Given His Chance, Noriega Trash-Talks His Home State
Apologizes for Texas to National Democratic Audience in Denver
Press Release
August 28, 2008
State Rep. Rick Noriega takes a different approach. Before an audience of liberal fat-cat potential donors in Denver yesterday, Noriega used his moment in the spotlight to run down Texas and virtually apologize for representing the Lone Star State.
"Being a Texan today, Mr. Noriega said, means always having to say you're sorry," reported the Dallas Morning News. "'I immediately feel compelled to just apologize to all of you,' Mr. Noriega told high-rollers who flock to the elegant Brown Palace Hotel to hear pleas for donations from about a dozen Democratic senatorial hopefuls."
The state representative, unable to generate serious backing from Texans, sought to cajole contributions from wealthy West Coast and Northeast liberals by appealing to their anti-Texas bias. Openly pandering and groveling at the same time, Noriega asserted that Texans "have all been incredibly embarrassed" by their representatives in Washington, including President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Will these liberal out-of-state fat cats bail out the struggling Noriega campaign? Hard to say, but it was clear even Sen. Chuck Schumer, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, had his doubts. Seeking to protect his credibility during introductions, Schumer stopped well short of predicting a Noriega win. "We can turn it (Texas) from a deeply red state to a state where we have real chances to pick up later congressional seats and statewide offices that Democrats rarely win these days," Schumer said, picking his words carefully.
No prognostication of a Noriega win there. And he referred to State Rep. Noriega as "State Senator Rick Noriega of Texas" not once, but twice.
Noriega's campaigning in Denver produced other revealing moments. According to one paper, Noriega "suddenly flinched" when he noticed a video crew was taping him while talking to reporters. This crew was hired by Noriega's own campaign - but Noriega "said he's grown distrustful of videographers," the newspaper reported. In Texas, Noriega has been repeatedly caught on tape making bizarre comments, such as advocating U.S. drilling for oil in Iraq, and repeatedly flip-flopping on energy production in Alaska. He's later denied it, or suggested his comments were a joke - but the tape showed otherwise. No wonder he flinches when he sees a video camera.
Noriega has also demonstrated the undisciplined speaking style that has caused him serious problems to date. At one point, complaining that he was being discredited in Texas, he seemed to refer to himself as a political baby. "They can't allow us to get out of the cradle," he told the Dallas Morning News. In the Houston Chronicle he later inartfully seemed to compare his political adversaries to reptiles. Obamania has created a good year for Democrats, he said, and "we need to kill the snake while we have the hoe in the hand," Noriega declared.
Texas is the fastest-growing, and arguably the most successful state in the U.S. Thousands of people move to Texas every week to raise a family and achieve their dreams. We're expanding so rapidly that Texas will add three, or even four, new Congressional seats after the 2010 census, largely at the expense of the northeast and Midwest. Little wonder that liberals in these high-tax, big-government states are envious or even jealous of Texas.
But running down Texas, its economy, and its accomplishments have inexplicably been a staple of the Noriega campaign to date - particularly before out-of-state audiences. Speaking by telephone in July to a London fundraiser that produced $400 in contributions, Noriega spoke dismissively of his home state, declaring that Texas "is not quite meeting the mark." As he spoke, the state was being named by CNBC as the #1 place to do business in America, generating more than one-third of all private sector jobs in the country, and surpassing New York as the home of the most Fortune 500 corporate headquarters. Texas enjoys near-record low unemployment and economic growth rates significantly higher than the rest of the country.
Noriega's anti-Texas tactic hasn't worked so far in Texas. By trash-talking Texas in Denver, Rep. Noriega apparently is gambling that it will pay off with big national donors.
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Paid for by Texans for Senator John Cornyn, Inc. |
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