Primary Colors – Part 1 – “A Vote to Remember”

by Mark Ramsey on February 17, 2014 at 1:02 PM

The March 4 primary is right around the corner and early voting starts Tuesday. First, understand that due to Gerrymandering, the VAST MAJORITY of elected officials win or lose their races in the primary. The November general election is mostly a rubber stamp of whatever candidate wins the primary for the dominant party in their district. I cannot overstate the importance of your vote and the impact it has in the primary.

Below are my researched endorsements for the upcoming primary. If a race is not listed, I have not yet made an endorsement in that race and may not. Many of you know that I am an engineer by training and profession, and like most engineers, I am driven by data. Voting records of the candidates, management experiences, and in some cases personal knowledge of the candidates are all data. I listen intently to nearly anyone, especially grassroots activists, who wishes to give me inputs (voice, in person, or electronic), and I am decidedly not an establishment insider. I have no deals with any candidates, monetary or otherwise. I take my responsibility for due diligence extremely serious.

I don't expect everyone will agree with all of my choices--in some races our GOP has been blessed with two or more excellent candidates. However, in most races, the choice is quite clear from my vantage point, which values smaller government, religious freedom, pro-life, honesty, pro-2nd Amendment and ALL of the Constitutions of the US and Texas, pro-traditional family, balanced budgets and strong currency, free markets, lower taxes, and pro-legal immigration but against coddling of those illegally here. While I am a “term limits kind of guy”, I do NOT believe we should arbitrarily throw out all incumbents—we DO have some that have done outstanding jobs and will continue to do so. Throwing out all incumbents is not any better than being one of Rush’s “low information” voters, sometimes with disastrous results.

Over the next few days, I’ll highlight a few important highly contested races and explain my decisions. Last, I’ll try to give you my take on the ever-controversial “slates” that circulate in many metropolitan counties.

Part 1: The U.S. Senate Race

I originally was simply neutral on the race for U.S. Senate. I could not support the incumbent but did not know the challengers well enough. However, the infamous February 13th cloture vote in the Senate was my back-breaking straw, when Sen. John Cornyn:

1. Knifed Sen.Ted Cruz in the back (the second time) on a cloture vote where the Democrats did NOT have enough votes to pass an unlimited, no-strings-attached "clean" debt ceiling increase.

2. Minutes later he voted no on a pretend "show vote" that only required 50% of the Senate and thus the Democrats and big spenders had their votes, and

3. Before and after the Feb. 13 votes he has been running saturation coverage radio ads ad nauseum proclaiming how he (Cornyn) fights the president "every day", after siding with the big spending Democrats yet again. His staffers began spinning that he was fighting the debt minutes if not seconds after he had voted with the Dems to increase it without limit vis-à-vis the cloture vote.

Hence in that U.S. Senate race, after considerable research and vetting, I am now endorsing Dwayne Stovall over Stockman, Cody and the others (several of who are excellent, too). Stovall is a no-nonsense "what you see is what you get" cross between Louie Gohmert and Ted Cruz. He understands our Constitution very well and is passionate about using it to stop big-spending Washington. He has been described as “Ted Cruz on steroids”, though that would of course be a tall order to top Senator Cruz! He is well-spoken on conservative issues. He has a large and rapidly growing organization—said to be the largest in the state—and has been winning straw polls around the state, and is popular with many of the assorted Tea Parties. He is decidedly NOT an "insider". When I asked him an initial question via FB, he responded with “call me” and his cell number. (I’ve never even gotten Cornyn’s staffers to call me back, much less the Senator himself!)

My clear choice in the U.S. Senate race is Dwayne Stovall. Please consider helping him and vote for him, and after he makes the run-off, redouble your efforts as many of you did with Ted Cruz vs. David Dewhurst in the last election, where Ted was the underdog like Dwayne is. Tea Parties and conservative grassroots, especially in Texas, are changing the political landscape. Here is another opportunity to move the ball forward.

My other choices are listed below. As mentioned, explanations will be coming soon for some races such as the Texas Lt. Governor, the Attorney General, the Harris County Chair, and perhaps others. True to my engineering background, if more data becomes available that would change the result, I’ll advise that as well. My picks, along with some independent others’ whose opinion I value (not always agreeing with me) are also located at www.bluesheet.org.

Thank you.

Mark Ramsey

Mark is a State Republican Executive Committeeman, (SREC) representing Senate District 7, and has twice served on the GOP State Convention Platform Committee. One of the duties of the SREC is “to foster and encourage growth in the Party by promoting the principles as expressed in the platform and by electing Republican officeholders.”