{"id":11648,"date":"2013-11-11T09:56:44","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T09:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=11648"},"modified":"2013-11-11T09:56:44","modified_gmt":"2013-11-11T09:56:44","slug":"vote-for-the-black-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=11648","title":{"rendered":"Vote for the black guy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"voteblack\"<\/a>A white Republican unseated a 24-year African-American incumbent from office in a surprise election victory that some are saying was racially tinged and deceptive.<\/p>\n

Still, he figured he’d have fun running, because he was fed up with what he called “all the shenanigans” at the Houston Community College System. As a conservative white Republican running in a district whose voters are overwhelmingly black Democrats, the odds seemed overwhelmingly against him.<\/p>\n

Dave Wilson, who KHOU reports is an \u201canti-gay activist and former fringe candidate for mayor,\u201d is being criticized by his opposition for his campaign that reportedly lead the overwhelmingly African-American, Democratic district to believe he was black.<\/p>\n

Wilson said he came up with the strategy because he knew his chances of winning the election against 24-year Democratic incumbent Bruce Austin were quite thin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d always said it was a long shot,\u201d Wilson told Houston\u2019s KHOU. \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t expect to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin described Wilson\u2019s campaign as \u201cdisgusting,\u201d referring to Wilson\u2019s use of fliers showing African-American faces and a caption of: \u201cPlease vote for our friend and neighbor Dave Wilson.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson admitted simply using images found on the Internet.<\/p>\n

One of the mailers used said that Dave Wilson was \u201cEndorsed by Ron Wilson \u2013 a longtime African-American, Democratic state legislator. However, the fine print below the slogan states, \u201cRon Wilson and Dave Wilson are cousins,\u201d a reference to Wilson\u2019s non-politically affiliated cousin who lives in Iowa.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a nice cousin,\u201d Wilson told KHOU, suppressing a laugh. \u201cWe played baseball in high school together. And he\u2019s endorsed me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to losing the election by 26 votes, Austin said he was seeking a recount.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s good,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s good for both democracy and the whole concept of fair play. But that was not his intent, apparently.\u201d – CBS Local<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A white Republican unseated a 24-year African-American incumbent from office in a surprise election victory that some are saying was racially tinged and deceptive. Still, he figured he’d have fun running, because he was fed up with what he called “all the shenanigans” at the Houston Community College System. As a conservative white Republican running … Continue reading “Vote for the black guy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[250,2114,7357],"class_list":["post-11648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","tag-black","tag-racial-divide","tag-vote"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/voteblack.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11650,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11648\/revisions\/11650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}