September 14, 2007

Believe It Or Not - House Republican Draws
Primary Challenge from Senator's Dem Foe

Patrick Opponent Who's Now Business Partner Emerges
in Middle of Bitter Rivalry Between Van Arsdale and Senator

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

A Houston bail bondsman who's gone into business with the Republican state senator who trounced him in last year's general election appears poised to resurrect his GOP credentials for a primary race in 2008 against a member of House Speaker Tom Craddick's leadership team.

This is not meant to be a test of your potential gullibility or an early April Fool's joke. But it's definitely a candidate for Ripley's Believe it or Not.

Kubosh will be Van Arsdale's first primary opponent since his initial election to the House District 130 seat in 2002. Van Arsdale faced opposition from Libertarians but no Democrats or Republicans ran against him when he was on the ballot for re-election in 2004 and again last year.

Despite the title of Democratic nominee in an open state Senate race that Patrick took by storm in 2006, Kubosh has been a Republican most of his political life. Kubosh had been voting in GOP primary elections before his short-lived affair with the Democrats last year - and he ran for constable in Matagorda County in 1988 as a Republican. While Kubosh fell short in that race, he established himself as a credible candidate when George W. Bush, whose father was vice president and a candidate for president that year, campaigned for him in the Texas coastal county.

Patrick, however, didn't get to know Kubosh until they were pit against each other in the November election. Patrick had demolished a field of big-name primary foes to win the Republican nomination to a Senate seat that Republican Jon Lindsay was giving up. Kubosh filed as a Democrat for the Senate District 7 seat but didn't raise a dime for the race while Patrick's war chest bulged with almost $1.5 million in contributions and loans.

But Kubosh did find $3,000 to spend on the race and attended at least one candidate forum, which featured all of the SD 7 candidates from both parties. . That's where Patrick met Kubosh. After the forum, Patrick reportedly said that Kubosh sounded more like a Republican than the other GOP candidates in the race and thought he would make a good substitute host on Patrick's radio talk show in Houston at times when he had other places that he needed to be. Since becoming a partner in the Dallas station that Patrick purchased after his election to the Senate, Kubosh has not had a role on the air.

While the eventual nominees in the Senate race were becoming friends and future business associates, the bad blood between Patrick and Van Arsdale had reached a boiling point before the GOP primary election last year. Two weeks before Patrick's primary showdown against two powerful state representatives and an ex-Houston City Council member, Van Arsdale accused Patrick of running a deceptive campaign. Van Arsdale contended that Patrick began attacking him and lying about his record as a legislator after he decided to back another Republican in the state Senate contest. Van Arsdale was supporting Joe Nixon - a fellow state House member who'd been a leader on tort reform issues as the Civil Practices Committee chairman. Nixon finished third in the primary vote behind Patrick and Peggy Hamric, who was also a House committee chair while running for the Senate last year.

Patrick's support for the challenger in a bid to oust Van Arsdale will be a central story line in the HD 130 primary battle if Kubosh runs as expected. Patrick - a former television sports anchor who's one of the Legislature's most conservative and most unique members - garnered 69 percent of the votes in both the primary election and in the fall race against Kubosh. But Patrick didn't fare as well last year as a high-profile supporter in one House campaign as he did as a candidate for Senate. A Republican candidate that Patrick endorsed in the race to replace Nixon ended up losing a primary runoff to Jim Murphy, who went on to win the House seat in the general election.

Since joining the lower chamber, Van Arsdale has been a Craddick supporter whose loyalty has been rewarded with seats on the House's two most powerful committees - Appropriations and Calendars - as well as the budget and oversight chair on the influential State Affairs Committee. Van Arsdale can probably expect some level of support from Craddick as a result at a time when a group of insurgent Republicans and Democrats hope to overthrow him from the speaker's post after failing twice during the regular session this year.

Van Arsdale is off to a good start financially in his third re-election bid, having raised more than $100,000 in a two-week period in June after the ban on campaign contributions during a session expired. Van Arsdale ended June with a campaign surplus of more than $138,000.

Kubosh, meanwhile, has reportedly spent more than $40,000 this year on a lawsuit against the city of Houston after being hit with a $75 fine for running a red-light on purpose in order to test the constitutionality of the red-light camera ordinance.

Van Arsdale won the HD 130 race after defeating Bill O'Brien in the Republican primary in 2002 and cruising to victory with no opposition in general election that year. Van Arsdale had failed to make a primary runoff in 2000 after running a close third behind Bill Callegari and Aubrey Thoede in the competition among Republicans in HD 130 that year. Callegari won the seat and now represents a different district that was crafted during the 2001 redistricting process.