Mud flies in 2nd Congressional District’s Republican runoff

Republican voters in the 2nd Congressional District may be facing a difficult decision in the primary runoff this month.

Last year, Congressman Ted Poe, who has held the seat since 2004, announced that he would retire at the end of this term. As a result, nine candidates decided to vie for their party’s nomination. A runoff was almost inevitable; all the candidates knew that. But most of them, surely, were expecting that it would include Kathaleen Wall, a longtime GOP activist and donor who was endorsed by Gov. Greg Abbott and put nearly $6 million of her own money into the campaign.

Instead, the runoff is between state Rep. Kevin Roberts, who represents northwest Houston in the Texas Legislature, and Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who edged Wall out of the primary by 155 votes.

“I wasn’t upset,” said Crenshaw recently, when I congratulated him on this upset.

Neither was I, really. The Democratic nominee, Todd Litton, is a friend — and the kind of candidate who should be seen as a serious contender, even though the district is safely red, on paper.

But if Litton doesn’t win, the Republican nominee will. So it’s nice to know that the Republican nominee will be either Roberts or Crenshaw. Neither is perfect, and both would have big shoes to fill; Poe is one of the most admirable members of Texas’ congressional delegation. But both Roberts and Crenshaw strike me as respectable individuals who have the potential to be effective members of Congress.

Some of Roberts’ supporters, however, are a bit dyspeptic about this twist of fate. Since the primary, two of them — independently of each

other and without prompting — have grumbled to me that Crenshaw is “sexy.”

“He’s just so cool,” added one of them, ruefully.

I feel for Roberts, in a way. There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s well-regarded by his colleagues in the Legislature and by local officials such as Harris County Judge Ed Emmett and Harris County Commissioner Jack Cagle, both of whom endorsed him in the primary, as did the Houston Chronicle.

“Support from county officials is a sign of faith in Roberts to advocate for Houston’s flood control needs at a federal level — the single most important issue in the 2018 election,” the editorial noted.

Still, Crenshaw is pretty cool. He is one of the only Republican candidates in this entire midterm election cycle who could conceivably be described using such a word.

Shallow? Perhaps. But if the GOP is to have a future, they’ll need to start nominating candidates whom millennials actually want to vote for — candidates who have some kind of electoral appeal. ‘Not right’

And some of Roberts’ supporters have gone on the attack against Crenshaw, unfortunately.

“Candidate Dan Crenshaw is seeking to become the Congressman to replace Retiring Ted Poe,” wrote Terry Lowry in his “Link Letter,” which purports to be a useful guide for Texans who vote in the Republican primary.

“While discussing his campaign over breakfast at the Broken Egg, he shared that he does not have a job, that he and his wife live with his parents, and he wants to become a Congressman,” Lowry continued.

This is a dubious way to summarize Crenshaw’s situation. He was medically retired from the Navy in September 2016, several years after being injured in an IED blast while deployed in Afghanistan. He proceeded to earn a master’s degree in public administration at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and returned to Houston last September, shortly after Harvey and shortly before Poe announced his decision to retire.

Roberts, who is Lowry’s candidate of choice, disavowed the comments in an interview with conservative radio host Michael Berry, who had supported Crenshaw in the primary and continues to do so.

“It was unbelievable. It was uncalled for, it was rude, it was disrespectful, it was just — not right,” Roberts said on Berry’s program on March 7. Separate from candidate

He vowed to eschew any such mudslinging while campaigning for the May 22 runoff.

But mud is being slung: Last week, a political action committee called Conservative Results Matter launched an ad assailing Crenshaw as an anti-Trump leftist who is lying about his true views.

It followed up with a mailer, according to a Republican friend who was unable to provide me with the copy he received because he had torn it up in disgust.

The piece, my friend explained, accused Crenshaw of supporting the same health care plan as Bernie Sanders.

It also included a photo of Crenshaw from his left side, thus obscuring the injuries he sustained while serving in combat.

The group’s goal, presumably, was to offset the electoral advantage conferred by the eye patch Crenshaw often wears, as a result of having lost his right eye. But Crenshaw’s eye patch isn’t a fashion accessory. And the message sent by this mailer is a noxious one.

Roberts’ campaign said it had nothing to do with the mailer. Still, some Republican voters who have noticed such attacks may find that the choice in this runoff isn’t so difficult after all.