Social issues drive education race

Mercer, the incumbent District 5 State Board of Education representative, and Tuggey, the attorney-lobbyist trying to take his seat, both consider themselves conservatives.

They're both 54, each with more than 20 years of business experience in the San Antonio area. They're both products of the military, with Mercer the son of an Army Air Corps veteran and Tuggey a former Army captain.

They even agree about the meaning of their primary campaign, that it's a battle to define the modern Texas Republican Party. That's where the arguments begin.

To hear Mercer tell it, Tuggey is a Republican in name only, a closet liberal who has contributed heavily to Democratic candidates in recent years.

Tuggey concedes he's contributed to a few Democrats (including Congressmen Charlie Gonzalez and Ciro Rodriguez), but argues that he — not Mercer — is the true conservative in the race. He describes local control of education as a core conservative issue, and says Mercer and his Board of Education colleagues have abandoned that principle in favor of “micromanaging” public-education curriculum in Texas with a Christian-right agenda.

Defining differences

Mercer and Tuggey are a study in stylistic contrasts.

Mercer, a project software manager for USAA, favors sweaters and radiates an amiable folksiness, even when he's aiming a verbal dart at his opponent. He repeatedly describes Tuggey as “a nice enough gentleman” and follows his anecdotes with self-deprecating asides about his own tendency to ramble.

Tuggey, a former chairman of VIA Metropolitan Transit Authority, wears suits and ties, and is crisp and careful with his words. He fits the profile of what party populists derisively call a “country-club Republican,” someone who believes in free markets but has little patience for moral crusades.