Dear Friends,

If you ever ran for class vice-president and lost, you know about the agony of defeat.  Having lost my bid for the Democratic nomination for State Representative, I’ve gone through all the stages of loss:  first a few days of grief and disbelief, then a week or so of feeling sorry for myself, followed by the cold realization that no one else in the world, including my most ardent supporters, are taking this electoral setback to be as great a catastrophe as I am.

Having regained something of a rational perspective, I’m now prepared to provide as objective an analysis of what happened as I can.  For starters, we were plagued with the bad luck of having party headquarters give out the wrong phone number for me in January. The El Paso Times used that as an excuse for not even contacting me before endorsing my opponent, and the Newspaper Tree failed to reach me with a questionnaire for their voters’ guide.  The fact that my home phone is publicly listed in the phone book and contact information was readily available on my web site was no corrective to these media outlets that pride themselves on their investigative reporting.

While annoying, the above slights were much less important than the fact that Texas unexpectedly became hotly contested in the Democratic Primary for President, and voter turnout was 3 times greater than before. My strategy was based on mailing to households that had voted in previous primaries, so I reached only a third of the people who went to the polls.  My opponent – a 27-year old lawyer who ran proudly on nothing but his father’s name and the fact that he had recently decided to stay in El Paso instead of moving to Cleveland – reached more of the actual voters.

I lost the election because I was not prepared for the unexpected; and successful candidates find a way to overcome the unexpected.  The responsibility for my loss therefore lies squarely with me.  It was a hard lesson learned, but I assure you that it was learned. 

On the bright side, I feel honored that almost 5000 people voted for me – more votes than the incumbent, Pat Haggerty, received in losing his Republican Primary election to Dee Margo, and more votes than Hillary Clinton got in the Wyoming caucuses.

What I do in the future depends on what happens in the fall general election, and how the winner performs in the Legislature next year.  In the meantime, I intend to increase my community involvement, become a social services volunteer, deepen my understanding of what local and state government can do to help us help ourselves, and continue to speak out on the issues like health care and tax reform that I tried to raise in the primary campaign. 

Win or lose, one of the truly gratifying effects of running for public office is seeing how many people really believe that our imperfect system of democracy can ultimately do the right thing.  I am deeply grateful for the support that all of you extended to me, and I pledge that I will keep working to see that your faith in our democratic system is justified.

Yours sincerely,

 Louis Irwin

Political ad paid for by the Louis Irwin Committee, Carol Irwin, Treasurer,
600 Skydale Dr, El Paso, TX 79912