First, Glen Whitley. Now, Betsy Price says don’t vote by party — pick the best person
The biggest political news last week was not what Glen Whitley said.
It was what Betsy Price didn’t say.
For the first time in Price’s 22 years in local politics, she did not say to vote for Republicans this fall.
In fact, she said to stop that.
Don’t vote by party at all.
“Don’t just go and start marking somebody because they’re one party of the other,” the former Fort Worth mayor said, an abrupt change of tone from her years endorsing Donald Trump and lesser Republicans.
Price said she won’t endorse anyone in either party running for a major office.
“Go out and make sure you pick the candidate who is going to give you good governance,” she said. “That’s all I’ll say.”
Price’s comments came days after Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, a Hurst Republican, rocked Texas by endorsing Houston Democrat Mike Collier, a fellow accountant, over Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who’s seeking a third term.
So neither Whitley nor Price openly wants Patrick back.
The church-clique Republican holds what is actually the most powerful position in Texas government.
Both Whitley and Price also openly reject endorsing Trump’s candidate for county judge, conservative activist and school-board crusader Tim O’Hare of Southlake.
Price said only: “This is about good government. It’s not about politics.”
But Whitley said more.
In the WFAA/Channel 8 “Y’all-itics” podcast where he endorsed Collier, Whitley also said he won’t support either O’Hare or Fort Worth Democrat Deborah Peoples for county judge, the most powerful position in county government.
“I personally told [O’Hare] I didn’t like the campaign that he ran,” Whitley said.
Whitley had endorsed Price as a business-minded conservative for county judge, but O’Hare won the nomination in part by running sharply partisan ads bashing Price for ceremonial appearances as mayor at a social justice event or a 2011 gay pride event.
“Betsy Price has given 30 years to Fort Worth,” Whitley said. “She’s done a good job. I’ve run campaigns, but I’ve never gotten down in the gutter like that and trashed somebody for doing a good job.”
O’Hare is Trump’s endorsed candidate. O’Hare spoke Thursday in Fort Worth at a local hotel managers’ luncheon. (Peoples speaks next month.)
Afterward, O’Hare said Whitley’s comments “won’t have any negative effect on Dan Patrick here in Tarrant County.”
To the contrary, he said, “it has fired people up and united them. People are ready to fight.”
As for Price, “she has a right to her opinion,” he said.
On his behalf, O’Hare offered a basic Republican campaign message.
“You want someone who is a strong leader in this position,” he said, somebody who is “strong on law enforcement — somebody who’s going to watch tax dollars like a hawk” and “promote Tarrant County and Fort Worth and all the cities in our county to businesses and promote high-quality growth.”
When a Democrat is president, Texas Republicans have won past midterm elections by an average of 27 points. But some of those mainline and business Republicans have been discarded or driven out to enforce strict conservative doctrine.
Local Republicans should be taking this election seriously, O’Hare said.
Recent figures have shown that Texas Democrats have a 10-point edge with new voters and a 20-point edge with young women, although Republicans remain in the lead.
“The idea that you can just coast and win — that was never a good formula,” O’Hare said. “Republicans might have thought there was some big red wave coming. If there’s going to be one, they’re going to have to create it.”
Because this is not the same Republican Party.
