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Meet Chet Edwards, US Congressman from the TX 17th district which includes Crawford, TX.
I taped his remarks to a crowd at the VFW post in Manchester just last Sunday.
He was stumping in NH with Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) and the focus of the day was vet issues.
Edwards is extremely knowledgeable on Vet issues and a tireless champion for their interests, our interests, in the Congress.
The two have become fast friends in DC as Congressman Edwards, Carol's new BFF down there, is the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and VA (MILCON/VA) and she's trying to get either a full service VA hospital in NH which is currently the only state in the country without one or equivalent care in communities for the state's 130K plus vet residents.
The guy takes a nice picture, no?
Here's the clip at YouTube of his remarks to the Vets on Sunday. The video is extremely dark, my apologies, but the audio comes through loud and clear. He said he was supposed to talk for only 3 minutes but that might end up being a few more with his Texas sized Southern drawl.
Chet Edwards stumps for votes in Manchester, NH (10:01)
The Congressman and maybe our new Veep ended his intro with a great anecdote about losing to Phil Gramm, his former econ professor, by just about 100 votes in his first race for Congress.
And I want to just say that one person can make a difference. I carry a very heavy burden on my life. I want you to know that when I was 26 years old, I had the gall to run against a former economics professor of mine for Congress ...
I lost by 115 votes to a guy named Phil Gramm. I don't want you to have the burden that I've felt since 1978. At least my credibility ought to be good because everything I said about him turned out to be true ... My point is this, if I had had a meeting like this on a Sunday afternoon like this and this many people had gotten one extra person to go to the polls Phil Gramm ladder never would have become law.
Here's the story from the LATimes mentioning Edwards as a possible nominee.
Attention this morning also turned to Texas Rep. Chet Edwards, who represents chunks of central and north Texas including Waco and Crawford, where President George Bush has his ranch. Edwards has been mentioned by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Edwards, 57, has been in the House since 1991 and before that served in the Texas Senate. He is a businessman, specializing in real estate and media, including rural radio stations. He has an MBA from Harvard.
And a news report from NECN about the Veep choice.
I did a CJ report, emphasis C, from the perspective of Carol Shea-Porter and did not focus on Edwards's remarks in that diary. If you'd like to know more about Carol Shea-Porter then you can take a look at last Monday's diary: NH-01 Carol Shea-Porter: "There is no excuse"