A Houston-based super PAC aiming to unseat long-time congressional incumbents added Reps. Joe Barton of Arlington and Ralph Hall of Rockwall to its hit list [last week].
The two Republicans join Democrats Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas and Silvestre Reyes of El Paso as targets of the Campaign for Primary Accountability, which promises to spend money attacking incumbents and boosting challengers in primary races across the country.
“Our polling shows that people are ready for change, they’re not satisfied” with Barton and Hall, said Curtis Ellis, a spokesman for the organization.
Ellis said the campaign only targets incumbents who have dissatisfied voters – as determined by their own polling – and a credible primary threat.
Barton, a 14-term incumbent, drew three challengers for the May 29 primary: former Addison Mayor Joe Chow, former Israeli soldier Itamar Gelbman and accountant Frank Kuchar. Hall, seeking his 16th term, is up against former NASCAR driver Lou Gigliotti and former AT&T executive Steve Clark.
Ellis declined to say whether the organization has decided to back any of those challengers in particular or to just spend money attacking the incumbents.
That would be these guys. On the one hand, I have no sympathy for Smokey Joe Barton or the dinosaur Hall. On the other hand, I have no particular reason to believe that anyone who might be able to beat them in a primary would be any less offensive. Sadly, neither of these districts is remotely competitive, so there’s no partisan advantage to be gained by CPA offing one or both of them. I’ll just note that Barton is a big moneybags, so if they want to take him down they’re going to have to dig deep to do so. Hall, on the other hand, is not swimming in campaign cash, but as the Trib notes, he’s survived many challenges before now. It’s likely to take more than just money to unseat him. Which makes me wonder about those polls they claim to have, but whatever. CPA is also now considering expanding their target list even more in Texas, apparently to possibly include every primary-challenged incumbent in the state. One presumes they’ll be ramping up their fundraising even more. Campaign season has been pretty quiet up till now, but it’s about to get a lot less so.
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