The Texas CD-2 GOP congressional primary is an interesting race this year. To begin with, you seldom have a single challenger to an incumbent, in the incumbent’s party primary. When there is a challenger to an incumbent in his party’s primary, it’s usually because the challenger sees a lot of perceived dissatisfaction with the incumbent, within his own party. So what does it say when you have three challengers<\/strong> to an incumbent in his own party primary?<\/p>\n Well, that’s what we have in CD-2. Moreover, all three appear to be far to the right of Crenshaw. That’s not to say that they are off-the-chart radicals. It just means that since Crenshaw is so moderate, it’s not difficult to be to the right of him.<\/p>\n The three conservative challengers are (in alphabetic order) Jameson Ellis, Martin Etwop, and Milam Langella. I have met and spoken at length with all three of them. I’ll try to describe each of them in a phrase. Martin Etwop is clearly the most Christian man in the race, being a missionary, who grew up under socialism and who wants to stop it from coming here. Jameson Ellis is a take-no-prisoners conservative, who conservative hard-liners will really like and the Establishment will hate. Milam Langella is a 100% service disabled veteran, who appears to be a strong conservative, but is somewhat more nuanced than Ellis.<\/p>\n Frankly, they are all such fine conservative\u00a0candidates that I am having trouble deciding which one to vote for. Issues aside, in a runoff debate, I think Langella would be able to keep Crenshaw from using his all-too-common “disabled vet” ploy, to avoid questions he doesn’t want to answer, since Langella, being a 100% disabled vet, would throw it back in Crenshaw’s face, in spades.\u00a0Even so, my general impression, after speaking with all three of them, is\u00a0that in a runoff debate against Crenshaw, either Ellis or Etwop would be slightly better overall debaters, than would Langella. But they are all three far more committed conservatives than Crenshaw.<\/p>\n In CD-2, there are a lot of conservatives who are not just dissatisfied with Rep. Dan Crenshaw, but we are totally fed up with him. Not only has the guy turned out to be an Establishment lackey<\/strong>, but he has become increasingly insulting<\/strong> and condescending<\/strong>\u00a0to his constituents, who ask him potentially embarrassing questions.<\/p>\n I’ll get on to political issues in a moment. But first, I want to talk about Crenshaw’s\u00a0attitude and total disrespect for the constituents for whom he works \u2013 an attitude which should not be acceptable for any candidate, for any position, at any level of government, for either party\u2026 OK. Maybe the democrats might put up with such disrespect of their constituents. But Republicans should not accept\u00a0Crenshaw’s open contempt for\u00a0constituents, who ask him tough questions.<\/p>\n I have seen him, on multiple occasions, being disrespectful of constituents, who asked him potentially embarrassing questions. But what I saw the other day was not only beyond being acceptable for a GOP congressman, it was beyond belief that any elected official, even a Democrat, would act that way. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee is one of my favorite Democrats to ridicule. But I have never seen her be as disrespectful to her constituents, as was Crenshaw to one of his.<\/p>\n A teenage girl, who was participating in her first ever election, politely asked Crenshaw to clarify\u00a0his recent statement, in which he referred to Jesus as a “hero archetype”<\/strong>. Let me be clear. This young girl\u00a0did not<\/strong> accuse Crenshaw\u00a0of anything. She did not<\/strong> berate him. She did not<\/strong> in any way form her question as a challenge or phrase it to make him look bad. She was not<\/strong> trying to set a rhetorical trap for him. All she did was meekly<\/em> ask him to clarify his previous statement. In fact, it was phrased almost as if she might have even been\u00a0trying<\/em> to give him a softball version of the question that everyone knew had to be\u00a0coming.<\/p>\n But Crenshaw flew off into a rage, shouting, “Don’t question my faith! Don’t question my faith!”<\/strong><\/em> He seriously embarrassed the young girl, when he should have taken the opportunity to use that question as a teaching moment for a new voter. His rant\u00a0went on for some time, even though many in the audience were booing him. But it didn’t end there.<\/p>\n Later, when an older gentleman managed to say that, as a voter, it was his duty to question everything<\/strong>\u00a0about candidates, the look that Crenshaw gave the old guy had several people nearby thinking that he was about to get violent. After a moment, Crenshaw\u00a0just shouted his well practiced litany again, “Don’t question my faith!”<\/strong><\/em> and walked off.<\/p>\n As Crenshaw left, one\u00a0person nearby said to nobody in particular, “Maybe we should be questioning your PTSD,”<\/em> which drew sad nods and mumbles of\u00a0acknowledgement\u00a0from the few\u00a0people who heard it. In my long life, I have never seen any candidate treat any constituent the way Crenshaw treated those two voters. It was embarrassing, not only to the two constituents, who were the targets of his attacks, but to all the voters present, who had to watch that display of arrogance and\u00a0condescension.<\/p>\n If I knew nothing else about\u00a0Crenshaw, his display of arrogance and condescension\u00a0for his constituents would be more than enough to make me want to vote against him. Regardless of his politics, he is definitely NOT<\/strong> the TYPE<\/strong>\u00a0of person we should want representing us in Congress.<\/p>\n But the old guy was right. As voters, it is incumbent upon all of us to question everything<\/strong> about every<\/strong> candidate, including questions of\u00a0faith. Then, if there are questions that a candidate doesn’t want to answer, we have the answer in the candidate’s silence on the issue.<\/p>\n Crenshaw doesn’t want his faith questioned. So, we have our answer.<\/p>\n But let’s get on to the political issues.<\/p>\n Although Crenshaw votes with conservatives more often than not, most conservatives want a congressman who votes conservative ALL of the time. In Crenshaw’s case, the times he has voted with the Establishment and against conservatives, were on issues critical to conservatives. Crenshaw has called for Red Flag Laws and actually voted for a Red Flag Law. If you are not familiar with the term, “Red Flag Laws,” they\u00a0are laws that attempt to bypass due process and allow guns to be confiscated from ordinary people, for no better reason that a specified public official thinks<\/em><\/strong><\/span> that the person could<\/strong><\/span>, possibly<\/strong><\/span>, under the right circumstance<\/strong><\/span>,<\/em>\u00a0become a danger to themselves or others. Read this tweet from Crenshaw.<\/p>\n The solutions aren\u2019t obvious, even if we pretend they are. But we must try. Let\u2019s start with the TAPS Act. Maybe also implement state \u201cred flag\u201d laws, or gun violence restraining orders. Stop them before they can hurt someone.https:\/\/t.co\/2G2pZSWaF1<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Rep. Dan Crenshaw (@RepDanCrenshaw) August 4, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n