Sticking With Incumbents?

Browsing the Austin American-Statesman, I came across an opinion-based article entitled 'Texas House of Representatives: Stick with incumbents for Austin House seats'. This article's main point is made clear through the title: don't vote in new house representatives and stick with what we've already got. The author outlines Districts 47, 48, and 50 which make up parts of Travis County. Based on the evidence given throughout the article, the author has an obvious bias toward the current district representatives who happen to all be Democratic. If you look closely at this piece of writing, the author provides weak details concerning their reasoning for the incumbents that they favor. One example is Democratic incumbent Valinda Bolton in District 47 up against the Republican Donna Keel. The only argument the author makes against Keel is that she is undecided about “supporting House Speaker Tom Craddick” when apparently they have “close ties”. In my opinion this shouldn't be a breaking factor for a candidate, and the reader ought to stop and see this sort of reasoning as something to weed out. In the separate section concerning District 48, Donna Howard who is the current Democratic incumbent is vaguely described in one paragraph and portrayed as what I would see as too perfect. Republican Pam Waggoner has one brief sentence mentioning her as owning an insurance company but that it “may not be her year.” Overall, this article includes some elements of facts about the representatives, but is highly altered to appear as make or break factors in who the readers should consider. The author makes it very clear that they favor the Democratic incumbents and even states that we should “stay with the incumbents.” I'd say this article is supposed to appeal first off to other Democrats who may be uninformed on the House incumbents and are planning on voting. It could possibly be directed toward Republicans also but if so, there definitely should have been more factual information and less personal opinions. I respect the author's decision to express their opinions through the statesman, however I don't agree with the reasoning and the points seemed very close-minded. Overall, if his or her goal was to persuade the general audience, it didn't work for me.


"Texas House of Representatives: Stick with incumbents for Austin House seats." 18 Oct 2008 21 Oct 2008