{"id":255,"date":"2004-10-11T22:13:52","date_gmt":"2004-10-12T03:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=255"},"modified":"2004-10-11T22:16:09","modified_gmt":"2004-10-12T03:16:09","slug":"poll-sessions-slightly-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=255","title":{"rendered":"Sessions Slightly Ahead for Texas Seat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Texas&#8217; recent redistricting has left two current congressmen, Pete Sessions and Martin Frost, slugging it out against each other in a bitterly-contested affair.  A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestate.com\/mld\/thestate\/news\/special_packages\/election2004\/9894743.htm\">poll released today shows Sessions holding a lead<\/a> only three weeks before the election.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions is slightly ahead of his Democratic rival, U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, in one of the nation&#8217;s most watched congressional races, according to a newspaper poll of likely voters.<\/p>\n<p>Sessions has 50 percent to Frost&#8217;s 44 percent in the survey, which polled 800 likely voters last week for The Dallas Morning News. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Pollsters randomly selected 32nd Congressional District households with published telephone numbers. The survey was conducted by Iowa-based public opinion firm Selzer &#038; Co.<\/p>\n<p>Frost, Texas&#8217; most senior congressman, was forced to run in Sessions&#8217; Republican-leaning district after Republicans decimated Frost&#8217;s district in off-year political remapping.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Frost immediately attacked the poll, contending it undersampled hispanics, who represent over a third of the district&#8217;s population.<\/p>\n<p>Representative of the animosity shown throughout this campaign, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chron.com\/cs\/CDA\/ssistory.mpl\/politics\/2842070\">Frost camp called Sessions a hypocrite for streaking thirty years ago<\/a> as a college freshman.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Democrats today circulated old newspaper clippings of a 1974 college streaking stunt staged by hundreds of students at Southwest Texas State University, including an 18-year-old Pete Sessions.<\/p>\n<p>Sessions, a conservative Republican who wrote a column condemning Janet Jackson&#8217;s nude display during this year&#8217;s Super Bowl halftime performance, apparently bared his bottom with about 300 male and female students on the streets of San Marcos during the two-night rampage.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Sessions&#8217; campaign isn&#8217;t denying the congressman&#8217;s public nudeness.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Congressman Sessions&#8217; old school days are long gone,&#8221; said Sessions&#8217; spokesman Chris Homan. &#8220;He recognizes it as an immature action of an 18-year-old college freshman.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But Frost&#8217;s campaign is holding Sessions&#8217; bare bod to the fire.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Pete Sessions exposed himself to children and strangers,&#8221; said Frost spokesman Justin Kitsch. &#8220;He&#8217;s exposed himself as a hypocrite as well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sessions&#8217; spokesman dismissed the comparison of Sessions&#8217; juvenile acts to those of Jackson, who revealed her breast in front of millions of Super Bowl watchers at the finale of a halftime performance with singer Justin Timberlake.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t exactly the kind of exposure the four-term Republican wants in the final three weeks of a tight race with Frost, a 13-term Democrat. The two incumbents are battling for Republican-leaning Dallas area District 32 in what is expected to be the most expensive race in the country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There has been much silliness of this sort, as well as more serious allegations, by both sides in this contest.  However, decades-old college frivolity is not going to alter Session&#8217;s poll lead.  As a resident of a nearby district who actually works within the confines of the 32nd, I&#8217;m going to go out on a limb and predict that Sessions will carry the day on Nov. 2. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Texas&#8217; recent redistricting has left two current congressmen, Pete Sessions and Martin Frost, slugging it out against each other in a bitterly-contested affair. A poll released today shows Sessions holding a lead only three weeks before the election. U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions is slightly ahead of his Democratic rival, U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, in one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-texas-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}