Roy announces

Dream big, dude.

A Republican elected official who twice ran unsuccessfully for Houston City Council is claiming a spot as the conservative choice in the nonpartisan campaign for mayor.

Roy Morales, 51, elected in 2006 as a Harris County Department of Education trustee, launched his latest campaign with pledges to cut municipal government spending and to keep the city safe from natural disasters and potential terrorist attacks.

[...]

He ran in 2005 for an at-large seat won by Peter Brown, who now is entering the mayor's race. In 2007, Morales ran for a different at-large seat and lost a runoff to Melissa Noriega. Both were seats vacated by incumbents, and now Morales is aiming for the job that Bill White must leave because of term limits. The election is Nov. 3.

Morales then ran again against Council Member Noriega in November on 2007, in a straight-up contest. Here's how he's fared in his four times (over three campaigns) on the citywide ballot:

Date      Position   Votes    Pct

=================================

11/05  At Large #1  48,644  31.91

05/07  At Large #3   6,349  18.52

06/07  At Large #3  11,062  44.33

11/07  At Large #3  34,758  33.91

There were about 182,000 votes cast in the 2005 Mayor's race, and 117,000 cast in 2007. If 2009 is like 2003, there will be over 300,000 votes cast this year. In short, he has a ways to go.

Unlike now, Morales spoke out against illegal immigration in his 2005 campaign.

He said four years ago that the city should end "this sanctuary program," which is how critics portray the city policy of not enforcing immigration laws on its own.

Morales said this week he is against detaining city residents who an official may think look like illegal immigrants -- and that city government should wait to see how the federal government changes its immigration policy before tackling the issue here.

Guess he figured that he can't win on the wingnut vote alone. I'll give him credit for coming to his senses.

Morales said he expects to run his campaign through low-cost, grass roots efforts.

Which is another way of saying that he doesn't expect to raise any real money. All I can say is it's hard to win that way.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on February 20, 2009 to Election 2009