The Running Man

A quick look at Crenshaw’s resume would suggest that such an exhausting campaign tactic ought to be unnecessary: After graduating from Tufts in 2006, Crenshaw began a 10-year career in the Navy SEALs that included three combat tours. In Afghanistan’s Helmand province in 2012, Crenshaw was hit by an improvised explosive device and lost his right eye. Doctors thought damage Crenshaw sustained to his left eye would keep him from seeing again, but several surgeries and special contacts and glasses allowed him not just to return to service, but to deploy twice more in non-combat roles before he medically retired in 2016 with two Bronze Stars (one with valor), the Purple Heart, and the Navy Commendation Medal with Valor. And if that all weren’t enough, in 2018 Crenshaw received a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard before working briefly as a military legislative assistant for Congressman Pete Sessions.

Despite the sterling resume, Crenshaw’s work is cut out for him in the March 6 primary. There’s no public polling, but most observers believe that activist Kathaleen Wall, who has dumped nearly $3 million of her own money into the race already and has the support of Texas governor Greg Abbott, is leading. Then there’s local state representative Kevin Roberts, who has the backing of the NRA. And Crenshaw isn’t even the only war hero in the race: Former Army infantryman Jonny Havens received two Bronze Stars for his service in Iraq. If no candidate gets to 50 percent of the vote, the top two candidates will advance to a runoff. The winner of the primary will very likely win the general election for the seat being vacated by retiring Congressman Ted Poe.

In a recent interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Crenshaw reserved his criticism for Kathaleen Wall, whom he portrayed as an uninspiring candidate essentially buying the seat. “You keep electing old, rich, white people to the seat—you can expect the Republican party to be gone in 50 years,” Crenshaw said. “We can’t keep doing that. We have to make conservatism cool and exciting again.” Crenshaw says articulate, fact-based, rational arguments are the way to win over young people, and he points to conservative commentator Ben Shapiro as a good example of how to do that.

What exactly does that argument look like when it comes to explaining why we should still be in Afghanistan after more than 16 years and nearly 2,300 U.S. deaths? “We just need leaders in Congress who are honest with the American people,” he says. A total victory over the Taliban “is possible if you put 200,000 troops on the ground,” but “the American people don’t have the will to do that. I think we all know that.”

“You pull out completely, you get September 11,” he continues. “You pull out completely, you get ISIS. You can’t do that. You need to maintain some pressure. You can hold, you can maintain peace in the major cities for the most part.”

“Victory looks like no more September 11ths,” he says. “We are accomplishing the mission. Everybody tries to undermine what we’re doing and the lives lost—that’s just sad. It’s sad that you can’t see a very simple strategic goal.”

“You’re preventing another attack. You have to have rough men out there willing to do violence in order to do that. It’s as simple as that.”

When asked about other issues, Crenshaw sounds like a fairly mainstream conservative. “I get that there’s some nuanced opinions of where exactly the [border] wall should be,” he says. “Just build the damn thing.” Crenshaw says he supports increasing the defense budget, but that we need to tackle the debt. “You could shave off maybe $100 billion to $200 billion off defense spending, that’s not really going to do anything,” he says. “You have to tackle the real drivers of debt—that’s mandatory spending, not discretionary.”

But Crenshaw adds that ultimately in the GOP primary “issues don’t set anybody apart.” The 33-year-old veteran comes back to emphasizing the need to appeal to younger voters. He says President Trump has been a “good shield against the onslaught” from the left, but “we’ve got to think long-term too because I don’t think Trump speaks to a lot of young people.”

“The president can get distracted and tweet some things that are controversial, and that gets in the way of his agenda, but the reality is that we need to support his agenda,” he says. “We have to bring back that Reagan optimism.”

Regardless of the outcome of the March 6 primary, Crenshaw seems determined to play a role in bringing back that optimism to American politics—even if he has to run another 1,000 miles to do it.