Posts Tagged ‘Endorsements’

Texas Election Roundup For February 28, 2024

Wednesday, February 28th, 2024

I hadn’t intended to use so much of this week talking about Texas elections, but a lot of news is dropping and the primary looms next week, so let’s tuck in:

  • Vegas bets on Dade Phelan.

    After mainly remaining on the sidelines ahead of the primary, casino companies seeking to turn Texas into a piggy bank are spending big to back the current House Speaker and his allies.

    Chief among these out-of-state interlopers is Las Vegas Sands, giving through its “Texas” Sands PAC. The largest beneficiary of Sands’ money in the latest filing period is embattled House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont).

    The casino outfit gave $200,000 to the Speaker, his second-largest donation in the latest filing period. Another gambling behemoth, Penn Entertainment Inc., gave Phelan $20,000. The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma donated $10,000.

    Gambling special interests have long targeted Texas but have been rebuffed for decades following failed promises of the Texas Lottery. During the 2023 legislative session, the Texas House advanced gambling measures that the Texas Senate ignored.

    In this latest period, Sands gave $1.8 million to Texas politicians. This money went exclusively to members of the Texas House, with Republicans taking $1.34 million and Democrats $457,500. This is potentially a preview of a deluge of money that big gambling may spend in the lead-up to the 2025 legislative session.

    State Rep. John Kuempel (R-Seguin), a key proponent of growing the gambling footprint in Texas, received the second-highest total from Sands at $110,000. Like Phelan, Keumpel finds himself up against a field of challengers, including Alan Schoolcraft who enjoys the endorsement of Gov. Greg Abbott and heavy financial backing.

  • Speaking of Phelan, it seems that a state agency paid millions in above-market rates for real estate rental to Phelan’s company.

    Texas Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi says the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) has paid a company House Speaker Dade Phelan manages three times the market value.

    On February 16, 2023, an exclusive Texas Scorecard investigative report examined a lease between HHSC and 3105 Executive, LLC—a company Phelan and members of the Phelan family manage and direct. From December 2017 to December 2023, state taxpayers paid this company $2.3 million through HHSC. The original lease ran from January 2014 to December 2023 but has been extended to August 2029. Phelan was first elected to the Texas House in 2014 and began serving in 2015. He was elected Speaker by fellow House members in 2021.

    On February 17, Rinaldi took to social media platform X, noting that the 2023 rent HHSC paid Phelan is three times the market value.

    “This looks like a $268,000 windfall to the Speaker’s business paid for money appropriated by the House, which is a big deal,” he wrote. “My next question would be how many other income streams are there like this one?”

  • President Trump just endorsed a bunch more Texas candidates.

    Trump endorsed the following House candidates:

    • Brent Money for House District 2, a seat only recently filled by Jill Dutton in a special election
    • Joanne Shofner, who is challenging State Rep. Travis Clardy (R-Nacogdoches) for House District 11
    • Steve Toth (R–Conroe), who is the current representative for House District 15
    • Janis Holt, who is challenging State Rep. Ernest Bailes (R-Shepherd) for House District 18
    • Gary Gates (R–Richmond), who is the current representative for House District 28
    • Wes Virdell for House District 53, which is an open seat following the retirement of State Rep. Andrew Murr (R-Junction)
    • Hillary Hickland, who is challenging State Rep. Hugh Shine (R-Temple) for House District 55
    • Stormy Bradley, who is challenging State Rep. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo) for House District 72
    • Don McLaughlin for House District 80, which is an open seat following the retirement of Tracy King (D-Uvalde)
    • John Smithee (R–Amarillo), who is the current representative for House District 86
    • Caroline Fairly for House District 87, which is an open seat following the retirement of Four Price (R-Amarillo)
    • Barry Wernick, who is challenging State Rep. Morgan Meyer (R-Dallas) for House District 108

    Bailes, Darby, Shine, and Meyer all voted to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton—a close ally of Trump. Gates also voted for impeachment but later apologized and contributed $15,000 to Paxton’s campaign fund.

    Bailes, Darby, Clardy, and Shine all voted against Gov. Greg Abbott’s school choice program. Abbott has endorsed Trump’s 2024 presidential bid.

    Money, Virdell, Hickland, and Bradley have also been endorsed by Gun Owners of America.

    A consensus is forming among a broad front of Republicans (Trump, Abbott, Patrick and Paxton) on who to vote for on Tuesday, and Phalen’s pals ain’t it.

  • And Paxton is out on the campaign trail supporting challengers to the Phelan-aligned reps who voted for his impeachment.
  • State Rep. Gary VanDeaver Faces Stiff Challenge One Decade After Ousting Previous Incumbent.”

    Ten years into his career in the Texas House, state Rep. Gary VanDeaver (R-New Boston) now faces the very same challenge he mounted a decade ago — a newcomer hoping to unseat an incumbent.

    VanDeaver faces two challengers — the Gov. Greg Abbott-backed Chris Spencer and Attorney General Ken Paxton-backed Dale Huls — in his bid for a sixth term in the Legislature.

    He is one of 15 House Republicans seeking re-election who voted both for Paxton’s impeachment last May and to strip education savings accounts (ESA) from the House education omnibus bill last November, and for those he’s become a top target. Abbott and the pro-school choice groups wading into Texas House races have an eye toward flipping the seat, and Paxton is bent on exacting retribution.

    Snip.

    VanDeaver is in a dogfight, primarily against Spencer, the former chairman of the Sulphur Springs River Authority who loaned himself $300,000 at the campaign’s outset and is benefitting greatly from outside money.

    According to ad buy data provided to The Texan from Medium Buying, a national GOP placement agency, Spencer and the groups backing him have reserved $116,000 of ad space on cable and broadcast television from Monday through the election next week. That dwarfs the $12,000 spent by VanDeaver’s camp during the same period.

    Most of Spencer’s ad space was purchased either by Abbott’s campaign or the School Freedom Fund, a PAC affiliated with the national group Club for Growth.

    As of the eight-day reporting period, VanDeaver has $450,000 cash-on-hand after raising $684,000 from January 26 through February 24. During that same period, Spencer raised $257,000 and has $166,000 left on hand. Huls is far behind the other two with $16,000 raised and $7,000 remaining in the bank.

  • A brief look at Republican ballot propositions.
  • Ted Cruz Picks Up Two Notable Endorsements

    Tuesday, February 16th, 2016

    Ted Cruz has picked up plenty of notable endorsements in his race for President, but today he picked up endorsements from two very notable men:

  • Towering free market economist and writer Thomas Sowell:

    Senator Ted Cruz has been criticized in this column before, and will undoubtedly be criticized here again. But we can only make our choices among those actually available, and Senator Cruz is the one who comes to mind when depth and steadfastness come to mind.

    As someone who once clerked for a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he will know how important choosing Justice Scalia’s replacement will be. And he has the intellect to understand much more.

  • Congressional Medal of Honor winner Sgt. Dakota Meyer:

    “This election is a turning point for our country,” said Meyer. “In these dangerous times we need a strong, principled conservative in the White House. We need a Commander-in-Chief who works with our allies and makes it known that certain actions against the United States and its allies will not be tolerated. I am confident that Ted Cruz has the ability and resolve to be Commander-in-Chief. His record of standing up and fighting for what he believes in shows that he is not someone who buckles under pressure. Ted is ready to led this country – and I look forward to help uniting conservatives and veterans behind this campaign.”

  • I note in passing that Sowell is 85, and Meyer is 27…

    National Review Endorses Ted Cruz

    Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

    Yesterday, I endorsed Ted Cruz. Today National Review did the same. Coincidence?

    Almost certainly!

    After all, it was hardly a surprise given the cover issue treatment they already gave him. But it’s good to be ahead of the curve, if only for one day. And their endorsement is well worth reading:

    To borrow a phrase from baseball, Cruz is what one might call a “five-tool” candidate: He is good on the Constitution, on the economy, on social issues, and on foreign policy, and he possesses the intellect and rhetorical gifts to combine these views into a clear, cogent, and compelling conservative vision for America.

    BattleSwarm Blog Endorses Ted Cruz for United States Senator

    Monday, April 30th, 2012

    Lawrence Person’s BattleSwarm Blog endorses Ted Cruz for United States Senator. I believe that Cruz is the best candidate, that he has the longest, strongest, and deepest commitment to conservative principles among all the candidates running, and that he will make the best United States Senator for Texas.

    Because I strive to be both fair and clear, I want to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of all the other Republican candidates in the race, and why I believe Ted Cruz is the superior choice for Senator.

    Let’s dispense with the candidates that didn’t run serious campaigns: Dr. Joe Agris never bothered to even put up a website and never campaigned beyond an event appearance or two; I can only assume his run is a way to advertise his medical practice. Ben Gambini did little better, only managing a Facebook page and a few events. Curt Cleaver at least made some effort, but not enough to make an impression,

    Lela Pittenger ran a semi-serious campaign, raising some money and appearing at numerous events, but I always got the impression that she was running more for ego than to take principled positions at odds with the more prominent candidates. Plus I never got the impression she put in the sustained effort into the nitty gritty, unglamorous work that a real longshot candidate has to in order to have any chance of succeeding.

    With all but one of the longshots dispensed with (we’ll get to him further down), let’s turn to the major candidates.

    Given how heavily favored he was coming into this race, it’s shocking how poor a job Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst has done campaigning.

    To be sure, Dewhurst has many strengths, but two of his strongest (name recognition and personal wealth) play no role in my deciding who to endorse. And while I’m impressed with his U.S. Air Force service and his business acumen in amassing a $200+ million fortune, both of those attributes must take a very distant backseat to his decade-long record as Lt. Governor.

    Some of Dewhurst’s record is worthy of praise. While other state governments have spent money like drunken sailors in a Thai whorehouse using George Soros’ stolen credit card, Texas, under Governor Rick Perry and Lt. Governor Dewhurst, has generally controlled spending, has balanced the budget without raising taxes (though some of that has been accomplished through gimmicks), and actually reduced the state budget for the 2012-2013 biennium compared to the 2010-2011 budget. What share of credit does Lt. Governor Dewhurst take for this achievement? A fair amount. While constrained both by the overall direction of the Governor’s Office of Budget, Planning, and Policy, and by the Comptroller’s revenue estimates, the Lt. Governor has considerable control over the process by virtue not only of his oversight of the day-to-day affairs of the state senate, but also his ability to essentially pick half the seats on the Legislative Budget Board, which has a large hand in establishing and managing budget priorities.

    This, and his efforts at shepherding through the (constitutionally required) 2003 redistricting are among the primary reasons Dewhurst has been considered a conservative. And I have defended Dewhurst from charges he was a RINO in the past. Dewhurst occupies that vast gray area between real RINOs such as Arlen Specter and Charlies Crist and true movement conservatives; call him a “big business Republican,” the sort of guy who will defend the free market 90% of the time, but won’t let anything like principles stand in the way of doing favors for well connected friends. (That would also explain why, though he has mostly contributed to Republican candidates, he did make two donations to Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen.) I fear that Dewhurst is probably the most amenable of all the candidates of signing on with the sort of “grand compromise” that gets praised by the press for selling out conservatives rather than fighting to shrink the size and scope of the federal government.

    There’s been real dissatisfaction with Dewhurst among movement conservatives for years. Despite having controlling majorities in both House and Senate, conservative Republicans found their agenda being thwarted in many ways great and small by Dewhurst in the Senate and Speaker Joe Straus in the House:

  • Dewhurst, much more than Perry, has been willing to compromise on higher spending levels.
  • Dewhurst floated the idea of a “Payroll Tax” that Cruz has characterized (I think correctly) as a stealth income tax.
  • Last year Dewhurst floated the idea of raiding the Rainy Day Fund until Perry put his foot down and ruled it out.
  • Dewhurst has frequently chosen Democrats and moderate Republicans as committee chairmen.
  • Dewhurst has frequently compromised on conservative legislative priorities even when he didn’t have to. To be sure, part of his job description is hammering out compromises, but he has frequently seemed to seek out such compromises as a first resort, rather than the last.
  • Numerous insider accounts attest that Dewhurst personally killed Dan Patrick’s anti-TSA groping bill, choosing to knuckle under to the Obama Administration’s empty threats of stopping all air traffic to Texas rather than making liberals defend idiotic practices that are deeply unpopular with the public at large.
  • All this was bad enough, but his lackluster campaign and poor public speaking skills have given even more reasons for voters to look elsewhere. The Cruz campaign was right to ding Dewhurst for his repeated failures to show up at numerous candidate debates and forums across the country, but the Belo debate went a long way toward showing why exactly why Dewhurst has been avoiding such events: He’s not a good debater, he doesn’t seem to think quickly on his feet, and he seemed to grow worse and more confused as the night went on. Frankly, he didn’t seem up to the job.

    Then there’s the issue of his indifference or even hostility to both new media and grassroots conservative activism. The fact that Dewhurst was the only major Republican senate candidate not only unable to find time to sit down for an interview for this blog, but whose campaign even failed to even respond to repeated requests, is only a minor concern (after all, people are busy). But it’s emblematic of the larger issue of Dewhurst’s indifference to new media, the Tea Party, and voters. You can bash Obama failures all day, but that won’t make you stand out from any other Republican candidate in the entire country. Dewhurst is an insider, establishment Republican who seems to have made zero effort to reach out to Tea Party voters.

    This quote from Tea Party 911 blogger Barry Schlech neatly encapsulates what many Texas conservatives think about Dewhurst:

    There is not a lot of tea party support for Mr. Dewhurst because of his more liberal Republican views. He has probably sensed this animosity since he has been unavailable for or a “no-show” at many of the tea party events to which he was invited. He is seen, by many, to represent the “good ol’ boy moderate to liberal Republican establishment that is well entrenched in Austin. He is seen as a close ally to House Speaker Joe Straus whom the tea party does not respect. Many tea partiers are not happy with this liberal Republican clique in Austin and want to change to a more representative and more conservative legislature.

    All that said, David Dewhurst has some real strengths. He’s good at making and cultivating business and cultural connections, good at managing the intricacies of the legislative agenda, good at finding compromises and building consensus, and good at the backslapping minutia of legislative interpersonal relationships. Unfortunately, those are precisely the qualities I’m not looking for in my Senator. I don’t want a negotiator, I want a conservative fighter. I want someone to fight for shrinking the size and scope of the federal government and reign in insanely bloated federal spending, not manage it better. There are quite enough get-along-to-go-along compromisers in the senate already; we don’t need another one.

    There are no areas in which I think David Dewhurst would do a better job than Ted Cruz in the Senate, but many in which I think he would perform markedly worse.

    Speaking of people who I just don’t think are up to job, let’s talk about Craig James. James has a lot of strengths: he’s handsome, charismatic, personable, and has done very well for himself in his post-NFL business career. Politically James’ heart seems to be in the right place, he seems considerably more authentic and less calculated than Dewhurst, and his decision to release several years of his own tax returns was a savvy move for increased transparency the other candidates were forced to emulate. James seems to have awakened politically to the numerous problems facing the nation and how far we’ve drifted from a constitutional republic of enumerated powers. That’s a great first step on your political journey.

    Unfortunately, the next step in that journey is not “Run for the United States Senate.” The second step is to read widely, broadly and deeply of both classic and modern political thought. The Constitution and The Bible are great first steps, but you should also read The Federalist Papers and Democracy in America and The Wealth of Nations and The Road to Serfdom and Economics in One Lesson and The Gulag Archipelago and The Black Book of Communism and Darkness at Noon and Up From Liberalism and Conscience of a Conservative and Losing Ground and Liberal Fascism and, yes, Atlas Shrugged, even if you object to Ayn Rand’s anti-religious bias. Start there, keep reading, and soon you’ll have the intellectual underpinnings to deepen and articulate your views. (It would also help you get beyond the irritatingly vague and platitudinous nature of your answers on any issues that go beyond your standard talking points.)

    James doesn’t have that intellectual depth yet, and the fact that he hadn’t even heard of the Posse Comitatus Act is emblematic of his inexperience. His problems are compounded by his late start and his background. If you start out as a professional football player and then move into sports broadcasting, you’re going to have to work twice as hard to convince people that you have the intellectual acumen to run for public office. (Jack Kemp worked very hard at establishing his policy credentials.) James’ problem is compounded by his unwise decision to declare he was living on “Real Street” as his campaign’s central rhetorical motif. Craig, you were a professional football player and broadcaster. It doesn’t matter how many mayonnaise sandwiches you ate in your hardscrabble youth, the voting public at large is never going to believe an ex-NFL player/broadcaster is living on “real street,” no matter how hard you try or how many jobs you create as a businessman. Give it up.

    Craig James isn’t ready to be Senator. Could he “skill up” to be electable a few years down the road, once the Texas Tech controversy has faded? Very possibly, though more likely at the congressional than senatorial level. (Let’s face it, when the bar starts at Sheila Jackson Lee, there are few non-incarcerated Republicans that aren’t up to the task.)

    I’ll give this to Tom Leppert: When this campaign started, I really didn’t see myself ranking him higher than just about any of the declared candidates (which at the time included Roger Williams, Michael Williams, and Elizabeth Ames Jones) or Dewhurst. Leppert is intelligent, he’s dogged, he’s a very good one-on-one retail politician, he doesn’t make many mistakes, he’s assembled a campaign team second only to Cruz’s in their competence and grasp of new media, and he has much better stage presence than Dewhurst.

    So given all that, and Leppert’s solid conservative policy positions on a wide range of issues, why doesn’t he rank higher? Mainly because until October 13, 2010, when Leppert endorsed Rick Perry in the gubernatorial race, Leppert gave absolutely no public sign that he was even a Republican, much less a conservative Republican. Before he started running for mayor, Leppert was just another rich guy whose campaign contributions went to people on both sides of the aisle, including contributions to Democrats like Texas Senate candidate Ron Kirk in 2002, Hawaii’s incumbent Senator Daniel K. Inouye in 1992 and again in 1998, and congressional contender (and later Honolulu mayor and member of Bloomberg’s gun-grabbing Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition) Muliufi Francis Hannemannin in 1990.

    While running for mayor of Dallas in 2007, Leppert:

  • Sought the endorsement of the left-wing SEIU public employees union:

    When he first ran for Mayor, as a moderate and a supporter of working men and women, he was pro-SEIU, pro-public employees organizing, pro-collective bargaining.

    So committed to these ideals was Tom, that he vigorously pursued SEIU’s endorsement.

    So committed to these ideals was Tom, that he came to our union organizing launch in the Water Department — encouraging folks to join SEIU.

    So committed to these ideals was Tom, he frequently threw on an SEIU T-shirt and came to our union hall.

    So committed to these ideals was Tom, that he wrote a letter of support to Senator West and testified in favor of SEIU members getting a form of collective bargaining.

    Tom even signed an SEIU membership card!

    Now, that Tom wants to compete in a Republican primary, he has renounced his support of unions and even has the gall to declare he “has expanded the Right to Work.”

  • Sought the endorsement of far left pressure group ACORN, who have been quite busy committing voter fraud in Texas and elsewhere.
  • Did the same thing with the Dallas gay community, marching in their parades while running for mayor of Dallas, only to reverse course when he decided to run for the senate. “After being in office and reaching out to the gay community, he then basically turned his back and slapped us in the face because it was politically expedient to do so.”
  • And that’s just while running for mayor. His record as Mayor of Dallas has just as many question marks on both conservative and good governance grounds:

  • Why did he push so hard for the Trinity Toll Road to be situated inside a flood plain rather than outside it, against the wishes of the Army Corps of Engineers, driving up costs in the process? (The initial cost was estimated at $400 million; it’s now projected at $2 billion, and the construction still hasn’t started.)
  • Why did he push so hard for the city to spend $550 million for a city-owned hotel?
  • What role did the now-dead Lynn Flint Shaw (Leppert’s treasurer during his mayoral campaign) and Willis Johnson play in steering minority contracts under the Leppert Administration?
  • And there are at least two or three other big question marks about Leppert’s term as mayor. Indeed, one sign of how controversial that term was is how rarely he talks about it on the campaign trail, where he puts his business background first and foremost, as though his four years as mayor of Texas’ third largest city never happened.

    The least charitable explanation for Tom Leppert’s behavior is that he’s a pure political animal with no core ideological beliefs other than being elected. The most charitable explanation is that he’s been a “secret conservative” all along, and was just waiting for the opportunity to proclaim to the world what he actually believes. My own suspicion is that he, like Dewhurst, fits neatly into the “get along to go along” establishment Republican mold. Like Dewhurst, I doubt Leppert would be notably more conservative as a senator than the departing Kay Baily Hutchison. That’s not good enough.

    But even if he were a “secret conservative” all these years, why would I prefer him to someone like Ted Cruz who’s never been afraid to proclaim and defend conservative principles throughout the entirety of his career?

    So that takes care of all the major candidates besides Cruz. But there’s still one candidate we haven’t covered. If I weren’t voting for Cruz, I would probably cast my vote for Glenn Addison.

    Though a relative unknown, Addison has probably worked harder than any other candidate on the campaign trail, he’s well-spoken with a certain folksy charm, and he’s run a serious campaign in every aspect except funding. With his energy and effort, he could easily be a successful candidate in a down-ballot race.

    Addison has staked out strong conservative positions on just about every issue, but there are a few I disagree with. I oppose his desire to sanction China for currency manipulation (protectionism is still loser economics). His evidently friendliness with the John Birch Society (there’s a reason William F. Buckley, Jr. felt compelled to cast them out of the respectable ranks of the conservative movement) is not a plus. And the few areas that I do prefer his policies over Cruz (eliminating the EPA and the Departments of Education and Energy, for example) are ones which have absolutely no chance of being passed in the near future. Which doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be pushed for…

    If Ted Cruz were not in the race, I would vote for Addison knowing that he would probably be creamed by Dewhurst.

    Fortunately, Ted Cruz is in the race.

    Early on there was debate whether Cruz or Michael Williams was the best Tea Party candidate for the seat. Cruz won that “Tea Party Primary” so decisively that Williams dropped out. Not only is Cruz the unquestioned Tea Party representative, he is the one with the broadest and deepest conservative background. While the phrase “Ivy League Trial Lawyer” is technically accurate, you don’t specialize in 9th and 10th Amendment studies because you want to be rich, and you don’t work at the Texas Public Policy Foundation if you want moderate Republicans to consider you one of their own. Cruz is not only exceptionally sharp, an excellent debater and a gifted public speaker, he’s also a classic fusionist candidate with both strong free market and social conservative credentials, and fits the definition of the rightmost electable candidate in the race.

    Don’t buy the MSM consensus wisdom that Dewhurst is invulnerable because he’s rich. There are lots of “unbeatable” politicians who have been knocked off by lesser-known challengers. Ed Koch was a shoe-in for Governor of New York until he ran into Mario Cuomo. Charlie Crist was going to mop the floor with Marco Rubio until he didn’t. George H. W. Bush looked invulnerable heading into 1992. Despite Dewhurst’s numerous advantages, he hasn’t been able to poll above 50% and Cruz has been steadily eating into his lead. I’ve had relatives who aren’t nearly as politically aware as I express unbidden how impressed they are with Cruz. The grassroots excitement about Cruz is not only palpable here in Texas, but among conservative and Tea Party organizations across the country, with conservative senate stalwarts like Jim DeMint and Rand Paul eager to help Cruz join their ranks.

    I believe Ted Cruz is far and away the best best candidate in the race, and I urge all my Texas readers to cast their votes for him as the next United States Senator from Texas in the Republican primary.

    BattleSwarm Blog endorses Larry Gonzales in the House District 52 Runoff

    Thursday, April 8th, 2010

    Lawrence Person’s BattleSwarm Blog endorses Larry Gonzales over John Gordon in the House District 52 Republican Primary runoff on April 13th. I believe that Gonzales is the better candidate, will have a better chance of winning against Diana Maldonado, and will be a better Representative in the Texas House than Gordon would.

    Because both Gonzales and Gordon have been unfailing courteous about answering my questions, I want to make clear that I’m making this decision without any animosity and based solely on the facts at my disposal. I do not know either gentlemen personally, I am not privy to the inner workings of the Williamson County Republican Party, and have no knowledge about either that cannot be gleaned from receiving their campaign literature and searching the internet. And because Gordon has been so cooperative, I feel it only fair to explain the reasons for my decision, and especially which factors were and were not important in making it.

    The relative ideological beliefs of the two candidates was not a deciding factor. I do believe that Gordon is genuinely conservative, and should he win the nomination, I would vote for him over Maldonado. I believe that Gonzales is also a solidly conservative candidate, and I find the political differences between them fairly minor. In fact, on two of the issues Gordon points out as differences between himself and Gonzales (opposition to an RRISD bond election, and opposition to public sports subsidies), I would support the same position as Gordon. (On a third, the extension of drinking hours, being of a generally libertarian disposition I would have supported the same postion Gonzales did; I do not think government should have any role saving people from themselves). It is possible that Gordon might, say, pull the voting lever in the state house how I would 95 times out of a hundred, while Gonzales might only pull it how I would vote 93 times out of a hundred. This is, to my mind, too small a difference to worry over.

    The recent mailers and the information on http://www.thetruejohngordon.com were not themselves decisive, in that they largely contained information I already knew. Indeed, since I’m endorsing his opponent, I would like to take the opportunity to bend over backwards to clarify which items were not a factor in my decision:

    • I’m not particularly bothered by the Randy Staudt lawsuit. Granted, I would be unlikely to do paying work for a close friend, and if I did anything more than a trivial amount of it, I’d certainly get a written contract. (The famous saying is that “A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”) But if someone owed me $7,000, much less $24,000, you bet I would eventually take them to court if they didn’t pay up, friend or not.
    • Assuming Gordon’s account is correct, I approve of the lawsuit he filed against Round Rock ISD, as I do not feel any government entity should feel free to violate the open meeting act, especially for a major decision like buying land.
    • I don’t care that he’s racked up several speeding tickets. My guess would be that between 1997 and 2004, I probably racked up more myself.

    All of that said, however, the sheer number of incidents, as well as the many others covered by http://www.thetruejohngordon.com, do point to the main reason I cannot endorse John Gordon, namely temperament. There’s nothing wrong with being spirited. There are many times when it is appropriate for a congressmen to be combative (see, for example, Newt Gingrich in 1994). However, Gordon seems not merely spirited or combative but abrasive, alienating not just his political opponents, but friends and fellow Republicans. Time and time again he’s proven a very poor judge of his own self-interest, pursuing confrontational strategies when a softer approach might have produced better results, and spending his time and effort fighting needless battles that could have been avoided.

    Take, for example, that traffic stop video. If you want to avoid getting a ticket, the first rule is to be polite, friendly and non-threatening. After all, policemen and highway patrolmen are just doing their job. But one thing you do not do is say things like “Let me tell you what officer,” “Believe me, it will go all the way up” and state sarcastically “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Indeed, I would think that anyone over the age of about 25 (much less 60) should know that this approach is likely to achieve, shall we say, sub-optimal results. You’re not going to win a verbal pissing contest with a police officer at a traffic stop, and the fact that John Gordon evidently feels he needs to does not reflect kindly on his temperament or judgment.

    You may very well beat a ticky-tacky charge like this in court, but acting like a jerk at the stop itself is pure mule-headed stupidity. Indeed, I’ve never gotten a ticket (or even been stopped) for such minor offenses; the fact that John Gordon has, and gets tickets for them, seems to suggest that he has something of a history with local law enforcement agencies. And while I heartily defend the right of the accused to demand jury trials for traffic infractions, the fact Gordon seems to have done so for every single ticket he’s received suggests that to him, winning is far more important than the time and money involved in going to court. An effective politician has to pick his battles; John Gordon seems to go out of his way to pick fights.

    While having a boot put on my car (even in error) certainly wouldn’t make my day, no way would I go all Homer Simpson by taking a crowbar to the boot. Doing something like that suggests that Gordon suffers from dangerous levels of hot-hotheadedness. Nobody is above the law, and acting like you are won’t win you many friends.

    Another incident that highlights his lack of judgment is his lawsuit over Alyssa Eacono’s residency requirements. Regardless of the technical merits of the case, it was obvious very early on that Larry Gonzales was going to be Gordon’s major opponent in the District 52 primary. Why spend the time, money, and effort (three of a candidate’s most precious commodities) to attack someone who wasn’t a major competitor? Suing Eacono instead of spending the same effort directly engaging Gonzales suggests very poor tactical sense.

    And speaking of engaging Gonzales and poor tactics, I believe Gordon’s decision to make Gonzales’ campaign funding from Bob Perry his biggest attack issue was a major strategic blunder. Do I worry about Gonzales getting so much of his funding from Perry? Yeah. Slightly. A candidate’s financial backers are always a legitimate concern. But it’s not like he’s getting his money from George Soros. If you look at Perry’s campaign contribution recipients for this election cycle, 2008, or all the way back to 2000, the overwhelming majority of his contributions are to solidly conservative Republican candidates and causes (Phil Gramm, John Carter, etc.), with an occasional Democrat mixed in. If Gordon wanted to make Perry’s contributions a significant issue, he should have made the case exactly how and why Perry’s interests were inimical to those of Williamson County voters, not merely expect that an attack mailer showing Gonzales as a puppet would be sufficient to make that case for him.

    And speaking of campaign finances, for someone who has spent so much time harping on his opponent’s campaign contributions, Gordon’s base of campaign contributors seems pretty small. If you add up all the individual contributors whose names don’t end in “Gordon” from all five of his campaign filings (7/13/09, 1/3/10, 1/27/10, 2/22/10, 4/5/10), you get a grand total of 35 names (and that includes “in kind” voter information from the Republican Party). There’s nothing wrong with self-financing your campaign, but for someone who’s harped on Gonzales’ contributions from outside the district and has made so much of his efforts building the Republican Party in Williamson County, Gordon supporters inside it seem remarkably thin on the ground.

    By contrast, if you look at Gonzales’ reports for the same period of time, you get well over 150 individual contributors. Some of those are from out of district (San Antonio and Houston), and about five from out of state. However, Gonzales has more contributors from Round Rock alone (to say nothing of Georgetown, Austin, or Taylor) than Gordon has total.

    I could go on to point out little things like the fact that the news and highlights section of his website still says “Content coming soon” more than a month after the primary as an example of poor attention to detail, but the central issue is still Gordon’s hot-headedness and lack of judgment. Even though the http://www.thetruejohngordon.com website contains little that attentive observers of the race didn’t already know, it is a very effective piece of negative campaigning because it gathers all those individual issues in one place and reinforces doubts many voters already had about him.

    By contrast, Larry Gonzales is a thoughtful, intelligent and conservative candidate who has run a very smart (and, until the recent round of attack ads, very issue-based) campaign and garnered a broad base of Republican support. He seems more than capable of doing the job, and doesn’t come with Gordon’s baggage. I’ll be voting for Larry Gonzales in the House District 52 Primary runoff on April 13th, and encourage all District 52 voters to do the same.