The Sounds of Silence
August 31st, 2007 at 9:32 pm
The first day of the Texas Republican presidential straw poll in Fort Worth had the feel of an accountants’ convention. The protesters haven’t shown up yet, and apparently neither have many of the delegates. Party officials say they expect 2,000 voting delegates, and 3,000 attendees altogether (guests of delegates can attend for a reduced price). Maybe that many will show, but the halls of the Fort Worth Convention Center were quiet and mostly deserted this evening.
Talk show host Hugh Hewitt, broadcasting his show live from a ballroom here, had an audience of mostly empty chairs. Roughly 700 guests turned out in their Republican red for tonight’s banquet barbecue dinner. While delegates ate, presidential candidates Duncan Hunter and John Cox worked reporters in the back of the room in hopes of ginning up some positive press attention — scratch that — any press attention.
Hunter, a Republican congressman from California, you may have heard of. He’s made immigration the central issue of his campaign. He helped pass legislation through Congress allowing a border fence. “Everyone here wants that 400-mile border fence that I wrote into the law,” he told reporters at the banquet. “I’ve gotten a good response. The activists are excited.” He dismissed talk that some of the GOP’s harsher immigration proposals are alienating Latinos. “The Hispanics community in the U.S. does not support an open border,” he said.
Immigration is undoubtedly a hot topic among the grassroots activists here, but, contrary to Duncan’s rhetoric, more than a few folks are, um, on the fence about a border fence. Cox is skeptical. “Talk about a boondoggle,” he said of the fence. He supports barriers in major urban areas such as Laredo, El Paso and San Diego, but says that erecting a fence along the enitre border is a colossal waste of money. “I don’t want to spend billions building a wall in a desert.”
You’ve probably never heard of Cox. He has been kept out of the GOP presidential debates so far. He’s a businessman and former congressional candidate from Chicago who’s self-financing his own presidential campaign in 20 states. Cox describes himself as the only “true conservative” in the race. He despises the likes of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, who he says aren’t true conservatives and who the grassroots Republicans are deeply suspicious of. “Election-year conversions are legendary,” he said. Apparently, Cox is also a big Rocky Balboa fan.
The assembled die-hards gave U.S. Sen. John Cornyn a tepid response when he addressed the banquet tonight. In their defense, his speech was supremely dull — full of bland assertions and bereft of specifics. He delivered it like he was giving a tax seminar. He did say that President Bush’s controversial recent comparison of Iraq to Vietnam was “absolutely right…we know unless we get the job done, they will follow us here.” After he said that, the crowd remained silent. In fact, the only true ovation came when he asked the crowd to honor the troops serving in Iraq.
The presidential candidates will get their chance to fire up the troops tomorrow morning.
September 1st, 2007 at 1:55 am
The silence is deafening as this article completely fails to mention Ron Paul in his home state, who has a massive presence at the Texas straw poll. How did you miss it?
September 1st, 2007 at 2:21 pm
John Cox is kind of a joke. With only $13,000 raised since announcing in Feb. 2006, why do we care what he thinks?
He’s simply not caught fire at the grassroots. Nor have many of the actual REAL candidates, like Hunter, but at least he has shown he can win elections to Congress. Cox has never won an election.
I agree that Ron Paul should be featured here. But if he doesn’t win BIG (70%) in this poll, there’s something wrong.
September 3rd, 2007 at 2:20 am
So Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) was, in fact, in attendance at this event? This might explain his solid victory. Congratulations to the Congressman for this accomplishment!
As for our state’s very own John Cox, I was surprised, but glad, to see that he was included in the big Iowa Straw Poll event; we thought that he gave a very good speech. Mr. Cox is a principled and knowledgeable conservative… He is sharp, intelligent, ambitious, and energetic, and was actually the first candidate to formally announce for President of the United States. It is too bad that he does not have more name recognition, and major media coverage.
September 4th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
What ashame you didn’t bother mentioning the only candidate with a real plan to win the War in Iraq, Dr. Hugh Cort, http://www.cortforpresident.com. He’s a counter-terrorism expert which is exactly the kind of president we need in this post 9/11 world.