Louis Guthrie, Carl Pittman debate again at RHCIA meeting

The Republican Hispanic Citizens in Action (RHCIA) held a debate last night between the two Republican Primary runoff candidates for Harris County Sheriff, Carl Pittman and Louis Guthrie. The debate was well attended, I’d guess between 90 and 100 people crammed into a side room of Fratelli’s Restaurant on Wirt Road. You can click on the thumbnail picture above to view the crowd. I can tell you that I won’t be going to Fratelli’s for the food after last night but the atmosphere was okay.

Unfortunately, we had to sit through a 30 minute speech from Ted Cruz’s father. Nothing worse than paying $20 to eat a piece of rubber chicken and listen to someone distort Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s record and tell us that the problem with the country is that we don’t have prayer in school. Sure, let’s have government sponsored prayer – Jane from First Baptist today, Ahmed from the temple tomorrow….oh, wait, you mean Ahmed can’t pray, only Jane? Ah, I see. Anyways, it is clear that Ted Cruz inherited his gift for longwinded speeches from his dad. I was somewhat cheered up by the lukewarm reception he received. Maybe Republicans are starting to grasp that David Dewhurst is the only candidate in that race with a conservative governing record.

Finally we got to the main event. After each candidate introduced himself, Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle asked the questions, with each man getting two minutes to answer the same question. There was no back and forth, no debate, just answers to questions. Here is a rough sketch of the questions:

• Name the two most pressing problems in the department that you would address immediately.
• Name one thing that the current sheriff has done right that you would keep in place.
• What are the current budget constraints and what would you do about them?
• What would you do to serve the “boots on the ground” (deputies)?
• Sheriff got a 4{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} budget increase while other county departments were cut and then he criticized the Commissioner’s Court for not giving him enough, creating icy relations. What would you do to improve them?
• Strange question – do you have any comment on what has been written in the Houston Chronicle recently?

After Commissioner Cagle finished his questions, RHCIA founder Bernadette McLeroy asked questions that were called “mystery” questions. I couldn’t help but laugh as she asked them because they were obviously intended to highlight Mr. Pittman’s weaknesses and Mr. Guthrie’s strength’s. Hey, it was her meeting, I guess she can ask whatever she wants! Here is my sketch of the questions she asked:

• Have you ever been a supervisor? If so, how many employees did you supervise? What was your budget?
• Do you have a college degree? Have you ever been invited to a Senior Level training school at the FBI training facility in Quantico?
• Have you ever had a negative evaluation? Have you ever been responsible for evaluating employees?
• Have you ever coordinated multiagency task forces?
• What is your current rank?

Mr. Pittman’s general consultant, Mary Sergesketter was ticked off by those questions. Here is what she wrote on Facebook after the debate:

Carl Pittman is a leader. The RHCIA lost all credibility tonight with the questions asked by Berna Mac in their Sheriff’s Debate. The Pittman Campaign agreed to participate in the event even though many of their leadership had already endorsed our opponent. We were told there would be no “negative” comments allowed and we as usual stood by our pledge. Interesting that Berna Mac ALLOWED our opponent to make negative comments and also tailored her questions for the debate to our opponent’s resume. It’s a sad day for Republicans when you can’t be fair and ethical in such a setting. Shame on the RHCIA for letting this happen.

Hey, I thought the whole thing was funny and that Mr. Pittman did okay on the “mystery” questions. He did get a bit frustrated on the first one when she badgered him about his response but overall, it wasn’t a classic sandbagging. Mr. Pittman knows these areas are weak for him and he handles it by not highlighting them. No problem. Mary probably shouldn’t have made her feelings public but sometimes when we are angry, we do things we probably shouldn’t do.

Nothing stood out that hasn’t already been presented to the voters, with the possible exception of Mr. Pittman claiming in his closing that he would have the power to kick federal agents out of Harris County. That was strange. But the biggest issue wasn’t even addressed – the two candidate’s IAD files. A couple of media outlets have finally picked the issue up: KHOU and the Houston Chronicle. I continue to be amazed that people continue to support Mr. Pittman after reading and hearing about the allegations of spousal abuse from two wives. It makes no sense to me on a purely political level. If he happens to be the Republican nominee, Adrian Garcia will win again: I don’t see how you get around that. You might think that Mr. Guthrie is the reincarnation of Roscoe P. Coltrane but what is the average voter going to do when Sheriff Garcia starts playing the recordings of Mr. Pittman’s former and current wives? Listen to these clips (and there are worse ones out there) and think about hearing them over and over and over and over and over come November:

Patricia Pittman

one night he tried to strangle me and I started to scream and then he took another hand and put it over my mouth and said, “you make one word and I’ll kill you…”

Kristi Pittman

He was just so mad at me and he hit me one time and it kind of…over here in the rib area.

Mr. Pittman continues to say that the allegations are false and that polygraph tests are not accepted in court. On the KHOU report, his current wife says that she was intimidated by the detective and that is why she said the things she did. The Chronicle report by Mike Morris contains this quote from his first wife:

“The things I said were not true, they were said in a moment of anger and hurt feelings,” she said, also confirming that she had donated $1,020 to his campaign.

Now, maybe it is true that both women lied. Maybe it is true that the police reports filed in years past are false. I don’t know the truth about that, only those three individuals do.

But I do know that these documents are in the public domain. And I do know that Mr. Pittman has filed for divorce three times in ten years and has an illegitimate child by another woman during the time he was married to his first wife. And I do know that Sheriff Garcia will use all of these issues and more. And I do know that most people are going to be hesitant to vote for a man after they hear those recordings.

So that is the real issue in this race. Those questions above are well and good but if Republican voters do not address the elephant standing in the room, they are going to be sorely disappointed in November. Then the question becomes how far down the ballot will it hurt the local party? How many judges lose because Republicans choose to ignore the problem that we face if Mr. Pittman is elected? Does it factor up into the District Attorney’s race? Those are the questions that you must ask if you are going to insist upon voting for Mr. Pittman.

Look, I made my choice because I think that Mr. Guthrie is clearly more qualified to be Sheriff of one of the largest counties in the country. I don’t care about Mr. Pittman’s vow to rule constitutionally – I know that Mr. Guthrie will do so as well. I do care that Mr. Pittman gave $500 to Sheriff Garcia in 2008, helped him get elected, and then forgot to mention that on his candidate questionnaire. And I think that Mr. Pittman does our party no good when he talks about having the power to kick federal officials out of the county. There is bravado and then there is bravado.

But if you remain convinced that he is the best candidate and you are still going to vote for Mr. Pittman, you must come up with a plan to deal with those recordings, interviews, and police records. And thus far, I haven’t seen anything from the Pittman campaign that comes close to dealing with them. And I don’t think that they can.