Win some, lose some: Republicans, who will get a chance later this week to add a candidate to a swing district race, have just lost one in another swing district as Ben Bentzin has announced his withdrawal from the HD48 campaign.
Bentzin, a former executive at Dell, Inc., cited new business opportunities and the negative tone in his earlier race for the seat as reasons for dropping out. He is not moving out of the district.
His move appears to leave Democrat Rep. Donna Howard without a Republican opponent in the November election.
Earlier this year, Howard defeated Bentzin in a special election to fill the unexpired term of Todd Baxter, an Austin Republican who had resigned to work as a lobbyist.
“Donna Howard and her local Democratic partisan cohorts ran an extraordinarily negative campaign this past spring. That was very difficult for my family, very difficult for myself,” Bentzin told the Statesman today.
He also said he believed there was “an imbalance in terms of (press) coverage” of the campaign.
At issue in the campaign was Bentzin’s hiring of Republican operative John Colyandro to help with his unsuccessful run for state Senate in 2002. Colyandro has since been indicted for his role in helping other GOP groups that year.
Bentzin was never accused of wrongdoing by prosecutors.
Bentzin was linked closely to Tom DeLay and TRMPAC via Colyandro in the earlier race. I hope you’ll forgive me if I fail to empathize with his plight. As Phillip wrote at the time, Donna Howard ran a smart, aggressive campaign in which she clearly distinguished herself from Bentzin, and in doing so overcame his substantial monetary advantage. She nearly won the crowded special election outright, then walloped Bentzin (who had compared himself to Vince Young after his underwhelming performance) by a 15 point margin in the runoff.
Bentzin’s withdrawal leaves Howard without a major party opponent in November (Libertarian Ben Easton is also on the ballot). The difference between Bentzin’s withdrawal and Vilma Luna’s is that when Luna withdrew, there was nobody left on the ballot in HD33, not even a Libertarian. State law allows for a replacement in such a case. Not so in HD48, which leaves Travis County Democrats free to concentrate on re-electing Mark Strama in HD50 and taking over the open HD47 with Valinda Bolton.
UPDATE: For the definitive wrapup of Ben Bentzin’s short political career, I refer you to the blog that should be his official biographer, PinkDome.
Donna Howard ran a textbook campaign on how to win in a suburban GOP-leaning district. And she won big, too. Now she has chased her opponent out of the race completely. Democrats everywhere should sit up and pay attention.
So when is he going to be indicted?