KHOU-11’s Doug Miller covers the Dan Patrick senate/radio campaign:
Patrick’s show has always promoted his conservative political views. But now, he’s also using public airwaves to promote himself as a candidate, and that bothers other candidates and campaigns.
“You know, Dan has said, ‘I’m not going to use my show as a front for my campaign.’ He’s already had to apologize for doing that. And you just have to wonder if there’s any other part of his programming that’s contrived,” said Jim McGrath, spokesman for Joe Nixon For Senate Campaign.
Just last week, one of Patrick’s callers accused one of his opponents of assault. “Screaming at me, red in the face,” the female caller said.
“I said I’m not going to run a negative campaign and letting a caller say something negative about a candidate, even ‘Well, he threatened to hit me and I was ,’ “No! You’re kidding me!” and she said ‘No. No. I’m not,” said Patrick.
Patrick later spent more than three minutes apologizing to his listeners. “This is what we’re gonna do,” he began.
“It’s my job and I’ve been very fair on the air. I haven’t been running down my opponents. I haven’t been talking about my race on the air every day. I’m doing my job,” Patrick says.
Patrick’s job has always involved promoting himself (and his causes). It’s just taken a slightly different turn of late.
