'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
While Republicans made strides Tuesday in bolstering the number of minorities elected to public office, some conservatives cautioned the party against boasting of their gains because there's still a long way to go to match the Democrats' long-standing dominance with minority lawmakers.
With a well-funded, centrist Houston mayor running for governor at the top of the ballot, Texas Democrats were hopeful that the party would defy expectations in the 2010 midterm elections and knock off the nation's second-longest-serving governor in one of the nation's reddest states.
Rep. Ike Skelton, the rural Missouri chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is waging a military campaign to retain his congressional seat in the face of his most formidable opposition in more than a decade.
Rep. Chet Edwards consistently makes the list of the most vulnerable Democrats; he hails from a district that gave Republican John McCain a whopping 67 percent of the presidential vote in 2008.
"I'm used to being a target," Mr. Edwards said in an interview. "This year there's clearly an anti-Washington environment, and I share those frustrations. I'm sickened by the hyperpartisanship. But I'm working hard at the grass-roots level, letting my independent voting record speak for itself."
"I'm used to being a target," Mr. Edwards said. "This year there's clearly an anti-Washington environment, and I share those frustrations."
