Posted on 12/10/2013 5:38:34 AM PST by cotton1706
WASHINGTON - Mitch McConnell isn't the only Republican Senate leader who must contend with a noteworthy primary challenge.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the Republican whip, will face a conservative challenger in Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas), who submitted paperwork late Monday for the March primary.
Stockman, who returned to Congress this year after serving a single term in the 1990s, had been planning to run for reelection. An aide filed the application just 15 minutes before the close of the state filing period, the Houston Chronicle reported.
It's unclear how serious a challenge Stockman can mount in a short campaign in one of the nation's most populous states. Texas' March 4 primary is the earliest in the nation, and Stockman's campaign account is in debt. Cornyn, a two-term senator, had nearly $7 million on hand at the end of the most recent fundraising period.
But Stockman will seek to rally grass-roots conservatives to his campaign against Cornyn, the second-ranking Senate Republican and a former chairman of the Senate Republicans' campaign committee. In an interview with the conservative website World Net Daily, Stockman accused Cornyn of siding with President Obama against fellow Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the recent unsuccessful fight to defund Obamacare.
"He needs to be held accountable for his decisions," Stockman said.
Cruz led an effort by conservative activists to strip funding for the Affordable Care Act in budget negotiations, a stance that resulted in a 16-day government shutdown and nearly risked defaulting on the nation's bills.
Public opinion polls showed the Republican Party took the brunt of the blame for the shutdown.
Stockman has made several headline-seeking moves since returning to Washington, most notably inviting rocker and conservative activist Ted Nugent to attend the State of the Union address in the House gallery.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
It's now a six person race in Texas, Cornyn, Stockman, Vega, Stovall, Connor and Mapp.
All we have to do is keep Cornyn under 50% and we can remove him in a runoff!
/johnny
“Stockman has my vote.”
That’s good to hear. What’s the feel in Texas? Do you think we now have a chance to keep Cornyn under 50%?
Stockman will have served two terms in the House and Cornyn has far long spent in DC not to have sold out to the Establishment!
Not everyone who gets elected and overstays, sells out their constituents but far, far too many do and the temptation of all that money and power is just too great!
The Catholic Church has a rule that requires bishops to 75. The Senate should have the same rule. But maybe if the Senators have to accept Obamacare, the problem won’t arise. ;)
Not much. Otherwise Goumert would have run.
/johnny
This is where the grass roots needs to put up, or shut up.
/johnny
I was hoping to see Louie Gohmert make this move, but I can support Steve Stockman with equal enthusiasm!
Cornyn needs to GO!
/johnny
| John Cornyn claims to be the 2nd most conservative member of the Senate. Yet, as Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee he hand-selected these "Republican" candidates:
he FAILED and hid behind a meaningless vote later. |
Bump!
I’ll lean Stockman sight unseen over the rest.
In further news, Sen. Cornyn’s office has contacted former obama operatives Plouffe and Axelrod to find out exactly how to have Stockman disqualified.
Same here.
Well, at least the first part was right. It's a fact that Baraq Obama and Harry Reid were solely responsible for the shutdown due to their refusal to negotiate with the House, and default was never a serious risk because it only occurs when interest payments are not met and the government had ample income to do that.
But hey, at least the LA Times can misrepresent, like all liberal media does.
He assumed he could vote for cloture and everything would work out. I called him several times and warned him that dog wouldn't hunt. I told his people to make sure they tell him that we won't fall for a cloture vote and then allow him to say he was against Obamacare.
They kept seeming to not understand why we understood a cloture vote put him in favor of Obamacare. They think we aren't paying attention. I told them "We aren't Dems". Maybe he was following McConnell's instructions, I don't know. I explained to them very carefully what was happening in the blog world and what would happen if he voted for cloture.
Anyone in politics for very long should be able to read when something BIG is going on. I told him this one vote will determine his career. I guess he didn't think so. It's possible he may pull it out of the fire, but if Palin gets involved, he's cooked. I told him I would vote for someone out of the phone book over him. He acted like I didn't understand politics.
Yeah, he's number 2 all right.
Stockman is a good guy. You won’t go wrong. He just hasn’t caught the limelight like others have. He was big back in the Waco/impeachment days. He had the whole Dem machine come against him to get him out of office. Just returned a few years ago.
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