Jack Christie
Former At-Large City Councilmember Jack Christie is considering a run for mayor, and attorney Tony Buzbee said he has not ruled out a run despite taking on Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment defense.
Christie, a Republican who also served as Spring Branch ISD board president and a trustee for the State Board of Education, said supporters are encouraging to get him in the race.
“I’m considering it, but far from signing up,” said Christie. “They’re laying out a plan that they think can be a winnable political campaign … I’m honored that I’d be considered within a very good group of candidates.”
The former council member said he does not have a particular timeline in mind to make a decision. Candidates have until Aug. 21 to file for a place on the November ballot.
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City elections are nonpartisan, but the field so far is mostly made up of Democrats and left-leaning candidates. Christie, a Republican, could seek to consolidate conservative voters.
I’ve been saying for awhile that I believe there’s room for a Republican in the Mayor’s race. It’s just that I believe that the Republican that there’s room for – the kind of Republican that other Republicans will want to vote for – is a modern Trumpist Republican, the kind of person who participates in Republican primaries. Whatever you think about Jack Christie, unless something has drastically changed he ain’t that. Neither is fellow former Council member MJ Khan, who is in the race.
I could be wrong about this. It may be that the typical Republican voter will vote for anyone in a City of Houston race who claims the GOP label, even if they’d normally see them as a dirty RINO in a primary context. It may be that City of Houston elections have a disproportionate number of non-Trumpist Republicans in them, the businessman types who were the bulk of the party in the 80s and 90s and aughts. It may be that the Trumpist Republican City of Houston voters are so freaked out by the idea of Mayor John Whitmire or Mayor Sheila Jackson Lee that they’ll hold their noses and vote for the dirty RINO as a talisman to ward off the the likelihood of a Whitmire-Jackson Lee runoff and give them something to look forward to in December. Maybe they’re more pragmatic than I give them credit for, which is not very much.
Like I said, I dunno. I’m skeptical of all of the reasons I cited above, but these are strange times. I don’t know what these people might do. I doubt that either Christie or Khan is likely to be a threat to anyone in the Mayor’s race. They don’t have money, they don’t have name recognition, and I really don’t think they’ll have activist energy. But we’ll see.
As for Tony Buzbee, if you had your sound turned on you would have heard my eyes rolling all the way to the back of my head. To borrow from Olivia Rodrigo, he’s the biggest fame-fucker in the city. And if I have to write about him again, I’ll tell you how I really feel.
He’s anti-vax, so that might be appealing to that crowd. (I’ll never forget staffing a meet and greet where a group of Rotarians from Norway proudly told him of all the work they had done to fund anti-polio campaigns somewhere in Africa, and spent half the meeting telling them why their work was handled dangerous and wrong.)
Most Republicans I speak to indicate that both Christie and Khan have been AWOL for the last decade, and many newer activists have never heard of either. I expect the bulk of Republicans to vote for Whitmire as the lesser of evils, but doubt many will publicly endorse him or put up a yard sign for him. Khan has a smattering of local GOP precinct chairs, including a prominent Lyndon LaRouche supporter, in his column. (Yes, you heard me right.) Mike Knox or Amy Peck could have made a credible race for mayor, and drawn a strong core of GOP support, but conventional wisdom is that GOP-affiliated candidates can no longer win citywide.
I am not sure the winner of this race will be based on who raises the most money because candidates are raising & spending, yet their is still a large margin of undecided voters. It’s anyone’s race at this point.
In a city that prides itself on diversity, equity and inclusion, the ‘early’ endorsements go against that and the candidate who accepted the endorsement without allowing all candidates to compete for the endorsement is noticed! This is an indication of how the person will lead, which goes against this values and culture of Houston.
The organizations who base an endorsement on how much someone raises, that is not a “fighter” mentality we have heard so much about?! Basing an endorsement on how much someone raises is like pressing the easy button instead of getting involved.
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Julian, when you refer to the “early” endorsements, are you referring to Democratic State Senator Whitmire? If so, please be aware that Sen. Whitmire has pledged to protect laws and ordinances that encourage diversity and equity. Whitmire has also pledged to promote the growth of minority and women owned businesses and ensure that historically forgotten neighborhoods receive the services they deserve (see link below). Whitmire has a long history of supporting voting rights, bilingual education, and anti-discrimination laws. It seems to me that Whitmire embodies Houston’s pride in diversity, equity, and inclusion.
https://www.johnwhitmire.com/issues
As far as candidates competing for endorsements, the people who endorsed Senator Whitmire did so because they believe in him. If they wanted to pull their endorsement and give it to someone else, they could do so at any time. The fact that they don’t is very telling…
Whitmire is a Republican, not a moderate Democrat. Don’t look at what he says but at the people, he lies down with. He has been with the Republicans for decades.
Christie was an otherwise “reasonable” Republican who railed against modern medicine in general and vaccines in particular. He was also a very kindly man, and showed a lot of grace to my family after my father ran against him. I don’t impugn him personally.
He also promised the then-named GLBT Caucus he would support a non discrimination ordinance. He lied, and voted against HERO. He did so without the demagoguery of Dwight Boykins, though.
On a lot of other stuff, stuff that made up the nuts and bolts of 99 percent, Christie was a good CM. He showed leadership in standing up to Uber (disclosure: I was a cab lobbyist). But it’s hard to “but” things as important as human rights and modern medicine. You just can’t.
Christie would be a very, very bad mayor of a city that includes the world’s largest medical center. It is utterly unacceptable to consider a vaccine opponent after this pandemic.
Christie, again I’ll emphasize, is a kindly person and I sincerely hope that he is enjoying a well-deserved retirement. But we need to be prepared to mobilize decisively and strongly against his political campaign should he decide to end that retirement.
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