I promised Bill Flores that I would go through my blog posts that referred to him and edit, adjust, clarify, or otherwise change anything in them that was either my opinion or false as they relate to the information I had at the time I published the post. To make things easier for the reader and so as to not destroy the continuity of the blog, I am compiling those items in this post, and referencing the original posts to this page.

This has been an exhaustive exercise, and I will reflect upon it and the purpose for it in another post at a later time. Ultimately, I want to simply clarify that all I want to do is have my original questions answered.

Here goes…hope it makes sense!

I have misspelled Louie Gohmert’s name in several places in multiple posts and have attempted to correct them all.

I address the potential misdirection and implications in the headline below.

Potential Errata:

• The following, at the time they were written, should have been more readily identified as rumor:
  • “The plan is for him to spend half-a-million on the race.”
    • My source was confident. It appears the campaign is close to that figure, now.
  • “Expect his television ads to start this weekend.”
    • My source was confident, but wrong. The first ads were just produced.
  • “Yes, this is the same Flores who told party officials back in the early fall that he was getting out…but reserved the right to get back in if Chet Edwards decided to not run for re-election.”
    • This was well-known scuttlebutt throughout the other campaigns and party leaders, with rumors of a letter explaining this. However, I have not seen a letter or heard it directly from any source except the campaign field.

• The following were reported which have since been addressed by Bill Flores:
  • Paragraph beginning: “This is the same Bill Flores who lives in Sugar Land…”
    • I claimed that he lived in Sugar Land because of his campaign contributions to Louie Gohmert in 2009, which listed his Sugar Land address.
      • Flores has since rectified this error in reporting, as I have reported elsewhere.
    • I no longer claim Mr. Flores is a carpetbagger because of this information being corrected.
  • Mr. Flores, by correcting the paperwork at the FEC regarding his donations, has removed the concerns and questions regarding his employment status with Gryphon Exploration that are raised in the post.
• “Let’s put this in layman’s terms – Flores partnered with George Soros in a business deal.”
  • Mr. Flores has addressed this directly in interviews with other media and his campaign radio commercial. Though I believe I was the first to raise this concern, I have not received any direct communication from the campaign about this issue.
  • This may to some readers state with certainty that Mr. Flores was a direct business partner with George Soros. To my knowledge, that is incorrect. There is a tertiary connection Mr. Soros has to investment funds Mr. Flores’ company, Phoenix Exploration, received for startup. Mr. Soros is involved with an investment company that was invited by another investment company that was invited to invest by Phoenix, which was owned by Mr. Flores. There are enough degrees of separation to make this a connection that has no bearing, as I mention in a later post.
• “But look at who he hangs out with and does business deals with. George Soros.”
  • This should have been written better. Perhaps “Consider who it appears Mr. Flores associates with and seemingly does business with: George Soros. Until we know differently, this is a serious consideration in Mr. Flores’ political thinking.”

This paragraph:

Is this the guy you want running Texas District 17? To recap: He lists himself as President of a company that no longer exists when he makes a federal election donation; he is in business with George Soros; he doesn’t live in the district; he supports the established Republican RINOs currently in Washington; he is the NRCC’s guy; he hasn’t been on the trail while others have been for nearly a year; he helped bring Elsa Murano to Texas A&M…and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

asks the reader to make a decision based on information that has since been corrected, for the most part. The facts remaining from the paragraph are “…he supports the established Republican RINOs currently in Washington; he is the NRCC’s guy; he hasn’t been on the trail while others have been for nearly a year; he helped bring Elsa Murano to Texas A&M.”

UPDATE 15 February 2010: Enough information is not readily available to me to make this claim of “helping,” Mr. Flores is quoted after Murano’s resignation about her lack of qualification. Please see the comments below for more.

These sentences:

Do you think he will represent the Conservative Values of Texas District 17? Do you think he will even care?

are based on the carpetbagging charge, which I have rescinded.

Mr. Flores told me he thought I was a class warfare person, which I denied and he said he may be thinking of another blog. So I reiterate my statement in the post here:

That doesn’t bother me because I think the wealthy can do what they want with their money – I plan to.

My post ends with asking the reader to follow the bouncing ball…not an uncommon point on the blog – in fact it is a tag. That’s how I make sure you know that you need to do your own research. I followed the bouncing ball, and, while a majority of my posts on this blog are well-documented in fact, some of my original points on Mr. Flores have proven to be either improper or without the complete story. I have stated some things that may be seen as fact when I intend for them to be known only as my opinion, based on the information I have. Slowly I’m learning …I’m still a cub reporter!

Potential Errata:

I address below the potential misdirection and implications in the headline.

Potential Errata:

• “Soros Funded” may to some readers imply that Mr. Flores’ campaign is being funded by George Soros. To my knowledge, that is incorrect. The headline refers to a tertiary connection Mr. Soros has to investment funds Mr. Flores’ company, Phoenix Exploration, received for startup. Mr. Soros is involved with an investment company that was invited by another investment company that was invited to invest by Phoenix, which is owned by Mr. Flores. There are enough degress of separation to make this a connection that has no bearing, as I mention in a later post.
• “The NRCC is planting their man here” refers to the NRCC’s (National Republican Congressional Committee) recruiting efforts as quoted in the Waco Tribune on December 18, 2009: “NRCC spokesperson Joanna Burgos said Flores was a top recruit for the committee.”

Potential Errata:

I address above the potential misdirection and implications in the headline.

• “The reason the NRCC wants him? He can afford to do it himself.”
  • I do not know this for a fact. However, the NRCC’s track record of supporting candidates in Texas 17 is abysmal. They regularly tell county chairs that funding will come for whomever gets the primary win, and then don’t pony up. They have promised $250,000 to this years winner (I have this on record), and it will be interesting to see if they make good. The NRCC is low on funds because of the mass exodus of Conservative Republicans from the rank and file. It only makes sense, financially, for them to support someone who can self-fund.
  • This is not a statement on wealthy people, good or bad. I repeatedly mention my support for Mr. Flores’ business success throughout this blog. Though it is not a statement of fact, it is a reasonable, logical claim that the NRCC would want someone who can self-finance his own campaign.

Potential Errata:

I address above the potential misdirection and implications in the headline.

• “I’m not intending to be belligerent, I’m just going places someone is going to go eventually. It’s my job as a political strategist to make sure the candidate knows what’s coming before it gets there.”
  • This post asks hard questions, some of which are answered elsewhere on this page, above. Residency and Soros-related questions are answered to my satisfaction, and in this post I have mentioned my favorable attitude towards Mr. Flores and my assumption that there are legitimate answers to the questions.
  • I asked these questions nearly two months ago and was only contacted by the campaign just over a week ago – by the candidate’s son. While I have done my share of mea culpas in this situation, the campaign dropped the ball by not addressing the questions if they were seeing me as a legitimate media source/journalist that others would listen to, as I have been told I am seen by Matt Mackowiak, Campaign Manager.
  • These questions should have been picked up by Mackowiak, as the web site for his company (he isPpresident) clearly states that Vice President

John Reid is a crisis and political communications consultant who works with companies and candidates to identify and effectively address vulnerabilities before they become public liabilities.

Potential Errata:

• “…startup money from George Soros.”
  • This could be clarified better, as in “…startup money funded in part by a company in which George Soros holds interest.”

I address above the potential misdirection and implications in the headline.

Potential Errata:

• “But I do know if he voted in the Democrat primary just last year, he is no friend to the future of my children.”
  • This is hyperbole, as I have mentioned elsewhere. In fact, that post is satirical itself. I have several friends who voted in the Democrat Primary, and they are friends of my children. But they are not friends of my children’s future. If you will waste your vote and not stand on principle, then you are throwing away my children’s future. I don’t find that friendly.
• “If the Local GOPs embrace Flores…no, if the Local GOPs do not specifically shun Flores, I will start to share specific, recorded and well-documented evidence of the liberal infusion into the local GOP power structure. I won’t need to focus on Edwards because they will have thrown the race to him…so I will turn inward and start sharing. Perhaps we really do have to take back our party one-by-one before we can take back our country.”
  • This was an unnecessary threat. The local GOP Leaders know of rogue elements in the county, and I will be sharing that at some time in the future.

This post just sounds mean, as if I really do have some plan to knock Flores out of the race. I don’t. I just want questions answered, but I probably crossed the line here. I do not intend to use my Examiner Blog as a springboard for getting this race national attention…it will reach that by November based solely on Edwards’ prominence in the House Leadership.

I would rewrite this whole post, but it is part of the digital record and I will just allow this comment to suffice as a redaction.

Potential Errata:

• “Soros-backed Candidate Bill Flores”
  • This should have been made more clear, as I mention above regarding the use of Soros’ name in some headlines.

CONCLUSION

I have spent quite some time on this, alone. There were no suggestions from Mr. Flores or anyone from his campaign as to specific posts I had or specific content within any posts that they shared with me as particularly blaring and indicative of an agenda that would be anti-Flores. This is an exercise of my own, which I offered to Mr. Flores as a good faith effort to ensure that he would be given a fair shake in an interview with me.

I do expect some give in return. Mainly, I expect the questions I have posed to be answered. I would prefer them in writing, because the interviews I am conducting with all candidates cover different questions, and I think it important for Mr. Flores to be able to be very clear in his answers to the questions I have posed here. I will post the answers to those questions as soon as I receive them. If the campaign wants them emailed to them instead of picking them off the web site, I would be glad to do that.

Kristofer Cowles has written 306 articles on this blog.

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Kristofer Cowles is the Publisher of American|Writes. Kristofer has been a small business owner since 1981. He is a nationally recognized public speaker known as Mister American focusing on American Exceptionalism. He is a political activist and has consulted on more than thirty-five national level campaigns as well as numerous local and state candidacies. His political work has been featured on Red State and multiple local news outlets. A full listing of Kristofer's involvement is located on the Full Disclosure page of this blog. Kristofer belongs to an elite group of Twitter users as the 780th most prolific Tweeter worldwide having tweeted more than 100,000 times as of November 2011.