Travis County DA Candidates Talk Change
All four of the candidates running for District Attorney managed to either track us down or be accessible enough to be tracked down before four p.m. yesterday to be interviewed for a quick piece on the race. Video is here.
Obviously, squeezing in not just the four candidates but also outgoing DA Ronnie Earle into a 90 second story meant each candidate got between ten to 15 seconds of facetime. But at least no one was left out.
I'm curious as to what the narrative of this race will be, because until yesterday there wasn't much to report on it except that people had jumped in. It seems her thirty plus years on the job and the Earle endorsement makes Lehmberg the "establishment" candidate. For instance:
Clinton's line on how she's change:
“I want to make change, but I've already made change. I will continue to make change. I'm not running just on a promise of change, I'm running on 35 years of change."
35 years happens to be about the length of time Lehmberg has served the District Attorney's office. Lehmberg's line on change:
"If you want to see the issues that are important to me, you should look at the past about what's important... Ours is a dynamic office, and we've been changing everyday for as long as I can remember. I feel like I am change."
So they have some similarities in the way they talk about "changing for 35 years" or "for as long as I can remember". But it's unclear to me who in the DA's race is the anti-establishment candidate. I gather from conversations with Rick Reed that he is running more on his strong judgment and sense of morality than on a "fresh start" kind of message.
However, the DA's office isn't like the Bush Administration, which a majority of Americans want to eradicate and possibly forget. I haven't seen polling, but I imagine Travis County voters are more satisfied with the DA's office than they are with the president. That being said, perhaps "change" isn't going to be a driving factor in the race.
I dunno. This was basically written in stream-of-consciousness.
