Chris Bell touts electability in Senate race

The last time Chris Bell, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, ran a statewide campaign, the Texas Democratic Party was in virtual hiding and Twitter had just been created.

That year -- 2006 -- Bell, who had served a single term in the U.S. House, lost by 9.2 points to Gov. Rick Perry.

Rip Van Winkle-like, the genial Houston trial attorney, 60, finds himself vying for attention in a political climate soupy with social media, trying to make his case amid a re-energized Democratic Party, one seemingly hungry for diverse candidates.

On the campaign trail, including in a recent jog through Austin, Bell talked about two E's: "experience" -- he also served on the Houston City Council in the 1990s -- and "electability."

It's a funny word for Bell to lean on: Though he's spent less than seven years in elective office, he's been on ballots at least 15 times since 1984.

His allies see his persistence as a sign of how he hears the call to service, his loyalty to the Democratic Party and his willingness to fight what they consider the good fight even in glum political times.

Bell, who trails his chief primary opponents in the money-raising department, tells a story about a would-be voter who recently told him that he still has a 2006 Bell yard sign in his garage.

"I thought he should clean his garage more often," Bell joked.

But the moral was clear: He's banking on nostalgia, hoping that many of the 1.3 million Texans who voted for him in 2006 will cast their ballots for him again.

A political life

An Abilene native, Bell grew up in Highland Park, an affluent enclave in Dallas, as the youngest son of businessman Peter Bell and Dorothy Ann Hyde Bell, editor of home and society news for The Dallas Morning News.

He was a social and political animal from the get-go, elected vice president of his fifth grade class and later, at the University of Texas, president of the Interfraternity Council.

With a journalism degree in hand, Bell worked briefly at an Ardmore, Okla., TV station before joining a station in Amarillo. Then, in 1984, he ran for the Texas House from a Panhandle district.

It was the middle of the Reagan revolution, when Republicans were building momentum toward one-party rule in Texas, and it was the first of Bell's quixotic Democratic forays in a hostile environment.

He lost.

Eager for life in a metropolis, he enrolled in Houston's South Texas College of Law.

Soon he was handling cases involving criminal law, family and general litigation.

By the mid-1990s, he was running again.

On the Houston City Council, he carved out a reputation as a good-government pragmatist and showed himself willing to cross the aisle, siding in 2000 with conservatives for a property tax rate rollback.

Widely liked among the Houston political class, he was reelected twice.

In 2001, he lost a race for mayor, but when a Houston-area U.S. House seat opened up, Bell successfully ran for that office.

In Washington, he was a reliable Democratic vote, siding with labor unions, abortion rights advocates and teachers' groups. By early 2004, he had gained enough favor among Democratic leaders to be named senior minority whip.

But his days were numbered.

Back in Texas, the GOP-led Legislature redrew congressional districts to Republican advantage. Desperate to retain a seat in Congress, Bell opted to run in a Democratic-friendly district with a much smaller Anglo population than the one he had represented. He lost the 2004 primary to Al Green, who has been reelected seven times.

Why run again?

Asked why he wants to run again, Bell has a simple message: "I can't stand the direction of the country right now. I'm very fearful of where this administration is leading us."

He says U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is "Donald Trump's No. 1 water boy."

Calling himself a "progressive steeped in common sense," he says he "feels strongly" about climate change and that more should be invested in renewable energy, but he says it is not useful to "roll over the oil and gas industry." He calls for "common sense gun safety": universal background checks, a ban and buyback program for assault weapons and high capacity magazines, and red flag laws. He backs a version of Medicare for All that will guarantee coverage for every American "and allow a choice between private and public Medicare plans."

Electability

But just how electable is a person who has lost so many races? And will the Democratic voters repay a loyalist? Or will they look for a new face?

Electability is about who plays best in the suburbs, the new battleground of Texas politics, said Jason Stanford, who managed Bell's gubernatorial campaign.

"There's not a soul in Texas who's going to look at Chris Bell and say that man's crazy," Stanford said. "It's hard to get real upset when he talks. He looks like calm. He will make suburban voters say that with him everything's going to be OK."

Having put together his campaign team in July, he raised about $200,000 in the third quarter of 2019, putting him behind four Democratic opponents. Then he raised $111,000 in the fourth quarter, suggesting an anemic campaign. MJ Hegar, a retired Air Force helicopter pilot and the top Democratic fundraiser, netted $1.2 million in contributions the last three months of 2019.

"I didn't really get into this race thinking I'd be the leading fundraiser," Bell said. "We'll have enough to put forth our primary plan" -- which he said would be to target likely voters through social media and direct mail.

University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus said Bell's challenge will be navigating a new Democratic Party.

"One thing potentially in his favor is that he was a pugnacious pugilist for Democrats from the moment Republicans began to emerge as successful in Texas," Rottinghaus said. "Bell probably undersells this point to Democrats: He's been through the wars. What cuts across that is that he hasn't been totally successful. The question is, in a pitched battle, do you want someone like Bell who was battling demons before Trump even set foot on that escalator?"

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