I don’t know why Craig James is running for U.S. Senate. If I were paid to talk about college football at ESPN there’s no way I’d give it up to make a likely futile run for public office, but the former Southern Methodist University running back has quit his sweet gig at ESPN to belatedly join the Republican field seeking to replace Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who’s retiring.
James (pictured here in March 2010) may think he has name recognition working in his favor, but my guess is most Texans who recognize his name are unlikely to favor James with their vote. Eric Dickerson and James were the one-two punch of the great Pony Express backfield at SMU in the early 1980s but memories of booster slush funds, payments to players and an NCAA “death penalty” that forced SMU to kill its football program for two years cloud James’ gridiron glory. (James admits to taking “insignificant amounts” of money while at SMU, but he was five years gone from the university and not involved in the immediate violations that led to the school’s football program paying the ultimate price for its sins.)
More recently, James accused Texas Tech head coach Mike Leach of mistreating his son, Adam, a wide receiver, prompting Tech to fire Leach in late 2009. Leach responded by suing Tech, ESPN and James. James’ name is pretty much dirt in West Texas and the Panhandle.
James was in Austin for Thursday night’s Republican Senate debate with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz and former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert. He told the American-Statesman’s Ken Herman and other journalists before the debate that he’s basing his campaign on three simple principles: “God is God. Family is family. And the Constitution is the Constitution.”
This is a wordy expansion of standard Republican campaign fare. “God, family and the Constitution” has a better chance of fitting on a bumper sticker, but maybe James sees his formulation as an assertive final statement, one signaling strength and conviction — though the way he puts it, each principle begs further discussion rather than ends it.
Here, then, is where James’ Senate campaign begins: He filed to run at the last possible moment. What should be an asset in Texas — his football career, which also includes one pro bowl year (1985) with the New England Patriots — is a big liability. He is deeply disliked in a large, very conservative part of the state. His odds of winning the Republican Senate nomination appear worse than the odds the Patriots faced when they met the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XX. (James had five carries for one yard in that 46-10 blowout loss.)
And that is that.