12.04.09

Bill White and Hank Gilbert to announce plans today, Ogden starts apology tour

Posted in 2010 Primary, Around The State, Commentary, Election 2010, SD 5 at 10:09 am by wcnews

Bill White will announce his intentions today, and suffice it to say, if he doesn’t run for governor it’ll be a surprise. Via Jason Embry:

Barring a shocking turn of events, Houston Mayor Bill White will enter the Democratic race for governor today, quickly becoming the party’s frontrunner. He is scheduled to announce his plans in Houston, and I have to be there in a few hours, so this one may be short.

Kuff has more and to get both sides on White this TexasTrib blogger back-and-forth between Kuff and David Benzion is highly recommended, Assessing Bill White.

Hank Gilbert is having a press conference today as well, (via campaign email):

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Hank Gilbert will hold a phone-in press conference with members of the Texas media to discuss his status in the race for Governor of Texas.

Hank is rumored to everything from staying in the Governor’s race to Lt. Gov. Land or Agriculture Commissioner. Whatever he does, we will support Hank.

Ogden starts apology tour….er….reelection campaign. Or as the AAS put it, Ogden apologizes, explains his re-election plans.

“It makes it looks like there is political collusion and calculation,” Ogden said.

He said how this announcement played out make it look like there was a “tying arrangement,” where essentially the politicians were trading the elected seat.

“This had all the appearances of something like that and I apologize,” Ogden said.

Ogden figured out he couldn’t beat Democratic Congressman Chet Edwards, and Gattis decided to spend more time with this family, so Ogden will settle for taking his job back. The only question is will voters in SD 5 let Ogden play them like this? More from Ogden and his primary opponent Ben Bius in The Eagle, Ogden says he’s running.

Bius said Ogden told him that he was confident that talented people were around who could do his duties when he left.

“There is a time to go,” Bius said. “Mr. Ogden saw that. He announced he wasn’t coming back. His chairmanship might not come back.”

Bius had nothing but praise for Ogden up until Thursday and said he had urged the senator to run prior to Ogden’s September announcement. But he was strongly critical of what he described as the “political theater” that brought Ogden back into the race.

“It’s certainly not becoming of a senator,” Bius said. “A man’s word means a whole lot.”

[…]

Ogden was out of town earlier this week and made no comment on the race until his announcement Thursday.

He apologized on Thursday for how the situation transpired.

“I made a mistake when Representative Gattis told me that he might drop out for personal reasons. I should have said nothing, but I allowed myself to be drawn into discussions that weren’t very flattering,” Ogden said. “What you need to remember is the seat doesn’t belong to anybody, and it is not up to a few powerful people to pass it back and forth.”

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