LEAGUE CITY — Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida are not the only battlegrounds for Democrats and Republicans.
Party organizers say Galveston County is drawing its share of partisan fights. The county helped elect George W. Bush in 2000, but has a history of voting Democratic in local races.
At the North County Democratic headquarters in League City, which was vandalized late Tuesday night or early Wednesday by vandals wielding a Bush-Cheney bumper sticker, volunteers say their political opponents have been unusually aggressive.
Republicans agree tensions are high, but say the Democrats are picking the fights.
“A Republican wouldn’t waste a sign,” County Republican Chair Chris Stevens said of the bumper sticker placed on the Democratic headquarters window. “They are going to use those where they would make a difference.”
Lifelong Democrat Davied Bond, 64, volunteers at the headquarters and was the one to discover the broken window, discarded tire jack and unwanted bumper sticker Wednesday morning.
“They shattered it just like a spider web — just webs of glass,” he said, of the spot where someone had thrown the tire jack into the top office window. The bumper sticker was placed over the glass door.
Bond has volunteered with Democrats since he was 18, but says this election year has had some of the worst partisan bickering he’s seen in nearly a decade.
County party chairs agree with this — but disagree as to why. Stevens says Galveston County is taking a swing toward the Republican side, and Democrats don’t like this.
“It’s been pretty hostile in a lot of cases because they sense and fear that it’s our year,” he said. “They know they are losing power.”
Tony Buzbee, chair of the Galveston County Democratic Party, dismisses this. His said his side is still upset about the 2000 election controversy in Florida, where Bush beat Democratic candidate Al Gore by 537 votes after the U.S. Supreme Court voted to stop recounts under way in some counties.
“One thing is clear: Bush got the vandal vote in Galveston County,” Buzbee said. “Unfortunately that is not going to be enough to handle the county.”
Beside the presidential race between Bush and Democratic candidate John Kerry, county voters also will cast ballots in races for the tax assessor-collector, sheriff, Precinct 3 county commissioner and 56th District Court judge this November. Democrats hold the majority of elected positions in the county.
The vandalism case is under review by League City police. There are no suspects, but officers took the bumper sticker back to headquarters to dust it for prints.
