the Census bureau, Hispanic turnout was just two-thirds of white turnout (http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/voting/004986.html).

And, as Alex notes, an election like Leppert-Oakley turns everything on its head again.