Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price gave local Republicans a gift earlier this month when he sent out a mailer encouraging his constituents to vote a straight Democratic ticket in the mid-term elections by comparing President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. Predictably and rightfully, much of the local media, led by The Dallas Morning News, was left aghast by the comparison. Dallas' paper of record editorialized that "[w]ith this mailer, we are back to full Price, a leader liable to sound off in ways that are as offensive and harmful as the ugly history of racism that he purports to stand against."
Late Wednesday afternoon, the Dallas County Republican Party took advantage of the mailer to run one of former President Lyndon Johnson's most famous political plays. In an email to reporters, the Dallas GOP blasted John Turner, the Democrat running against anti-vaccine maven Lisa Luby Ryan, for failing to condemn the mailer.
"It’s been eight days since the news broke of the outlandish mailer by Price, and Dallas voters are still waiting on John Turner for any public sign of condemnation in any official statements or social media posts," Dallas County GOP Chairwoman Missy Shorey said in the email. "John Turner’s silence is deafening when we consider the offense and disgust this abhorrent political propaganda continues to cause the voters of Texas House District 114."
After reading those serious charges, the Observer figured Turner must have been ignoring a big pile of constituent mail about Price's comparison or evading questions about it from reporters. Turns out that's not the case.
Our question about the mailer was the first Turner had received from anyone, he told the Observer Wednesday afternoon.
"I believe the mailer is highly inappropriate. The reference diminishes the unique horror of Hitler and the Holocaust, and such a comparison does not belong in a constructive political dialogue," he said.