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Republican Party Forum Monday night
Published February 9, 2010
Nine Republican candidates seeking local, state and national offices met Val Verde County voters Monday night.
About 90 people attended the candidate forum, which was sponsored by the Val Verde County Republican Party, at the Ramada Inn.
Candidates were given three minutes to make a statement to the audience.
A short question-and-answer session followed the candidates’ statements.
After the forum, voters could stay and talk one-to-one with the candidates who attended.
Val Verde County Republican Chair Anna Chapman introduced the candidates.
The Del Rio News-Herald will publish the statements of the candidates over the next three days. The statements are transcribed directly from a News-Herald tape of the event.
Today’s statements will be from Republican candidates for the 23rd Congressional District, a seat currently held by Democrat Ciro D. Rodriguez of San Antonio.
The candidates spoke in the order in which they appear on the March 2 Republican Primary Election ballot.
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Mike Kueber
“My name’s Mike Kueber. I’m from San Antonio. I’ve been there for 22 years. The rest of my family is back in North Dakota, where I grew up on a farm. I have three brothers. They’re back there, farming. You may be surprised, but Del Rio has actually played a role in their lives. My dad passed away in ’96, but he was a life-long Republican and one of those guys that lived his life by answering the question, ‘What would John Wayne do?’ That’s how he decided what to do in life.
When I moved down to Texas in ’87, my dad, mom and brother would come down and visit every year about this time for the San Antonio Rodeo and we would take them around the state and show them everything Texas had to offer. He’s a big John Wayne fan, so Brackettville, the Alamo: He just loved it here and the people here. And when John Wayne moved on, there was kind of a void in my dad’s life, and it was eventually filled by – I don’t know how many people here remember the TV movie ‘Lonesome Dove’? – He fell in love with that movie, and Robert Duvall kind of took the place of John Wayne in his life, and one year before he came down, there was an article in some Texas magazine about the movie and it showed that was it actually filmed, part of it in Brackettville, but the major part was on a ranch outside of Del Rio. Maybe everyone knows that here, and I got a connection to that ranch, the Moody Ranch, I don’t know if they still ranch there, but we went out one February day, I called the foreman, and he let us onto the ranch and showed us all around the Lonesome Dove set. . .
On the issues, my brochure is in the back, and it’s a very detailed brochure. It covers all the issues, all of my qualifications, my background. I think a frugal, pragmatic conservative, and I think out of all the candidates – and I’m not saying they’re not frugal and pragmatic – I think I’m the most pragmatic conservative of the group. I’m the most frugal of the group, and as far as connections to the district: Ciro’s going to be arguing that people aren’t as close to the district as he is, and I think I am the person who has the best roots in this district and can represent the district.”
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Francisco “Quico” Canseco
“Hi, and thank you very much for allowing me to speak here today. It’s always good to be in Del Rio. I have a very strong connection to Del Rio. My name is Francisco “Quico” Canseco. I’m a Constitutional conservative, and I’m running for the 23rd Congressional District, and I’m a Republican.
I’m a lifelong resident of this area. I was born in Laredo, not far from here, in a family of eight, and my father and my mother taught us the values of faith, of family and of the freedom that this nation grants us all. Also we learned the values of hard work and taking on responsibility for ourselves and for our community.
As such I have always been very, very dedicated to our community. First of all, I’m married for almost 31 years. Next month will be 31 years that I’ve been married. We’ve raised three children to adulthood, and I have worked as a lawyer for almost 35 years, and I have also been very much involved in banking and I’ve been involved in real estate development, commercial real estate development, not just in Texas, but around the country.
And as a resident of this area, I have always worked very, very hard for our community, whether it was building and growing a business, creating jobs here in Texas, or helping to fund health care and education programs for children. I have always been focused on getting things done for our community. I’m running as a Republican, and although I’ve not always agreed with the Republican Party, especially when it comes to heavy government spending programs, like we saw over the last few years, I know that the best avenue to ensure limited government and Constitutional-based ideals is through the Republican Party.
I also believe that we need more citizen legislators elected to office, that’s why I’m running. That’s why I’m working tirelessly, meeting with voters, listening to them, their concerns, their aspirations and their hopes for their children and their families.
I also know that what we need in this district is someone who had the experiences that I had: building a business, running a business, hiring people, meeting a payroll. These are the kinds of experiences that we need in order to create economic based opportunities for our future.
And today we stand at a crossroads and at that crossroads we must ask ourselves that question: Will we take on the responsibility to reduce the national debt, to reduce the debt that we owe foreign countries, or will we surrender to foreign counties, other ideologies and continue to pile on more debt on other generations of Americans?”
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Robert (Doc) Lowry
“Thanks you for having me here. This summer, I wasn’t planning on doing this, until I had a bunch of people ask me to. My connection to Del Rio is essentially getting out here and visiting a little bit and my first employee ever lives here now. She’s a teacher. I moved to Texas in 1980 when my cousin and I decided to become roughnecks and make money. About a year later we were looking at each other thinking college would be a better idea, so we both took off to college. I got married, went to graduate school, ended up in medical school in D.C. and came back to Texas after that. I’ve only been married 22 years, but do have three kids, and we’re marriage mentors at our church now.
And what really got me to run was, I was really tired of being that one guy on the soccer field, watching the kids go, and I’m telling all the parents, ‘Wake up to what’s going on!’ They were all looking at me like I’m crazy until this year. So then when a bunch of my patients asked me about running, down on the south side of San Antonio, I thought, okay maybe there’s something to this. But I was still going to play the Jonah card and not do it until some folks at the TEA parties asked me to go run and then some of the young Republicans asked me to go run and I kept thinking, ‘Okay, maybe this is something I’m supposed to do,’ so we talked to the pastor about it, prayed about it a lot and eventually figured, well, God keeps putting this in front of me; I’m going to go do this.
We hired up a couple of other physicians, but mind you, when I got done with residency, I opened up a clinic. It took a lot of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, working in the Uvalde ER and in Pearsall and in all these other places to get this going, and I’m still, I know, one of the few doctors who actually talks to his patients. I know where they go to church. I know what’s up, and that’s why I think they asked me about running.
I’m a pretty conservative guy. In fact, I would say Ronald Reagan is probably on the other side of me a little bit sometimes. I am terribly put out by what the government is doing: Spending money, but spending money that we don’t actually have. It’s just our kids’ credit cards they’re doing. We need to make sure we start voting people in who are not only conservative, but who are founded well enough that when they get there, they don’t change their mind, they don’t fall to the party politics.
I know what’s important. I’ve grown up through a lot of hands-on labor, to, hopefully I’m using my brain more now, and I know what’s important is here and not in Washington, but we need to get people up there who won’t fall to the system. I believe that’s me and I need you vote. Thank you.”
Candidates Robert Mack “Doc” Gould and Will Hurd did not attend Monday night’s forum.
Wednesday:
Thomas (T.C.) Kincaid Jr., Yolanda Sotelo Garza and Alma L. Flores.
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