Robert Pratt
Texas Republicans should be appalled that Congressional candidate Jodey Arrington insisted that the student Democrat organization at Texas Tech be a co-host of a Republican Primary runoff event.
First, it was Arrington backing out of a forum hosted appropriately by the official Republican Party-affiliated student group Tech College Republicans. The reason given by the Arrington camp is that one of its officers was backing his opponent Glen Robertson.
Of course every other event at which Arrington has appeared has had backers of his and Robertson involved. So what was really happening with the Texas Tech event?
We found out when the largely liberal Student Government Association setup an event to include itself as host and College Republicans as well as the Tech Student Democrats as co-hosts.
At the time, the external vice president of the Tech Student Government Association, Celeb Fisher, wasn’t just an Arrington backer, he was on the Arrington for Congress payroll! Add in that Amber Yanez, the SGA internal vice president, was a very public campaigner for Arrington and it becomes clear that Arrington wanted a Tech forum that was controlled by his operatives and a forum that would seriously dilute Republican and conservative influence in the questions asked.
That a Republican candidate for Congress, Jodey Arrington, in a Republican Party primary election, would refuse to appear before an event hosted by an official affiliate of the Republican Party, Tech College Republicans, but then arrange for a Democrat Party affiliate to be a co-host of another event at the same school is appalling, inappropriate and unprecedented to my memory.
And thus you have the definition of bipartisan as exemplified by Straus in the House.