Best Republican
State Representative John Culberson, winner of the GOP nomination in the Seventh Congressional District
This state rep ran a smart but vastly underfunded campaign against River Oaks big bucks Peter Wareing. He also showed rare political moxie by taking on westside political activist Steven Hotze and refusing to kowtow to the good doctor to get his endorsement. After leading a crowded field into the runoff to succeed the retiring incumbent Bill Archer, Culberson came out swinging against Wareing, the son-in-law of influential downtown businessman Jack Blanton. Wareing spent more than $4 million in the primary effort, while Culberson made do with $700,000. He evened the odds with a strong grassroots organization and counter-punched by zeroing in on Wareing's history of supporting Democrats. "It's difficult to imagine how a registered Democrat with a history of supporting Sheila Jackson Lee and Ann Richards is a better conservative than a state representative with a 14-year track record which shows that I have a 100 percent pro-life record," charged Culberson. "There is no vote, there is no issue, there is no principle on which Dr. Hotze [and others] can point to in my legislative history that would demonstrate I am anything less than a stainless-steel conservative." Culberson rolled up 60 percent of the vote, while accomplishing the rare feat of getting the party's moderate and conservative wings working together. It should be great training for his next few years in the partisan pressure cooker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
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