Bentsen, who has always drawn challengers, called this year's matchup against Sudan the toughest he's ever been in. A late mail piece by Sudan sent to voters in the district managed to unearth both a photo of a much younger-looking Bentsen dressed as Fidel Castro and also news of a drunken driving arrest back when Bentsen was in his 20s. It's never about subtlety at the end of a campaign. Of course, drunken driving revelations lost their currency in this year's election. Following news of Bush's drunken driving arrest in 1976 and conservative Christian activist Steven Hotze's drunken driving arrest last month, it is now in poor taste for local Republicans to raise drunken driving as a campaign issue.
Pollsters say negative campaigning almost never hurts the candidate who indulges.
Although voters say they don't like it, it rarely seems to turn voters against the candidate who goes negative. Still, it's difficult to break down the results in the 25th District race without at least considering the impact of all Sudan's negative advertising. Although Bentsen did his fair share, Sudan's was more prominent given his funding and, on balance, more vitriolic. It's notable that Sudan ended up with a lower percentage of the vote than another big-spending Republican, Gene Fontenot, whom Bentsen defeated when he first won the seat in 1994.