At the end of the day yesterday, Jonathan Neerman, the recently installed chair of the Dallas County Republican Party, called Unfair Park to talk about that Lupe Valdez-is-a-chicken video. Neerman said, sure, Dallas County GOP absolutely made it -- because, see, they were pretty sure the Dallas County Sheriff had canceled some debates with Republican challenger Lowell Cannaday and, well, if nothing else the video got Valdez's people to clarity "which debates they're participating in, because it's been a mystery to everyone," Neerman said. Valdez's campaign manager, Kirk McPike, said yesterday that was a disingenuous claim.
Fact is, Neerman said, the video was partly the result of "some miscommunication" between the Cannaday campaign and Stemmons Corridor Business Association, which is hosting a September 16 debate. "The communications we had heard through the Cannaday campaign was they had canceled, but I guess after the various postings [Thursday] on the blogs, they went back and checked, and Valdez did agree to do the one on September 16."
As for who made the video, make no mistake: "The county party did," Neerman said. Sure enough, it's right there on its media page. Neerman says the video was all in good fun -- the big hee-haw with which the Dallas County GOP's kicking off the campaign season.
"We weren't trying to be malicious," he says. "Just have some fun, bring some levity to the campaign." Course, there's always the chance that too is Valdez's intention. --Robert Wilonsky
