Yesterday, Senator John Cornyn won his Republican reelection primary walking away and put Steve Stockman out of Congress by a 46-point margin.
The tally from the Secretary of State shows the 2-term senator with 63 percent of the vote, though all but a handful of the ballots counted so far come from early voting, and AP has called the race. Stockman trails with 17 percent, followed by Dwayne Stovall at 9 percent. The total includes nothing from Dallas County.
Stockman’s uniquely disinterested campaign style — fake campaign headquarters, fake endorsements, fake newspapers, and hardly any campaign appearances — has mysteriously worked for him before, but not this time. At Mother Jones, Tim Murphy calls Stockman “a pioneer of the uncampaign.” Ben Jacobs of The Daily Beast calls it an insult to democracy:
Stockman’s ultimate sin is a campaign that has shown a fundamental disrespect for the democratic process. He’s not trying to win or even advance an ideological agenda. Instead, it’s the worst kind of grift that is designed to separate gullible donors from their money and put it in his campaign’s coffers. There is not even the pretense of actual interaction with voters. Tea Party leaders have complained that Stockman has not shown up to any events. One Texas Tea Party activist noted in an epic understatement: “Day to day, just getting hold of him, that’s just not Steve, I guess.” Instead, the Stockman campaign simply sends blast emails to potential donors and tweets a lot.
American politics has been rife with liars, crooks, and con artists ever since our country’s founding. But they invariably put in at least some effort to convince voters of their virtue and donors to cut a check. Stockman is different. He has failed to give Texans even the modicum of respect required to actively scam them. Stockman just may be the lamest, laziest grifter in the history of the United States and his departure from public life can only improve the political discourse in our country.
Mr. Stockman’s campaign finance accounting practices are just as sloppy and lazy as his campaigns, so we expect to see a brand-new mugshot come along soon. We hope he will make laughable threats against anyone who posts that picture, too.
