Press release from the Paul Simpson for Harris County Republican Party Chair campaign:
Carmona Gives Up on Conservative Candidates
HOUSTON – The Simpson for GOP Chair campaign today released a new video highlighting Chris Carmona’s refusal to support President Trump’s campaign and other conservative down ballot candidates in 2016.
Paul Simpson: A Clear Choice for County Chair
A clear choice for Harris County GOP Chair.
Posted by Paul Simpson for Harris County GOP Chair on Thursday, February 1, 2018
A month before the presidential election, Carmona bought into the liberal media attacks on President Trump. He walked away from the race, calling the Republican Party the equivalent of bankrupt.
As the founder and editor in chief of an online magazine, Carmona highlighted 2016 races singling out “exceptional candidates”. He refused to support President Trump saying, “Vote at your discretion,” and singled out two liberal Democrats Ed Gonzales and Vince Ryan over Republicans in down ballot races.
“Carmona’s record speaks for itself. You can’t lead the largest county Republican Party in the country if you can’t support the top of the ticket,” said Simpson spokeswoman Catherine Kelly. “On top of walking away from our president, he has never actually won a campaign for elected office. It’s obvious that Paul Simpson is the clear choice for county chair.”
After reading the actual article that is referenced in Paul’s attack press release on Carmona, the actual article with the endorsements that he insinuates were made by Carmona were actually made by the author of the article, Linda Ybarra. “The Right Thing” online publication is focused on the Latino community, which for the most part, was not exactly enamored with Trump. According to this Texas Tribune article, the Harris County voters with Hispanic sounding surnames was up from 11% in 2012 to 17% in 2016 (https://www.texastribune.org/2016/11/11/harris-county-turned-blue/) I believe that the focus of the article was to not throw the good judges under the bus by voting straight Democrat (which is more typical of the Latino community). Furthermore, Hillary Clinton beat Trump in this county by 160,000 votes, a huge increase from the 971 votes by which Obama took the county in 2012. Paul can attack Carmona all he wants, but it was Paul Simpson who was at the helm when Harris County suffered one of its most overwhelming defeats. Disappointingly, Paul has not risen up to be the leader I thought he would be when I put my full support behind him. He has never risen above the “us against them” mentality and tried to be inclusive by reaching out to those who did not originally support him. There have been a lot of good Republican volunteers and Precinct Chairs who have stopped helping the party because they have indeed been marginalized and not heard. I would even go as far as to say, to quote Paul Simpson’s attack line, that Paul gave up on good conservative Republican Precinct Chairs & volunteers simply because they did not support him in his race against Woodfill. This sort of attitude does not foster a unified front which the party desperately needs in order to turn things around in Harris County.
Finally, Paul himself did appear to try to distance himself and the party from Donald Trump, as one of your own writers, Don Hooper, pointed out in a Big Jolly Article dated Sept. 21, 2016. His attack on Carmona sounds rather disingenuous, at best. As far as Carmona never having won a campaign for elected office, it took Paul Simpson 3 attempts to win such a down ballot race as the party chair.
OK. But you can’t both keep hitting Simpson over the head for not supporting Trump and let Carmona off the hook for failing to do so.
Paul Simpson has done a fabulous job as HCRP chair. There is a vast difference between the way things were run in the ruthless Woodfill days and he has worked hard to have precinct chairs step up and fulfill their roles. Unfortunately, A few precinct chairs have not done a good job because Woodfill didn’t expect them to. Going purple in this County is the fault of Woodfill who held the position for years and went into hibernation. Simpson has been in nothing less than overdrive! As a HCRP, I have nothing but accolades for a formidable job.