A Rough Road to Texas House: On the Campaign Trail of Capitol Riot Defendant Mark Middleton
At first glance, Sneaky Pete’s wouldn’t strike you as the kind of place where someone vying for your vote would pitch their political campaign. On the shore of Lewisville Lake, it’s a spot where people can grab a cold beer and a greasy burger after a long day on the water. But on the night of Jan. 7, disgruntled Republicans from around North Texas filled the banquet room.
Behind the podium at the head of the room, red, white and blue balloons neatly framed a campaign sign for Isaac Smith, who’s running for U.S. Congress on the promise to, as his placards say, drain the swamp. A bartender poured drinks in the back. A few people picked at the buffet. White cloths dressed the tables. Several in the crowd were suited up in slick dresses or coats, and a few had dressed more casually, in cowboy hats and overalls. By the time the event started, the seats were all taken, leaving only standing room for latecomers. Some 50 people had shown up to hear Smith and a handful of aspiring politicians, including a state House candidate named Mark Middleton.
When Middleton’s turn to take the podium came, he only briefly touched on the policies he had to offer voters in Texas House District 68, a slice of the state that spans some 300 miles east to west and 200 north to south. Shaped like a mangled L with an extra appendage, the district hugs the Texas-Oklahoma border in some areas and nearly stretches all the way down into the northern tip of Hill Country. Middleton said the Texas Republican Party, despite recently convening the most conservative legislative session on the books, hadn’t updated its program in two decades.
His incumbent opponent, GOP state Rep. David Spiller, and the rest of the party brass, he argued, were all RINOs, or “Republicans in Name Only.” That’s why the “big-money donors” hadn’t pitched in for Middleton’s campaign or others like it: He had only $500 in his war chest. “I am a true conservative,” he said. “I am a true patriot.”
Read more: https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/a-rough-road-to-texas-house-on-the-campaign-trail-of-capitol-riot-defendant-mark-middleton-13189925