Recently, Mr. Story has been attacking Mr. Morales on, where else, Facebook. Mr. Story has a group called Eric Story Exposing RINO Candidates. Here is a sample of his entries:
Roy Morales, candidate for US House in District 29 of Texas is a RINO. He recently called for Foreign Troops to be stationed on US soil to enforce US laws. This belief was held by Bill Clinton and now by Obama.
We cannot elect another RINO to office and continue to damage the Republican Brand by doing so.
and
Bob, In addition to the comment regarding foreign troops, we need to remember his solicitation of 67k from Anise Parker as well as his solicitation of funds from Gene Locke to show them as conservative in a mailer that didn’t come close to costing the 67k. Why would any true conservative play these games with obvious liberals like Anise “the lesbian” Parker and Gene “got help from Obama’s Team” Locke?
Is there any real difference between Gene Green and Morales?
and
No Bob, I cannot support an individual that has proven he is not a Republican, just because he placed an R behind his name. I also will not support Green.
Liberals posing as Republicans have cost this nation dearly. Remember Olympia Snow or Arlen Specter? Where did they take their marching orders from? Morales just took his from an Independent Oilman. He told us straight out he had no intention of running for this office until he was offered money by this man.
I won’t support a man like this regardless of what he calls himself.
He and his team spread lies about me during the primary. Now you expect me to stand with him. NO CHANCE.
By the way Bob, he told the Liberty Institute he hasn’t decided how he would vote on amnesty. Is he waiting to see which side has the best offer? An man of principle, regardless of which side he is one, would not need to be convinced.
Whew! Like I said, there is turmoil in CD-29.
I completely disagree with Mr. Story’s version of the Annise Parker mailer. First off, there was no endorsement, period. Second, Mr. Locke had agreed to participate in the joint mailer but then pulled out rather than have his answers revealed. I think that had he gone forward, voters would have seen that, in an election between two liberal Democrats, Annise Parker was the more fiscally conservative candidate. And I think that the voters ended up making the correct decision on who needed to lead the city. So I think that Mr. Story is way off base and letting his social conservatism overrule common sense.
The real question I suppose is this: is this just sour grapes on Mr. Story’s part or does he truly believe that Roy Morales is no better than Gene Green? The only way to know that is to talk to Mr. Story, so I called him and asked.
We talked about the entire election cycle, the previous elections both were in, the HCRP candidate’s committee rating Mr. Morales 100{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} and Mr. Story only 60{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}, the Parker mailer, Mr. Morales’ entry into the race, etc. Mr. Story insists that his are not sour grapes; rather, what he is doing is simply more of what he has done in the past and present, calling out people that he thinks are not conservative Republicans.
He noted that he had criticized both Texas Senators in the past. And he pointed out that he is currently warning voters that Dr. Susan Curling, who is in a runoff for Texas State Rep. 127, has raised funds for Gene Green in the past and therefore cannot be trusted. I’m not sure why he thinks that Dan Huberty can be trusted, given that Mr. Huberty is dipping into the poisoned well of the Link Letter.
As much as I want to believe him, I have to think that at least some of his animosity is due to the negative campaigning that came from the Morales camp. Although Mr. Morales limited his attacks to a blog post or two, his surrogates constantly attacked Mr. Story’s lack of military service and lack of a college degree. They went way overboard, not simply pointing these two facts out but deriding him and treating him with contempt. Mr. Story is a good and honorable man but even honorable men can have their egos bruised.
At the end of our conversation, I asked Mr. Story if he could see a point in time when he and Mr. Morales could reconcile their differences. To his credit, he said yes, but only if he sees changes that demonstrate principled decision making.
So, I called up Mr. Morales and asked him two things. First, I wanted to know about the “foreign troops on American soil” quote that Mr. Story is repeating. Second, I wanted to know if he was open to reconciliation.
On the first question, Mr. Morales would not comment other than to say that Mr. Story is taking his words out of context. On the second, he stated that was his goal, for all of the candidates and all Republicans to come together to defeat Gene Green. The cynic in me wonders how he can accomplish that goal after giving $5,000 to Terry Lowry, a man hell-bent on dividing the party and keeping it pure. His definition of pure, of course. But at least he is offering.
Will these two men kiss and make-up? Hard to tell. Stranger things have happened in politics but Mr. Story is never going to forget saying that infamous speech prayer and then having Mr. Morales, in his mind, endorse Ms. Parker. Like his brand of religion or not, Mr. Story stands by his words and was no doubt deeply offended by that mailer.