If you need a case study in campaign desperation, I’ve got one for you.

In the race for Texas’ 2nd Congressional District (encompassing much of north and west Houston, Kingwood too), soon to be vacated by the long-serving and retiring Rep. Ted Poe, Rep. Kevin Roberts has gotten downright nasty toward his Republican runoff opponent, former Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw.

The two square off on May 22 when the runoff election will determine who moves forward.

An attack ad placed by an anti-Crenshaw PAC Conservative Results Matter (which appears to be the kind of PAC that bears a name not quite congruent with its actual purpose) conveniently left out Crenshaw’s unmistakable battle wound. Crenshaw wears an eye patch. During a tour in Iraq, Crenshaw lost his right eye when an improvised explosive device detonated.

Not only was the right half of Crenshaw’s face left out of the crazy ass ad, but there’s no evidence of an eye patch whatsoever.

Compare ad Crenshaw:

To regular Crenshaw:

Lol. Just watch this.

I can’t watch this without thinking of the Bobby Newport attack ad scene from Parks and Rec because this is all I’m hearing:

The Free Beacon with the down and dirty:

“‘Insane, hateful, idiot.’ These are the words so-called Republican Dan Crenshaw used to describe President Trump,” a narrator says in the TV ad released by the Super PAC last week. “Crenshaw called Trump an ‘idiot.'” The attack parallels a Facebook post by Roberts, who in April shared a screenshot of an old Facebook post of Crenshaw’s and accused the SEAL of “openly attacking Donald Trump as an ‘idiot,’ ‘insane,’ and ‘ignorant.'” Crenshaw denounced the ad as a “desperate strategy” and said the comments cited were “taken out of context,” Politico reported. He said the 2015 post represented an “aggressive defense of Christianity” after then-candidate Trump argued for a religious litmus test. “I’ve always supported President Trump,” he said. “I didn’t always support candidate Trump.” Crenshaw recently met with the Washington Free Beacon outside of Houston to discuss pressing national security issues like North Korea and immigration. Crenshaw, who served four months in South Korea before medically retiring in 2016, lauded Trump’s progress on the Korean Peninsula as “historic.”

Granted, the attack didn’t come from the Roberts campaign directly, but a Roberts-friendly PAC.

The exact same imagery was circulated in a mailer — eye patchless Crenshaw snuggled up with Bernie and Obama.

David Jennings at BigJolly posted a copy of the matching mailer:

I mean, really. Who in their right mind is going to believe that a former Navy SEAL endorsed by former Governor Rick Perry would be touting a socialist health care plan? No one. That’s who.

According to Jennings, the PAC has dropped $141K in attack ads, “all paid to a firm in Maryland called Mentzer Media Services.”

Crenshaw has racked up plenty of solidly conservative local endorsements, including the endorsement of my dear, dear friends at the Kingwood TEA Party who say:

Dan is not only the right candidate in this race, underneath his courage, patriotism, and integrity beats the heart of a policy wonk who really knows and understands our conservative issues and principles. And when he doesn’t know enough about a new issue? I can testify to his ability to find the people who do know that issue, learn from them, internalize the information, even as he catalogues it according to his & our principles—all while maintaining a fast-paced schedule of campaign visits throughout the District. Within a two week period, I saw him learn, assess, master the subject matter, at which time he presented the material at one of our TEA Parties, extending the argument by suggesting the 1st original plan to begin by dealing locally with an issue others saw as State- or even Nationally-oriented. Lt. Commander Dan Crenshaw (Ret) is a capable young leader with a lion’s heart, a towering intellect, a heart to serve, and the courage to fight for his CD-2 constituents in the Swamp of D.C. The Kingwood TEA Party, Jim, and I proudly support Dan Crenshaw for Congress, CD-2.

Negative ads draw media (clearly, because here I am blogging about them) but they can also backfire. And that’s exactly what I suspect will happen here. There’s a fine line between a solid uppercut and the bizarrely reaching and crazy. This is definitely the latter.



