With less than a week to go until primary day in Texas, Rep. Steve Stockman has suffered one final indignity.
A Texas Tea Party group, led by Grassroots America executive director JoAnn Fleming, issued an open letter on Thursday slamming Stockman’s campaign as one of the worst in recent memory.
“As your campaign rolled into 2014, Texans have witnessed what might be the laziest statewide campaign to date,” the letter reads, as reported by the Dallas Morning News. “The media salted your staff with questions, but these questions were sneered at and rebuffed.”
“Based on your response to media inquiries, you apparently believe you don’t have to answer to anybody,” the right-wing activists continue.”We disavow your lack of accessibility to the people of Texas during this campaign and these unethical activities. Whether these tactics are actually carried out by you, your associates, or a group of supporters – these are not the hallmarks of a statesman.”
“We are looking for a bold, courageous leader with integrity – a leader who will make himself available to the people,” they add. “Your actions have disqualified you.”
The group went on to endorse businessman and self-styled “citizen statesman” Dwayne Stovall in the March 4 primary.
The Tea Partiers’ anger stems in part from Stockman’s mysterious two-week disappearance from the campaign trail, during which he missed 17 House consecutive votes, and his staff refused to respond to media inquiries as to his whereabouts. He later said that he had been conducting official House business in Egypt, Israel, and Russia.
Stockman had hoped to rally Tea Party support to pull off an extremely unlikely upset of Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX), but the state’s right-wing activists never rallied around his quixotic candidacy. The latest polling of the race found Cornyn leading Stockman by over 40 percent.
Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr
