Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Dirty dozen vie to replace Stockman in 36

In extending the deadline to file an extra week, the Texas GOP still couldn't come up with anyone known outside their respective district communities. Harvey Kronberg with the subheadline and teaser.

No big surprises but Houston businessman Ben Streusand joins the fray

There are many little-known candidates, but some of the top names include longtime Chief of Staff to Rep. Kevin Brady Doug Centilli, former Liberty County Judge Phil Fitzgerald and Dave Norman, who is a prominent insurance agent.

Further research reveals the full list.

Streusand and John Manlove, both of Houston, Robin Riley and Jim Engstrand, both of Seabrook, and Pat Kasprzak of Crosby filed for the seat on Monday. Riley is a former Seabrook mayor. One other Republican, Brian Babin, a dentist and former mayor of Woodville, also took advantage of the deadline extension, filing on Friday. They joined six Republicans who had filed for the seat before the original deadline: Nassau Bay City Councilman John Amdur; Doug Centilli, a longtime chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands; former Liberty County Judge Phil Fitzgerald; Lumberton lawyer Charles "Chuck" Meyer; former Seabrook City Councilman Kim Morrell; and insurance agent Dave Norman.

Manlove might be this ad guy, but is probably the former mayor of Pasadena, which has been in the news recently for trying to water down the Latino representation on their city council.  That Manlove also ran in 2008 for CD-22, then occupied by Nick Lampson.  He lost to Shelley Sekula Dracula Cunt Gibbs.  Also this, from Roll Call last week.

In 2012, Meyer unsuccessfully ran against Stockman in the 12-person open primary and earned about 4 percent of the vote. He has, as of this writing, 27 followers on Facebook. From that account, he has attacked Stockman from the right and advocated for the impeachment of President Barack Obama.

Dave Norman unsuccessfully ran for state Senate in 2012.

Back to the Trib piece for this.

The filing extension only applied to the Republican Party, and anyone who had already filed for another race could not withdraw to join the CD-36 race. That shut out people like state Rep. James White, R-Hillister, who was interested in running for Stockman’s seat. His district, House District 19, encompasses the northern half of CD-36. Texas Republican Party officials said the decisions were based on state election law.

White criticized Stockman for withdrawing his re-election filing at the last minute. Though most were not aware of Stockman’s decision ahead of time, three of the six original CD-36 candidates — Centilli, Norman and Morrell — said last week they had advance notice that Stockman was planning to withdraw from the race.

“It is unfortunate that Congressman Stockman and some Washington insiders have decided to do D.C.-style power politics and inject them into southeast Texas,” White said.

David Bradley, a member of the State Board of Education, had filed for re-election but, like White, explored switching to the CD-36 race. He expressed frustration that the secretary of state’s office and the Texas Republican Party had interpreted election law as such that he could legally withdraw his earlier SBOE filing but could not join the CD-36 race under the filing deadline extension. He plans to continue with his original plan and run for for re-election.

“I talked to a couple of [state Republican Executive Committee] members, and I had an election attorney looking at it,” Bradley said. “It wasn't worth a food fight.”

White and Bradley shouldn't be underestimated in terms of electoral prowess; it was White who knocked off longtime Texas House incumbent Tuffy Hamilton when redistricting forced the two conservatives to run against each other in 2012.  And Bradley is well-renowned for his efforts to take the SBOE back to the 1960s.  They are forced to stand by and watch, and wait for 2016.

Of those who jumped in, the ones that spend the largest amount of their personal wealth ought to move on to the runoff next April.  Today, my bet would be on Streusand and Norman (he's close to Stockman and will likely serve, if elected, as de facto Stockman).

I said before I didn't want to blog about this race unless the candidates began roasting and consuming each other.  I am delighted to see that remains a distinct possibility.

1 comment:

Gadfly said...

One has to be a nutbar indeed to attack Stockman from the right.