Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who rose from an impoverished childhood in the Rio Grande Valley to become a three-star Army general commanding multinational forces in Iraq, filed the paperwork Wednesday to seek the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat of retiring Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Sanchez, whose military career was cut short by the fallout from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, positioned himself as a political outsider among those who are “mostly focused on scoring partisan points and winning elections.”
“I believe Texas needs a strong, independent voice to address the enormous challenges we are facing – leadership that focuses on results rather than politics,” Sanchez said.
According to an earlier Politico story, Sanchez was going to “announce his intentions on Facebook, according to a Democratic source close to the campaign”. I don’t know if something changed, or if that “Democratic source” wasn’t quite as close to the campaign as he might have thought, but the only Facebook page I could find was this one, which is clearly not owned by a campaign. I also don’t see a campaign website. It’s early days, obviously, but given that no one is operating under a deadline here one might think it would be preferable to have those particular ducks in a row. For what it’s worth, this McAllen Monitor story, which also references that Facebook page I can’t find, says Sanchez is “[prepping] for a formal announcement at a later date”. We’ll see how that goes.
Beyond that, I’ve said that I want to hear what he has to say for himself, but as yet there’s nothing on which to base a judgment. I’ll let you know when there is. Kos and Juanita have more.