Update 2/4: A loyal reader brought this Red State post to my attention. Dated Wed. Feb. 3, the day after the Minnesota precinct caucuses, the note from cjinmn (CJ is one of Cynthia Werner's nicknames, according to her Facebook page) notes:
LT. COL Engstrand is currently under military orders, which prevent him from presenting his personal message today.
This is a very odd thing to say, given that he spoke to Republicans at last night's precinct caucuses in Olmsted County. In addition to the Bluestem account below, the Rochester Post Bulletin reported:
Several candidates for the 1st Congressional District race also turned out, hoping to woo potential delegates. A total of five candidates addressed the crowd. They included state Rep. Randy Demmer, Area business owner and veteran Jim Engstrand, former congressional staffer Jim Hagedorn, Army veteran Frank McKinzie and former state Rep. Allen Quist. [end update]
At last night's GOP precinct caucus's in Rochester, Jim Engstrand supporter Cynthia Werner asked a member of a progressive organization if he would post video footage of the stump speech by latest MN-01 Republican congressional candidate on YouTube.
Having gotten a call about a month ago to come up to Minnesota from Texas to work for the defeat of Congressman Walz, she said she has yet to master the craft of uploading video or using the viral service.
It's a charming anecdote of a request for earned media, and I smiled when a friend passed the story along. The naivete spurred me to learn more about a woman who has come to the North Star State to campaign for one of the newest residents of Minnesota's First Congressional Congressional District. Having returned from a tour of Iraq in the Minnesota National Guard, Engstrand promptly moved from the Second CD to the First in order to seek the Republican endorsement.
That was this morning. The reading material about Cynthia Werner has proven quite interesting, while raising questions about who is behind the Draft Engstrand effort. A local school trustee, Werner herself has been rejected by Texas voters because of her ideology when she sought higher office.
A frequent Republican candidate in the Dallas area, Werner most recently ran for the Texas State Board of Education District (SBOE) 13 seat; the powerful state board manages textbook selection and other tasks. In recent Texas history, the board has become a flashpoint for the culture wars. The Daily News endorsed Werner's opponent, incumbent Mavis Knight, writing:
Democrat Mavis Best Knight deserves re-election to the state Board of Education from District 13. She has experience and a strong, informed point of view. And what of her GOP opponent, Duncanville's Cindy Werner, last heard from in her failed 2006 bid to unseat incumbent state Rep. Yvonne Davis? Who knows; she declined several opportunities to share her views with us on the issues.
Not so Ms. Knight, 62, who for six years has represented District 13, which takes in southern Dallas County and parts of Tarrant County. A longtime education and community activist, Ms. Knight is a strong voice for ethics reform within the educational bureaucracy. More pointedly, she's staked out ground on the board in firm opposition to the social-conservative activist bloc that's turned the state panel into a culture-war battleground in recent years.
This matters because the board sets policies that decide what Texas public school students learn in the classroom and how they are permitted to be taught. The board's political machinations got so bad that the Legislature even had to step in to pull back the activists. Ms. Knight sensibly believes that scientific research and hard data, not hard-line ideology, should guide board decisions on textbooks and related matter. Imagine that.
The state education board needs more members – conservative and liberal – like Ms. Knight, a leader who understands that politics have no place in pedagogy.
(In an ironic twist to this tale, Nicollet County's Allen Quist--also seeking the GOP endorsement in MN01--was nominated, but rejected for the SBOE's “expert” review panel for new public school social studies curriculum standards when former SBOE member Don McElroy could not find a second among his peers on what is arguably one of the most conservative public bodies in the nation).
Werner unsuccessfully ran for Texas House District 111 in 2006. Endorsing her opponent, Yvonne Davis, the Oct. 6 2006 Dallas Morning News observed:
[Davis is] clearly more substantive than her opponent, 47-year-old Duncanville homemaker Cindy Werner. One example: When asked how colleges could fund themselves if lawmakers took back their right to set tuition rates, the Republican replied that she would save money through fewer textbook changes.
Ms. Werner charges her opponent doesn't live in District 111. It's true that Ms. Davis owns a home outside of the district, but records show she's not claiming a homestead exemption there. Ms. Davis insists she lives in a rental home in the district, and her driver's license and voter registration card are based on that residence. Short of evidence to the contrary, we have a difficult time concluding that Ms. Davis is breaking the law.
Ms. Werner did gain election to the Duncanville school board of trustees in May 2007 and currently serves on the board; her term is up in May 2010. No word in the local press if she plans to seek re-election, and a school district spokesman declined to comment about her service, noting that all public information about trustees was posted on the site. According to a news report on the school trustee election, Werner campaigned on her experience as a mother and autism education advocate:
Cynthia Werner, 47, said her education advocacy began when her 24-year-old son, who has autism, started public school.
"Even during that time, I had to fight for programs that were geared toward him," she said. "I decided this was an opportunity for me to give back to the community dealing with my experience dealing with education advocacy work to help our school district."
Ms. Werner, who has a child in fourth grade in a Duncanville school, said she would want a new superintendent who can work well with surrounding cities in the district's boundaries.
"We have to be able to create those relationships outside of our city to ensure we get every dollar that we're entitled to for our school district, for our children's education," she said.
So why did the Morning News later imply that Werner might be a culture warrior? Perhaps it is her involvement with right-of-center groups. For instance, she posted a note supporting Engstrand for congress in MN01 on the discussion board of the Concerned Women of America Facebook page in which she claims that "While he [Engstrand] has been on the frontlines in protecting our freedoms, Walz has been back home subverting them." Werner does not provide details. According to People for the America Way, Concerned Women for America:
describes itself as "the nation's largest public policy women's organization." CWA opposes gay rights, comprehensive sex education, drug and alcohol education, and feminism, while advocating what it calls "pro-life" and "pro-family" values.
Or perhaps it's also the political ambitions of, and cultural warfare conducted by, Werner's spouse, Major Braynard H. "Buck" Werner, executive director of the Christian Coalition of America--Texas Chapter. The organization is a part of the larger national organization.
Like his wife, Buck Werner has entertained dreams of public office; like his wife, he has been rejected at the polls by Texas voters. In a 2006 Republican primary campaign for Texas Railroad Commissioner, Werner's web site included talking points of conservative social issues such as school choice and abortion.
The Fort Worth Star Telegram explained the duties of the Railroad Commissioner and the qualifications of Major Werner's opponent:
The Texas Railroad Commission doesn't have anything to do with railroads, although it once did. What it does do is direct (as the agency itself says) "several regulatory divisions that oversee the Texas oil and gas industry, gas utilities, pipeline safety, safety in the liquefied petroleum gas industry, and the surface mining of coal and uranium."
It helps if the commissioners know and understand the legislative process and the Austin political scene. And that gives an edge to commission Chairwoman Elizabeth Ames Jones, appointed by Gov. Rick Perry in February last year and the third woman to lead the agency in its 114-year history.
Jones can trace her family connection to the oil patch through her father to her grandfather and the East Texas oilfields. She was elected to the Texas House three times out of San Antonio's 121st District before Perry picked her for the commission.
Challenging Jones for the six-year term is retired Army officer Buck Werner of Duncanville, who heads the ROTC program at Kimball High School in Dallas. His military experience includes being a comptroller in the medical branch, and he says this experience would be important in Austin.
Werner says that Texans who are tired of the high cost of gas and heat should vote for him. The problem is that the Railroad Commission only affects the cost of energy in Texas indirectly.
Dealing with rates is the responsibility of the Texas Public Utility Commission. . . ("The What Commission?" Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Feb. 20, 2006, retrieved via Nexis Feb. 3, 2010)
The paper--and all other major Texas papers making endorsements--recommended Jones over Major Werner. Jones won the primary by a landslide. Last year, Major Werner lost a bid for Duncanville City Council member at large. Newspaper accounts listed his occupation as "political consultant." A Fox News report mentions one client, 2008 presidential hopeful Corrogan R. Vaughn:
Corrogan R. Vaughn, 41, of Baltimore is not just relying in the Internet. He has someone other than God for a campaign manager — Braynard Werner, a retired Army major in Texas — and is putting his limousine service business on hold to campaign across the country by car.
As of June 30, Vaughn reported $1,031 raised and $1,000 spent. His campaign is collecting online donations at www.vaughn4america.com, although most of the money still comes from Vaughn's own pocket, Werner said.
Vaughn is also an experienced campaigner. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate from Maryland in 2006 against fellow Republican, Michael Steele. For that contest he raised $1,100 and received 1.2 percent of the vote in the primary.
This campaign is much different, Werner said, in that it is reaching out to a Christian-conservative constituency that was difficult to find in Maryland.
"It is a large voting block."
Vaughn, the son of a Baptist minister, plans to follow a conservative Republican agenda and instill Christian values in the presidency, Werner said.
I'm left wondering what and who brought Ms. Werner--who apparently continues her service as a school trustee in Texas--to Minnesota. Moreover, one wonders why voters in Southern Minnesota are supposed to share the values of a campaign volunteer or field worker whom Texas voters rejected in election beyond the local school board? Ms. Werner appears to be an engaged citizen in her Texas community, however little electoral success she's found beyond her home city--but a resident of Texas. Lt. Col. Engstrand's comrade in arms, quoted in her discussion board note on the CWA Facebook page, lives in Jordan, Minnesota. The returning warrior and candidate himself, moved to the First within the last few weeks. Steele County GOP chair and blogger Dave Thul met Engstrand only days before writing about the candidacy at True North and had not yet settled on the Iraq War veteran at the time of writing the post. Who in the First, then, is drafting Engstrand at this relatively late date? Photo: Team Engstrand organizer Cynthia Werner.
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