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The Texas Blue
Advancing Progressive Ideas

The Congressional Race in CD10 (Part II)

As promised, here is a profile of the two declared Democratic candidates for Congress in CD10, Larry Joe Doherty (www.larryjoe.com) and Dan Grant (www.dangrantforcongress.com).

Doherty is a 61-year-old lawyer, rancher and TV personality. His first career was as a lawyer in Houston, specializing in suing other lawyers for malpractice. He became active in politics and served on the SDEC (State Democratic Executive Committee) back in the 1970s. He has also been active in environmental management. He and his wife Joanne bought a ranch near Brenham and converted much of it into a wildlife preserve.

His biggest claim to fame, however, is as the star of the legal reality show "Texas Justice". Playing the role of a judge, he settled disputes with the motto "without love there is no justice". With his cowboy boots, hat and Texas drawl, he projects the image of an old fashioned Texan like LBJ, who represented CD10 in the 1930s.

Grant is a 33-year-old foreign service veteran. Born and raised in Austin, Grant served as a high school intern with Representative Jake Pickle before going to college at Georgetown and graduate school at the London School of Economics. From there he went to hot spots around the world to do work that the US government wanted done. He helped organize elections in Bosnia and Kosovo and organized security and policy planning for the Afghan Loya Jirga (grand assembly) that set up the post-Taliban constitution. For 18 months, Grant served as a civilian in Iraq and helped to organize the famous "purple thumb" election.

Not surprisingly, Grant makes getting out of Iraq the centerpiece of his campaign. Even his support for domestic initiatives like universal health care are framed in terms of "isn't this a better use of our resources than fighting in Iraq?" By contrast, Doherty puts more emphasis on domestic issues. However, their differences on the issues are pretty small. Both oppose the war. Both support health care, energy conservation, and access to education. Doherty's website pushes environmental issues, especially clean water, while Grant's pushes protecting Social Security and taking care of veterans, but I'd be shocked if either seriously disagreed with what's written on the other's site.

So whose experience is more valuable? That depends on what you want done. Is this election about Iraq or about "the economy, stupid"? Doherty has more experience working with Texans in need, especially in the eastern part of the district. Grant has more experience dealing with crises abroad. They're both qualified, but in very different ways.

For many Democrats, this will be a choice over who can best beat Michael McCaul in November. Both candidates claim that they are more electable, and that nominating the other is just doing McCaul a huge favor. Who is right will become clearer during the primary campaign. We'll see who connects better with people, who manages the press better, who makes better strategic decisions, and who raises the most money.

Even so, each candidate has some pretty clear strengths and weaknesses for the general election. I'll examine these in Part 3.

[Disclaimer: I've endorsed Grant elsewhere, but promise to make this analysis as fair and objective as I can manage.]

"Is this election about Iraq or about 'the economy, stupid'?"

If the election is about Iraq, I'd have to give the nod to the guy who's been to Iraq. If it's about the economy, I'd have to give the nod to the guy who has an economics degree.

I'm just sayin', is all. :-)

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