White Republican Wins Election By Convincing Voters He's Black

[onehandle]

Source: Gawker



A white, anti-gay Republican candidate for public office stunned many in Houston last week when he defeated his African-American rival in a heavily African-American district. But none were more stunned than the voters themselves, who believed they were voting for a black man.

According to local CBS affiliate KHOU, Dave Wilson beat 24-year incumbent Bruce Austin in the race for a seat on the Houston Community College Board of Trustees by leading voters "to think he's black."

Wilson's tactics included sending out campaign material with photos of "smiling African-American faces" which he randomly found online.

The mailers were captioned with the words "Please vote for our friend and neighbor Dave Wilson."

Read more: http://gawker.com/white-republican-wins-election-by-convincing-voters-he-1462172659

[byronius]

1. Its all they got.

[snooper2]

2. I'm finding myself in agreement with the top comment at gawker site-

"So basically a White homophobic religious asshole fools just enough black homophobic religious assholes into voting for him to just barely win an election. I'm not sure who's more horrible in this, The bigot using dirty election tricks, or the asshats who voted for him. Today 9:58am"

[dbackjon]

6. yes - and voting for someone solely because he is black is racist as well

Both him and the voters had major fail.

[JohnnyRingo]

13. K&R

A lot of sense in those two simple sentences.

The voters are the ones who should be ashamed of themselves. I unfortunately don't expect most politicians to be capable of such humility.

[nyquil_man]

3. His earlier attempt to convince voters he was Mr. Magoo did not quite pan out.

[arcane1]

4. Tricky with his endorsements, too:

"Another piece of direct mail had the words "Endorsed by Ron Wilson" on it, which KHOU points out could be misconstrued by voters to mean that Wilson was endorsed by former state representative Ron Wilson — an African-American.

But in the mailer's fine print Wilson noted that "Ron Wilson" was his cousin."

It's hard to know how many of those votes were based on his presumed race, but it's also hard to feel sorry for anyone who fell for it.

[Major Nikon]

5. Most of them undoubtedly were

The district in question is heavily African-American and the incumbent (who had been in office for 24 years) was black. This was a trustee election for a college, so it wasn't as if the voters expected anyone to campaign in person. Hopefully there's some form of recall action which can be initiated against this bigot.

[iandhr]

7. Sounds like something from The Onion.

It kind of scary to think this is real.

[Snake Plissken]

8. Immoral lying Politicians and stupid voters is a recipe for disaster

A disaster known as Texas

[Ash_F]

9. Wow this really exemplifies the power of money in politics

Bet he put out more of those mailers than the other guy.

[Blue_Tires]

10. Well, if nothing else I'd hope those voters learned a lesson

and pay much closer attention next time...

[heaven05]

11. this is what happens

when a person does not do their RESEARCH!

[JohnnyRingo]

12. That's dirty for sure, but...

The voters also thought the other guy was an African American as well. That must mean they liked this jackass's stated policy better, and that's how we're supposed to decide elections. Perhaps his opponent just ran a horrible campaign.

I don't base my vote on skin color, and I wouldn't have voted for this jerk if he were my clone.

[24601]

14. Took the playbook from Hollywood. Eddie Murphy pulled off the reverse in "The Distinguished

Gentleman" (1992).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Distinguished_Gentleman

[KamaAina]

15. Where's Dave Chappelle when you need him?

[yurbud]

16. He looks just like my dad, only a little less black.

[Dr. Strange]

17. Has any voter actually stepped up and admitted to voting for him because they thought he was AA?