Candidates forum was a little light on candidates

Seventeen people is not a big crowd, but the turnout of candidates for a forum Tuesday night was even worse. Only two were there.

It was a Tarrant County League of Women Voters candidates’ forum for Texas House District 99 and Congressional District 12. Two Democratic challengers showed up, but the Libertarian candidates and both incumbent Republicans did not.

State Rep. Charlie Geren and U.S. Rep. Kay Granger were no-shows. Robin Chester, the Libertarian candidate running for Geren’s seat, and Shiloh Sidney Shambaugh, the Libertarian candidate for Granger’s seat, also did not appear.

Only Sheila Ford, Geren’s Democratic challenger, and Tracey Smith, the Democratic candidate for Granger’s seat, were there.

Ford talked about making more health care available to people who need it and pushing energy companies to be more accommodating and attentive to residents when laying gas pipelines. She said she is against toll roads and called the Trans Texas Corridor “a waste of our precious land.”

Smith talked in very general terms about ending the war in Iraq, making health care more available and sending jobs overseas. He said he would not have voted for the financial bailout package that died Monday in the U.S. House. “The government is a lousy business manager,” he said.

Comments

[Tom McKenzie]

There were actually seven candidates at this forum, not two. You did not mention the five judicial candidates who spoke: Randy Turner, Warren Gould, Maureen Tolbert, Don Cosby, and Melody Wilkinson.