This is a companion post to my post at my Examiner blog. Because Mr. Flores has been a significant topic of late on American Writes, I think it is important to be detailed here so that readers who may not follow my Examiner posts can still be up to date and, as the Examiner blog is supposed to more newsworthy than personal, I have made the editorial decision to put the article here and link to it from Examiner.

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I had the pleasure and honor to speak with Texas 17 Congressional Candidate Bill Flores today as he was riding through a storm on the way to Granbury. My phone call to him was in response to his request that I call him after I had sent an email to all campaigns requesting an interview for the Examiner blog. Mr. Flores was the first to respond to that request.

Mr. Flores wanted me to call to discuss some ground rules for the interview and so that he could assure himself that he would get a fair shake from me.

That’s understandable, though a little bit of a bummer for me that he would feel that I have treated him unfairly. I am sorry to have caused those feelings.

Readers will be the first to attest that I am not a professional journalist. I’m just a regular guy with a computer and some passion for our country and the future our children face.

But I can be coarse, I recognize, and I don’t intend to be that way and hope that my style tempers itself as I go along. I’ve been called out by Paul Rieger, Brazos County GOP Chair, who has told me that my questions are legitimate but need to be tempered. I believe I have reported that here. Even my wife has allowed as to how my passion can get away from me.

Mr. Flores’ son, Will, had sent me an email asking to talk and had mentioned that he knew my issues weren’t personal against his dad but they were “vitriolic.” And some commenters have assumed that I I hate Mr. Flores.

I’ve even had one former family friend tell me I needed professional mental help.

Dang.

I thought I was just asking questions. As Mr. Flores mentions in a currently running Radio spot, politics is a dirty business.

But I digress…

Bill said I could call him Bill and that’s what he wants when he is in Congress, so I’ll go with “Bill” from here.

He asked me what assurances he had that he would get a fair shake. I told him that, based on what he knows of me or can assume from how he has observed my writings, I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t have any assurances and if there was no way I could assure him, I wouldn’t fault him.

I understand that if my words are read from a certain perspective, I can come off as adversarial, something which I hope I proved I am not by the time we hung up. And something I hope to improve upon as I continue writing.

I told Bill that I trust that he is a good man and, as I have written elsewhere, I believe that there are legitimate answers to every question I have posed.

He chastised me a bit for not calling him directly with the questions I have, as his phone number is n the book, and I have no answer for that. I can tell you that I am not a confrontational person by nature and I find it easier to ask the questions in a passive method like posting on a blog than looking someone in the eye and asking them. They are uncomfortable questions, and if my research is wrong I want to be shown that it is wrong but at the same time it would be a bit distressing to be shown I am wrong. This is not how a journalist would act, I think, and it can easily be seen as hit-and-run tactics which I do not want to be known for.

However, I have made it a point to admit when I was wrong here, and will always endeavor to correct the record wherever I have erred. Examiner readers Alex, Christopher, and GOP Chair Paul Rieger should be able to attest to my acquiescence in the face of new or confirmed evidence.

Again, I’m not a journalist. I don’t have the stomach for it. That’s why I haven’t made a bunch of FOIA requests for all sorts of rumors I have heard. Everybody has skeletons, and I don’t want to dig. I want to know the candidate as they are relative to this race and their politics in this district.

I continue to digress. I sound like Obama always talking about himself!

Anyhoo… Bill later mentioned that he was concerned that I had some issues with class warfare – rich versus poor.

WHOA! I hope I have been very clear that I am so pro-capitalism and the American Dream that such a comment would seem as far out in left field to you as it does to me. I was a bit shocked and Bill referred to some post about the writer “never being invited to his [Bill's] compound in McLean” which I know I have never written…especially since I 1) have no knowledge of any compound in Mclean (Virginia, I presume) and 2) would hope that Bill will get to know me in person as Paul Rieger has and see me as a HUGE advocate of his business success. I’ve even written that think it would be nice to be mentored by Bill in business, and told him that I would understand if that made him ill to think about right now.

He did acknowledge that he may be referring to something other than a post by me. Let’s be clear…I only post to Examiner, The People’s Mob, and my own blog American Writes. And I only use my real name.

I also keep the digital written record in place, no matter how much I screw up. I leave comments as they are (although I do delete ones that use offensive language and because of that do not contribute to the conversation) so you won’t find anything about a compound in McLean by my hand.

The call included setting some parameters for the interview, which, given Bill’s perception of my feelings towards him I understand and accept. He had four:

1. The venue would be of his choosing
2. He would record the interview in audio and video
3. He would have a witness present
4. He would keep recording even when he asked me to go off the record and turn off my recorder

Item 1 was something already allowed for in my email to candidates requesting the interview.

I agreed, but am hesitant on the last one. We’ve all seen too many movies of people splicing words together from recordings to say things that the person did not say. I may insist on a witness being present with me, to alleviate my concern about turning off the recorder.

Sad, isn’t it? I don’t begrudge Bill his suspicions. I’m sorry it has come to that, and I hope that this will be the only time he feels a need to do this.

I accept my share of the blame for this situation, certainly. I am relatively naïve in the blogosphere, having only been actively at it since June of 2009, and to how my words are interpreted by strangers. Again, I hope I am continually improving.

I told Bill that I would do a comprehensive review of my blog posts concerning him and correct anything in them that was either personal or claimed as fact things that weren’t. I don’t think I have done these things, but I am willing to review and correct them. And I invite you to help…as what you read may be entirely different from what I write, all based purely on perspective.

I hope I was able to reassure Bill that I am not a muckraker or troublemaker or some Geraldo Rivera wannabe as we closed our conversation.

Bill explained to me the reason for his campaign contributions to Mr. Gohmert having Sugar Land addressing when he lived in Bryan. The reasons echoed some of the speculation of some of my readers that it may simply be a data entry error, and Bill referred to Mr. Gohmert’s accountant and said he had a letter certifying that it was their mistake and taking the blame.

I told Bill that his answer satisfied my questions regarding both the changes to the FEC record and his residency. I didn’t ask to see the letter…I don’t even want to see the letter. I just wanted the question answered, and Bill answered it. As I have said time and again, I have questions that all, in my mind, have reasonable answers. I just won’t put words into someone’s mouth for answers by conjecturing when they can answer the questions themselves. I have no reason to distrust Bill on any answers he gives unless and until those answers contradict other known facts.

Did I go about things in the wrong way by not directly asking Bill my questions and then reporting on them? Yes. I could have at least done so after the holidays though I could claim I was too busy with a lot of stuff – which I was – but something of this importance when a man feels his character has been impugned should be addressed and settled immediately…which I did not do. I am not sure I would have recognized this transgression had I not talked to Bill, but I have learned that if I ask questions I need to be more conscientious of what they may imply and how the person they are asked of may respond. If nothing else, I need to state in my questions that I am not intending to imply anything. And if I am, I need to be clear about that, too.

Could Bill’s campaign have contacted me about these questions sooner? Yes. They knew about them relatively soon after he announced his candidacy, and some questions were out there months before Bill announced in December – some Tea Party leadership in District 17 had been bandying about them for half a year by then. Correcting the record is part of a campaign’s work, and the delay in addressing them at the source has the political consequence of forming people’s opinions that become difficult to correct. I will not deny that my objectivity may have been unraveling the longer the questions remained unaddressed.

So, we both could have done better.

Maybe it’s a testament to Bill’s newness to politics that his campaign wasn’t prepared for the questions and did not rebut quickly – and isn’t that freshness to the political arena something we are looking for? It is just as much a testament to my newness, I suppose, for dropping the ball in what I could have done.

Bill also touched on a subject that raised some ire and brought out some conspiracy theories from my readers. He told me who was with his wife when I saw her at Lenny’s, and I explained that my post was purely meant as a “look, someone famous is nearby” post. I think he accepted that. He certainly did not need to tell me who it was, since I do not think I speculated beyond the thought that the companion may have been an assistant of some sort. Who was it? Well, that’s nobody’s business, including mine, because it has nothing to do with Bill’s candidacy.

I look forward to meeting Bill and finding out how much on each others’ side we truly are. I know Paul Rieger thinks highly of him as a gentleman and conservative, and I trust Paul, so I can think nothing else of Bill Flores until I meet him. My conversation with Bill meted out his character as that of a genuine man with honor and integrity that I think will be reinforced when we meet.

I only hope Bill will see the same in me.

Tags: #TX17, capitalism, conservative, entrepreneur, flores, politics, republicans

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 6:57 PM and is filed under Brazos County Conservative Watch, Political Analysis, The People's Mob, Unintended Consequences, Writing What's Right. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.