John WorldPeace and John Sharp

Texas’ John WorldPeace (candidate for governor 2002) and John Sharp (candidate for lt. governor 2002) differ significantly in their opinions as to how the Democrats can retake the state from the Republicans.

John Sharp is the well respected Democrat who barely lost the lt. governor’s race to Rick Perry in November 1998 and consequently did not become governor when little George went to Washington.  This was the first political defeat for Mr. Sharp.

In response to that defeat, Mr. Sharp determined that since his loss to Perry was so close, he could win in 2002 if there was a Hispanic running for governor because a Hispanic in that position would bring a large number of Hispanics to the election as the presence of Dan Morales had done in the past.

In his speech to Hispanic Democratic Caucus at the Texas Democratic Convention at Fort Worth, Texas June 9, 2000, John Sharp stated that the way to beat the Republicans was to put a Hispanic at the top of the ballot in 2002. Mr. Sharp is obviously a man of numbers and as Controller of Texas, Mr. Sharp did a superior job. However, for the Democrats to win Texas, one will have to acknowledge that there are more to the elections than pure math.

Mr. Sharp needs to consider that putting a Hispanic at the top of the Democratic ballot cannot be done without alienating a significant number of White voters. Mr. Sharp was also naive to think that to indirectly suggest that the Hispanic voters influence in the state has superseded the Black vote would not create protests in the Black coalition. It was just thirty years ago that the Blacks finally became a force at the polls. Now Sharp is suggesting that the Black vote is irrelevant in the statewide elections and the Hispanic vote has replaced it. This indicates that the Black vote cannot influence the statewide elections if a Black gubernatorial candidate could be found.

Why did Mr. Sharp disrespect the Blacks in favor of the Hispanics? Is Mr. Sharp saying that the Blacks can never get their relative equal number of voters to vote in the same percentages as the Hispanics? Has Mr. Sharp written off the Black vote? Is Mr. Sharp so naive that he does not know that generally speaking Blacks do not support Hispanic candidates and Hispanics do not support Black candidates?

I do not believe that Mr. Sharp has deliberately disrespected the Black coalition of voters.  I just believe that he is politically naive to the realities of Texas politics.  I believe that Mr. Sharp has potentially ended his political career in Texas with his "Hispanics Rule" plan of action.

Mr. Sharp’s second mistake was to go after Tony Sanchez, Republican blue blood, to be the Democratic candidate for governor. Tony Sanchez who is worth $600 million dollars, was a member of Bush’s Pioneer’s (the largest contributors - $300 thousand from Tony). Now the whole Democratic party has begun to consider Mr. Sanchez the gubernatorial candidate and few party loyalist really understand how this ever happened.

There are several things that Mr. Sharp did not count on when he sought out Mr. Sanchez.  He did not consider the "death threat" letter from Mr. Cuellar and Mr. Sanchez's inability to deal with it. He did not consider Mr. Sanchez past money laundering.  He did not consider that Mr. Sanchez comes from one of the most racist cities in Texas, Laredo (They still fly the Confederate Flag at the Laredo International Airport and there are only about 100 Blacks of non-Hispanic origin living in a city of 200,000.).  He did not consider that Mr. Sanchez would be incapable of making a decision to actually declare his candidacy for governor even with the entire party supporting him.

But the biggest impediment to Mr. Sharp's plan was John WorldPeace who Mr. Sharp could have never anticipated.

John WorldPeace's plan for the resurrection of the Democratic party is for the party to go back to its roots; and those roots are the roots of "equality and justice for all".  The WorldPeace plan is to built a coalition of Blacks, Hispanics, Women and to add to that the teachers, and some of the Christian right and the liberals.  This will account for about  75% of the voter population.  No one can maintain such a coalition except John WorldPeace.  WorldPeace is White and so he will be able to attract both the Hispanic and Black voters.  Women will vote for WorldPeace because of his commitment to allocate half of his political appointments to women.  The teachers will support WorldPeace because he has three degrees from the University of Houston and so is a believer in education and because WorldPeace is the only candidate to commit to a long overdue $2500 across the board raise for teachers and equal rights for teachers with students.  The Christians will be able to relate to WorldPeace's virtual doctoral studies which are on his WorldPeace Peace Page (www.johnworldpeace.com) and his support of displaying the Ten Commandments in the court rooms in Texas.  WorldPeace will naturally attract the liberal vote.

The WorldPeace plan is a democratic plan to empower all of the disenfranchised (Blacks, Hispanics and women) under a platform of "equality and justice for all".  As the tide of equality and justice comes in, all the people are lifted up.

The time is upon us to determine whether the Democratic Party in Texas is going to return to its Democratic roots by endorsing a "equality and justice for all" platform and in addition to ask Marty Akins and Tony Sanchez, the turncoat Republicans, to please exit the gubernatorial race to allow the ultimate Democrat, John WorldPeace, to immediately begin to solidify his Democratic coalition or if the party is going to pursue Mr. Sharp's exclusive platform of Hispanic power to the disrespect of the Black voters who have been the unfailing supporters of the Democrats for decades.

This weekend in Austin, the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats, is having its quarterly meeting and all the candidates for governor and lt. governor are invited.  I hope that Mr. Sharp at that time will admit his mistakes and ask Mr. Sanchez not to run for governor and then join with WorldPeace to rebuild the Texas Democratic Party into the powerhouse it was in the sixties and the seventies.  This is the first event that features all the major statewide candidates in one forum.  It will be the beginning of the campaign for governor.  It can be the rebirth of the Texas Democratic Party.

I hope Mr. Sharp joins me.  Now is not the time to split the party in two.  The Texas Democratic Party must take Texas away from little George and make sure that he will be a one term President like his father Big George Bush.

John WorldPeace

August 22, 2001