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Thursday, September 27, 2007

T.J. Connolly a.k.a. Nostradamus, prognosticates


Wolff-Wolff Commissioners Court?
by T.J. Connolly

With San Antonio City Councilman Kevin Wolff’s recent announcement that he will seek the Republican nomination to fill Bexar County Commissioner Lyle Larson’s seat on the Court, which Larson is vacating to run for Congress, the distinct possibility arises that Bexar County will have a father-son duo running the County.

Political watchers have said this move by Wolff-the-Younger is foolish. That his County Judge dad would be a political negative for him in the race and that the public wouldn’t stand for a father-son duo on the five-member Court. Now that’s foolish, as Wolff-the-Older remains one of the most popular elected officials in either Party in the County.

And the same could be said about Wolff-the-Younger’s earlier planned run for Mayor in 2009. If Kevin were to be elected Mayor, his dad would be sitting across the street in the County Judge’s seat. How would the public react to Wolff-the-Older AND Wolff-the-Younger controlling both of the two top seats of political power in the community?

By all accounts, former City Councilman and 2005 Mayoral runner-up Julian Castro is in the driver’s seat for the 2009 Mayor’s race. There are no more “Phil Hardberger-types” out there. A Phil Hardberger comes along only once every couple of decades.

While Castro’s stock has been soaring since losing to Hardberger in ’05 by less than 3,800 votes out of 130,000, many potential challengers have been running to the sidelines rather than preparing to take on the older, wiser, rested and ready Castro.

Wolff-the-Younger is the latest to join that pool of “I’m not taking on Julian Castro” candidate-would-have-beens.

Wolff-the-Younger may be joined in the Republican Primary by at least two potentially strong challengers; Hill County Village Mayor Kirk Francis, and former San Antonio City Councilman and 2005 Mayoral candidate Carroll Schubert. And possibly several others.

But history, in many ways, may be in the making.

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