This past Thursday, the Houston Young Republicans, the Republican Liberty Caucus, the Washington Avenue Republicans and the Harris County Republican party hosted a candidate forum for the nine candidates vying to fill the shoes of retiring Rep. Ted Poe in Congressional District 2. You can view the candidates on the CD2 candidate page.
On Friday, I received an email from a long time Harris County Republican activist and precinct chair:
Kathaleen Wall only showed up at the last minute a few weeks ago at Downtown Pachyderm, gave a canned speech, and urged voters to look at her website. She had been delayed to the point that she missed (whether by plan or circumstance) the Q and A portion of the program.
Tonight at the Houston YR forum at HCRP headquarters, she gave the same rehearsed speech, and then abruptly announced she was leaving for a prior commitment, again missing the Q and A. I would be interested in your take on the manner how she did it. I was startled that she did not try to connect to the audience, say she was sorry, explain the nature of the other event, etc., but maybe I am not disinterested enough.
The video should be on HCRP or similar websites soon, if not already, and this event was very early in the program.
I did find the video and Wall’s appearance was indeed early. You can watch the whole thing like I did or just move to the 5 minute mark and watch Wall’s stump speech and exit.
I had pretty much the same reaction as the person that emailed me. Ryan Cagney made a video that mocks her exit:
Cagney posted this comment with the video:
Not only did she walk out on the most important forum of the primary without taking any of the hard questions that the other candidates did, she LIED about a previous engagement. She was confirmed for this event weeks ago. #WallWalkout #CD2
That’s a very strong statement. If you watch her exit, it does appear that everyone in the room is surprised. Especially her husband, who was sitting on the front row.
While Wall was walking out, the other supposed frontrunner, Kevin Roberts, really did have a previous engagement and didn’t show.
Yes, he missed a great opportunity to meet and greet with a building full of voters (and answer some pretty tough questions) but I’m sure he had a good time in Humble. And if you live near Eric Dick, you can go meet and greet Roberts this Thursday.
Unfortunately for Roberts, the organizers of the meeting allowed him to send in a prerecorded video. I say unfortunate because it might even be worse than Wall’s performance, sans the walkout. You can watch it in the first video at about the 51 minute mark.
Goodness, what has the Republican Party come to when Wall and Roberts are the perceived front runners in this race? I guarantee you that if you watch that entire forum, those two are not going to be anywhere close to the top of your list when you finish. I was floored when I saw a comment by Jim Lennon of the Kingwood Tea Party claiming that “Kathaleen was there early and spoke well.“ The response to Lennon from Josh Redelman was priceless: “Said no one in attendance.” Ain’t that the truth.
It’s great to see these candidates fighting back against the wall of money (see what I did there?) that Wall is pouring into the race. I hope the voters push back and pick one of the seven candidates that took the time to answer questions and articulate their vision for the position.
Related:
Can Kathaleen Wall buy a seat in Congress and minimize the damage of slates in Harris County?
Please note that Cagney is with the Crenshaw campaign.
That’s not true. He’s been resigned for over 2 weeks.
Correction, 9 days.
David,
Since you felt compelled to quote me, I feel compelled to comment on your blog. As you mentioned–buried in the article–Roberts was in Humble. What you failed to mention was Roberts’ schedule was set in December. The moderators were clear about this prior to playing his video but I guess that didn’t fit the narrative of this attack article. Do you know if the organizers coordinated with the campaigns prior to setting the date? Do you know if anyone asked to reschedule the event?
I know I don’t have the answers to those questions, do you? It would sure be nice to know before attacking someone for not showing up and, on that basis alone, saying he isn’t qualified for the office. You are influencing our readers without having all of the facts. I guess this blog is no better than the biased CNN.
Further, walking out of a forum for a fake “appointment” when you were confirmed weeks prior versus attending a previously scheduled meet and greet in a constituents home are two very different things. You know it, I know it, but unfortunately your article doesn’t acknowledge it. I would encourage you to go to his meet and greet in Kingwood on Tuesday or the one at the Dick Law Firm on Thursday to ask all those “tough questions.”
I was not present, but this clip of Ms. Wall said to be from a Kingwood Forum yesterday was shared with me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWHKUW77Eps
College Republicans at Rice U had an excellent forum, with well-thought and wide ranging questions. I hope someone filmed it and will upload and share. Kathaleen Wall was a no-show; Kevin Roberts sent a representative who worked the crowd. There were a lot of interesting differences in focus and nuance among the candidates, but on the whole candidates were broadly in agreement.