San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
From crowded race, Moody emerges a victor
If you were aiming to construct the perfect political candidate, you'd probably end up with someone like Grant Moody.
The San Antonio Republican has a background in agriculture, having grown up on a Kansas farm.
He understands military issues, having served 10 years as an active-duty Marine fighter pilot, with combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
He has a strong business background, with an economics degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and stints as an executive with USAA and Valero.
He is politically engaged, having represented Texas as a delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention and working in 2014 as a legislative assistant to then-Congressman (and future U.S. Secretary of State) Mike Pompeo.
He is tall, handsome and blessed with the frame of an NFL middle linebacker.
He is a devoted family man. And he is only 42 years old. All those credentials came into play Thursday night when the Bexar County Republican Party's North Side precinct chairs gathered at Aggie Park and selected Moody to be the GOP's nominee for county commissioner in Precinct 3 — the lone Republican seat on Commissioners Court.
Trish DeBerry vacated the seat last December to run for county judge. Her move triggered a 2022 election, but it came too late to allow for primary elections. So the two major-party nominees had to be selected by precinct chairs.
In a way, Moody looked like a long shot.
Nine candidates applied for the GOP nomination, not counting City Councilman Clayton Perry, who flirted with a run but did not fill out an application form and did not attend Thursday's meeting.
The candidates included Marialyn Barnard — the interim Precinct 3 county commissioner who was appointed in January by Democratic County Judge Nelson Wolff — and Carlton Soules, a former Northeast Side council member.
Also vying for the nomination were two recent council candidates: fiery culture warrior Patrick Von Dohlen and Patty Gibbons, the president of the Greater Harmony Hills Neighborhood Association.
In a battle between nine candidates who all believe in “life, liberty, law enforcement, lower taxes and election integrity,” as Von Dohlen put it, artificial distinctions have to be conjured up.
In this case, that meant Soules defining himself as a rebel with a record of fighting against “a litany of socialist programs” and casting Barnard as a go-along-to-get-along establishment figure.
Soules began his Thursday night speech by holding up printouts of the recorded minutes
of every Commissioners Court meeting during Barnard's six months in office.
“Thirteen meetings, over a billion dollars spent and 617 votes counted,” Soules said. “During her tenure, our current appointed commissioner voted with Democrat Nelson Wolff 616 times. That is 99.9 percent.”
Barnard, a former Fourth Court of Appeals justice, pushed back on Soules, arguing
that Wolff and other Democrats on Commissioners Court have voted with her, not the other way around. To illustrate the point, Barnard cited her successful push to pass a 20 percent county homestead exemption for property taxes.
Soules went negative to boost his own chances, but it also served to help Moody, by making a case against sticking with a solid incumbent.
On the first ballot, Moody received 27 votes, Barnard got 25 and Soules got 21. As the process went on, Moody's support grew.
Before the fourth and final round, the two finalists — Moody and Barnard — made their closing arguments to the precinct chairs.
Moody announced that Soules and Von Dohlen were throwing their support to him, and he picked up on Soules' anti-incumbency thread.
“Listen, elections are about choices,” he said. “My opponent is clearly not responsible for all the debt and the actions of the last 20 years on Commissioners Court.
“But she is the choice of the status quo. Are you OK with the status quo?”
The answer was clear. On the fourth ballot, Moody rolled to victory with 74 votes to 28 for Barnard. (Jesus Christ received one write-in vote.)
Barnard had a good case to make for herself. She noted that she was the only candidate in this race who applied in January for the Commissioners Court appointment. If not for her, she said, the seat could have gone to a Democrat.
That argument, however, didn't persuade enough of the precinct chairs. In the end, incumbency was Barnard's greatest strength and biggest weakness.
As for Moody, he'll be a strong favorite in November to defeat Democrat nominee Susan Korbel. Something tells me there will be runs for higher office in his future.