August 30, 2007

Quico Canseco, Ciro’s Republican Challenger
By Jack D. McNamara
 
We met Francisco “Quico” Canseco for coffee at the Ramada Inn in Alpine last Saturday morning.
 
Canseco is at the moment the only fully declared and committed candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Representative, 23rd District. He will almost certainly oppose Ciro Rodriguez, the Democratic incumbent who won last year in the last election of 2006. Rodriguez defeated the seven-term incumbent, Henry Bonilla, who was the only Mexican American Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives at the time (and had been so for seven terms).

The 23rd Congressional District is more than 65% Hispanic.Bonilla was the beneficiary of a Texas Legislature gerrymander which was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court late in the election year. Hence the fact that we voted on December 12, 2006 rather than the second Tuesday in November.

And as we all know Democrats won the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time since 1994.
 
For a while this year it appeared that Republicans were too demoralized to field a serious candidate in the 23rd District this year. That would be a natural enough situation; the Democrats were barely credible from 1994 to 2004.
 
But set those ideas aside, Democrats. Canseco is a highly accomplished and credible candidate. And perhaps preparing to challenge him in the Republican primary are a Bexar County Commissioner, Lyle Larson and a retired businessman, James McGrody.
 
Canseco is a trim and articulate candidate. More to the point, he is highly accomplished. He will win the battle of the résumés.
 
He is a native of Laredo who attended high school at the Culver Military Academy, received a B.A. (1972) and a law degree from St. Louis University (1975) and took post graduate training at the University of Paris (yes, France). He is fluent in English, Spanish, French and Italian.
 
Canseco lists a large number of professional associations and community volunteerism, from the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra (1980-81) to membership in the Los Dos Laredos Chapter of the Young President’s Association.
 
He is married to Gloria Zúñiga Canseco and they have three children living in San Antonio and Houston.
 
The résumé, issues, biography, etc. are listed at his Web site www.cansecoforcongress.com.
 
We asked him how he expected to win a district drawn by the Supreme Court for Hispanic Democrats to win. Canseco corrected us and said the U.S. Supreme Court in directing that the 23rd Congressional District include a majority of Hispanics created a “Latino opportunity district.” Such a district is not necessarily Democratic.
 
As for that question, Canseco’s staff aide showed us memoranda which indicate a majority of the Republican voters of the 23rd District recognize that the Republican nominee must be a Hispanic in order to win on Election Day.
 
Perhaps in recognition of that fact, Canseco appears to have the support of the Republican Party, including the congressional campaign committee of incumbent Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. Their chairman is Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma. The Washington bureau chief of the San Antonio Express-News, Gary Martin, quoted Representative Cole, “We’ve got at least one excellent candidate right now: Quico Canseco. We think he will be a very formidable candidate (“GOP targeting House seat held by Rodriguez in 2008,” San Antonio Express online 7/30/2007).
 
Canseco’s Website features a bylined article by Stuart Rothenberg, one of the most prominent electoral analysts, who met Canseco at a National Republican Congressional Committee candidate school and declared himself impressed. Rothenberg only identified five of the most competitive races in 2008. The 23rd District of Texas is one of those as the Republicans attempt to win back the House of Representatives.
 
In our interview, Canseco was well informed on the current “credit crunch” in the market — he is, after all, a banker. He identified the problems as stemming from “risky” ventures and said the problem did not extend to the mainstream banks.
 
Canseco’s positions on the major issues are posted on his Web site. We talked at length of the major problem facing the U.S. in Iraq but I do not recall any solutions which are any better than those already proposed. Like everyone else we will wait to hear what General Petraeus says.
 
It is a long way to November 2008. Quico Canseco is clearly prepared for the long slog as indicated by loaning his campaign more than $500,000. He has commissioned professionals to study the issues as indicated by the memoranda from the consultants. Canseco is therefore the presumed winner of the Republican primary, even though the majority of the district’s Republican voters are Anglos.
 
We should all be delighted. Our history has been all Democrat until the Republican victories of the 1980s. And then we were always represented by a Republican until 2006.
 
The healthiest circumstance in our democratic and representative system is to have a respectable competition of ideas. It certainly appears we have that possibility for 2008.
 
 The Alpine Animal Shelter
The Alpine Animal Shelter is a disgrace. It is hidden near the sewage treatment plant, behind locked gates, approached only by a road across private property. So no one can visit the shelter to adopt animals or identify their lost pets. You may assume the worst of a hidden thing.
 
Last Tuesday the Alpine City Council voted (again) to give an acre of land south of the airport to the creation of a decent animal shelter.
 
The issue of decent care for helpless animals is the most frustrating, embarrassing, and incompetent performance over a longer period of time of the Alpine and Brewster County Civil Olympics. Our inability to solve this problem is an argument for disincorporation and a return to a natural state of anarchy. Casey Stengel would be proud of the New York Mets if he could just watch this fiasco.
 
But now, on Councilman Rangra’s motion, and a good amendment from Gerald Raun, with a unanimous vote from the council and a numerous appearance by the Alpine Humane Society, one small but adequate acre is available for the intent of a  bequest from deceased Sul Ross Professor Helen Cole.
 
The city of Alpine plus the Humane Society, one plus one — can it be done? •
 
(Also published by the Big Bend Sentinel of Marfa, Texas August 30, 2007.)