What's in a name.. in the controller's race..
First of all, condolences to Council Member MJ Khan, whose father just passed away.
We’re sure it wasn’t intentional, but when fellow Controller candidate Pam Holm sent out a press release expressing her thoughts, she misspelled Khan’s name:
“My thoughts and prayers are with Council Member Kahn in his time of grieving after the passing of his father.”
Like I said, we’re certain it’s not intentional, but misspellings on campaign literature always make people pay attention, and not usually in a good way.
That brings us to the campaign for Controller, which has struggled to gain attention in this snoozer of a campaign season. Enter three candidates, all somewhat familiar with Houston voters because all are current city council members. However, that’s where their similarities end.
M.J. Khan, Pam Holm, and Ronald Green are about as different as they come.
First, there’s M.J. Khan. The successful business man has represented Houston City Council District F for the past few years. Originally from Pakistan, Khan has raised an impressive amount of money for his campaign. With several hundred thousand dollars in the bank, Khan just started running a TV ad this week. If you’ll notice, Khan doesn’t talk in the ad. Instead, he relies on “man on the street” type interviews to drive his point across. This is probably a smart strategy, considering Khan has a pretty heavy accent, and it might be a bit challenging to drive the point across in a 30 second ad.
Let’s move on to Pam Holm, a council member of District G. Holm is the former executive director of Scenic Houston, and is a big proponent of quality of life issues. Like Khan, Holm has also raised several hundred of thousands of dollars. She too, has launched a television ad. In her ad, Holm portrays herself as “watchdog” over the city’s dollars. She recently voted against the City of Houston budget, which is a rarity among council members. She does have a barking dog in the ad, which is either effectively drives the point across or is just extra fluff in a television commercial.
The third and final candidate is also a City Council Member: Ronald Green. Many people in the political circles had expected Green to make a bigger splash, but he hasn’t. A lawyer by trade, he’s raised a surprisingly small amount of money. There is no budget for TV ads, and the campaigning activity has been fairly light, comparatively speaking. This is a fairly big surprise. Green had served for two years as the Chair of the Fiscal Affairs Committee on City Council. That experience is considered an ideal spring board for a Controller seat. After all, he did almost nothing but budgets for two years. However, he has failed to make much hay out of his experience.
Who should you trust to count your city dollars? The real answer is, nobody knows. There is no clear front runner. Green, who many people considered would be far ahead at this point, has made a fairly small dent in the campaign for controller. Meanwhile, Khan and Holm will have to prove that they have the financial knowledge to make things happen. A war chest is nice, the ability to read a spread sheet would be better. Maybe we should give these candidates a math test?
Love the math test idea. Spreadsheets, math tests and budget questions! We can get accountants to administer! What fun!
Posted by: PixieGirl | October 13, 2009 at 06:15 PM
Right, Chuck? RIGHT! WOLF! HAHAHA Hilarious. Cracks me up every time.
Posted by: SCAN | October 13, 2009 at 10:30 PM
Does it matter to anyone that CM Khan doesn't even live I'm Houston? I live down the street from him in Piney Point. I can't beleive that this isn't an issue!
Posted by: Kamal | October 14, 2009 at 09:14 AM
Miya, please clean up your own prose before ripping on Holm's.
Phrases like these should never see print:
"but misspellings on campaign literature always makes (sic) people pay attention"
"Like Khan, Holm has also raised several hundred (sic) of thousands of dollars"
Posted by: Matt Bramanti | October 21, 2009 at 11:38 AM