Second Texas Poll Shows Talarico Leading Both Republicans For Senate

 

The charts above show the results of the University of Texas / Texas Politics Poll -- done between April 10th and 20th of a sample of 1,200 registered Texas voters, with a 2.83 point margin of error.

Early Poll Shows Talarico Leading Both Cornyn And Paxton In Texas

 

These charts are from the Texas Public Opinion Research Poll -- done between April 17th and 20th of a sample of 1,018 likely general election voters in Texas, with a 3.3 point margin of error.

Trump Thinks He Can Control The Texas GOP Senate Nomination (But Paxton Says NO)

 

GOP Senators are scared of the results of the Texas primary elections, and have been begging Trump to endorse incumbent John Cornyn. It looks like they have convinced Trump to do so. But in his narcissistic glory, he wants to go further and demand that Cornyn's opponent drop out of the race. But Trump may not have the power he thinks he has. Ken Paxton is saying he'll stay in the race no matter who Trump endorses.

Talarico Wins Texas Democratic Senate Primary (As Dems Turn Out More Votes Than GOP)

 

Texas Democrats have their nominee for the U.S. Senate. James Talarico defeated Jasmine Crockett in a hard fought race (52.8% to 45.9%) - with both candidates getting more than a million votes. On Wednesday morning, Crockett (being the good Democrat she has always been) conceded saying:

“This morning I called James and congratulated him on becoming the Senate nominee. Texas is primed to turn blue and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person. This is about the future of all 30 million Texans and getting America back on track. With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominees and win. I’m committed to doing my part and will continue working to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.”

We still don't know who the Republican nominee will be. Neither incumbent John Cornyn and Ken Paxton could get 50% of the vote, so they will be in a run-off in late May. 

This will help Talarico. He can get busy raising funds and campaigning across the state while the Two Republican candidates fight each other (in what has been a rather nasty campaign) for another two months.

The Republicans spent over $100 million in this campaign, and it is expected they will spend another $100 million in the run-off. This is money that could have been spent helping Republicans in other states stave off what is looking like it could be a nationwide blue wave.

It also looks like Democrats may have a small enthusiasm edge. Spending only about $35 million in the primary, they turned out 2,252,358 votes. The $100 million spent by Republicans got them 2,141,929 (about 110,429 fewer votes than in the Democratic primary). 

Add to this the fact that Donald Trump is underwater in red state Texas (45% approve to 49% who disapprove), and it looks like Texas may have its best chance of electing a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in several decades.

Will Trump Use The FBI To Arrest Texas State House Democrats?

 

Donald Trump's agenda is not popular with most Americans. That has him worried that Republicans could lose the House of Representatives in the 2026 election. If Republicans lose the House, Democrats might then be able to block the worst of Trump's unpopular actions.

A reasonable chief executive would probably change his unpopular agenda, but Trump is not a reasonable person. He doesn't care what the public wants as long as he can get what he wants. To accomplish this he has decided to cheat to retain the House in 2026. He has instructed Texas Republicans to redraw the states' U.S. House districts to get Republicans an additional five seats. To do this, they would likely be destroying some minority districts by placing many minorities in heavily Republican districts.

Democrats don't have enough members of the state legislature to stop the new Republican gerrymandering. But they have the power to stop it by refusing to show up for the votes by denying a quorum in the Texas House. The House cannot pass any law (including redistricting) unless a quorum of 100 members is present. 

Enough Democrats have left the state (going to Democratic states) to deny the Republicans a quorum. The House speaker has issued a civil order for the arrest and return of the Democrats, and Gov. Abbott has instructed state DPS troopers to do that. But those troopers don't have jurisdiction outside of Texas, and since the Democratic House members have not broken any criminal law, the Democratic states and cities they have gone to are refusing to aid in their arrest. It is currently a stand-off.

Texas Senator John Cornyn has asked the FBI to assist in locating and arresting the missing Texas Democrats. And Donald Trump has said that might have to be done.

But the mission of the FBI is to "protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States". They should not be used to help either political party in a partisan political matter (which this is). The Texas House Democrats may have angered Trump and Texas Republicans, but they have not broken any laws - either state or federal.

If Trump orders the FBI to intervene, his lackey Kash Patel would probably cooperate. That would turn the FBI into an enforcement branch of the Republican Party - an inappropriate and possibly illegal use of the FBI. It should never be used in a purely partisan political manner for either political party.

If Trump does this, it will mean he can use the most powerful law enforcement agency in America as his personal political retribution arm. That would be a giant step toward the dissolution of our democracy. 

Would O'Rourke Make A Better Senate Candidate In 2020?

Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke came within 3 points of beating Ted Cruz in the 2018 Texas senate race (51% to 48%). That result shocked many people, and it has caused much buzz about O'Rourke's political future.

Many are talking about a possible run for the presidency in 2020, and polls have shown that (even though he has not said he would run) he finishes well ahead of several candidates that have declared. He usually posts numbers that rival those of Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren (the two declared candidates that poll the best), and better than Klobuchar, Booker, Gillibrand, Castro, and others already in the race.

But would a presidential run be his best bet? Maybe not. There has also been talk of him running against John Cornyn for the Senate in 2020, and Cornyn may be vulnerable. Cornyn's job approval numbers tend to be lower than those of Cruz -- and a recent poll shows O'Rourke would start out nearly even with Cornyn (he had to come from far behind when he took on Cruz, and nearly won)>

The poll is one done by Public Policy Polling. They surveyed 743 registered voters in Texas on February 13th and 14th, and their poll had a margin of error of 3.6 points. The results are shown in the chart below.

Right now, O'Rourke would only trail Cornyn by 2 points (47% to 45%, with 8% unsure). That margin is within the poll's margin of error. Those are amazing numbers for a Democrat in Texas, and they show that O'Rourke would have a really good chance of unseating Cornyn.

That might be a better path for O'Rourke. The Democratic presidential nominating race is going to be a mess with. It already has 11 candidates, and that could swell by 6 to 10 more. It will be interesting to see what choice O'Rourke will make.

Can Stockman Upset Cornyn In Texas GOP Primary ?

Early voting started yesterday in Texas for both party primaries, and one of the surprising things this year (at least for me) was the fact that Republican Senator John Cornyn has a teabagger opponent in the GOP primary. I know the teabaggers have been threatening Republican elected officials with primary challenges to make sure they continue to vote for far-right policies -- but there is no senator in the U.S. Senate with a more right-wing voting record than John Cornyn. It just goes to show that a politician can't be right-wing enough to please Texas teabaggers.

But does Steve Stockman (the teabagger candidate) really stand a chance of unseating Senator Cornyn? When Stockman entered the race, most political pundits gave him no chance at all. Now there is a poll on the race that shows Cornyn with a solid 15 point lead in the race. The poll is the Human Events / Gravis Marketing Poll (taken of 729 likely Republican primary voters between February 10th and 12th, with a margin of error of 3.6 points).

What I found most interesting about this poll was the way in which Gravis Marketing introduced its results. The memo discussing those results is titled "Stockman Gaining Against Cornyn In Texas Primary Battle", and Douglas Kaplan of Gravis Marketing said:

"Congressman Stockman is much closer than expected. Cornyn is under 50% with a significant amount still undecided, which is dangerous territory for an incumbent."

Really? That headline and statement makes it sound like the GOP senate nomination is close, and could be won by either candidate. I'm not buying it. If I was a candidate, I would be devastated to be 15 points behind my opponent only a week before voting started -- and that is the position that Stockman finds himself in. This smells more to me like a Stockman supporter trying to put the best spin possible on a bad poll -- and that is probably exactly what this is, since Human Events has long been a far-right-wing fringe publication.

The poll also gauged the approval/disapproval of both candidates, which showed Cornyn's approval numbers much higher and Stockman still virtually unknown to most voters (with 55% saying they didn't know enough about him to approve or disapprove). That's not good for Stockman on the eve of the primary.

The teabaggers may be hoping their candidate can win, but personally, I think it would take a miracle for that to happen. Cornyn is going to win this race going away.

Cornyn - Voting Rights Bill "Discriminates Against Texas"

(The image of John Cornyn on the left was found at the excellent Texas blog called Off the Kuff.)

In 2013, the Supreme Court made a decision that severely impacts of the ability of the federal government to assure that states don't try to illegally suppress minority votes. They nullified the part of the Voting Rights Act that listed the states that needed federal approval before changing any voting laws (states that had a history of trying to exclude minorities from the election process). The court said that list was out of date, and was nullified until Congress could update it.

Well, Congress is now trying to fix the problem and protect the voting rights of minorities (and everyone else). Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) have co-authored an update to the Voting Rights Act. This new bill would require any state with 5 voting rights violations in 15 years to have to get federal pre-clearance before changing any voting laws or regulations. Currently that would apply to four states (Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi), but other states could be added to the list later if they try to suppress votes with unfair laws.

It was hoped that the new bill would get bi-partisan support in Congress (since one of the bill's authors is a Republican). But those hopes are being dimmed, and one of those leading the fight to kill the bill is Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). Cornyn claims the bill "discriminates against Texas", and that the state should be lauded for the "tremendous leaps and bounds" that Texas has made in assuring voting rights.

His statement (and position) is ludicrous. He is just trying to justify or deflect attention away from the new efforts in Texas to suppress minority votes (such as Voter ID and the redrawing of districts to favor the GOP). The truth is that protecting voter rights doesn't discriminate against Texas or any other state. It just keeps those states from backsliding into their old habits -- and recent efforts by the GOP in Texas show that is a distinct possibility.

But Cornyn is not now, and never has been, concerned about protecting the right of all citizens to vote. He's running for re-election this year, and he knows his chances (and those of other Republicans) are much better if minority voting is suppressed.

Texas Teabaggers Want To Replace Cornyn With A Man Even Nuttier Than Ted Cruz

This may surprise some of you who know the voting record of Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas). Cornyn has one of the most right-wing voting records of anyone in the Senate -- having voted to obstruct everything the president has tried to do, voted to uphold all of the many Republican filibusters, voted against Wall Street reform, voted against job creation bills, voted in favor of sequestration cuts to government, voted to keep the government shutdown, voted against immigration reform, and voted against background checks for those wanting to buy a gun.

But believe it or not, the teabaggers in Texas aren't happy with Cornyn. He's not far enough to the right for them, and they are trying to talk a real nut-job into running against Cornyn in the Republican primary. The man they want is David Barton (pictured above at left).

Barton is a fundamentalist minister, who served as vice-chair of the state GOP for many years -- so he does have some political contacts throughout the state. And while he doesn't currently have the money to finance a run for the Senate, he has a formidable mailing list that would allow him to raise a lot of money quickly. In short, he's probably in better shape than Ted Cruz was in when he decided to run.

Who is David Barton? Barton claims to be a historian (even though he doesn't have the education to back up that claim -- having only a BA in Religious Education from Oral Roberts University), and his historical claims have been discredited by all true history scholars. He is the founder of WallBuilders -- a right-wing fundamentalist organization dedicated to the proposition that separation of church and state is just a myth, and that the United States was founded as a christian nation. He opposes the Common Core curriculum that has been accepted by most states (but not Texas), because he wants  schools to be able to teach religion as science and right-wing ideology as history. And perhaps craziest of all, Barton believes global warming is caused by abortion.

Barton also has strong ties to most of the GOP's nuttiest people -- including Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, and Glenn Beck. The political pundits don't think Barton can beat Cornyn, but these same pundits didn't think Ted Cruz could beat David Dewhurst and be elected to the Senate (and they were certainly wrong about that). Barton is probably a long shot right now, but I've lived in Texas too long to completely write him off. The teabaggers controlling the state GOP in Texas have a long history of nominating incompetent jerks.

I sincerely hope Texas voters don't send this fool to the Senate. Cornyn and Cruz are bad enough, but Barton makes them look almost sane and competent (and believe me, that takes some doing).

The Selfish & Hypocritical Texas Senators

There is little doubt that Texas has two of the worst (and most hypocritical) senators in this nation. After demanding federal disaster relief for both the wildfires and the drought that struck Texas, John Cornyn turned around and voted against disaster aid for the Hurricane Sandy victims in the Northeast. Ted Cruz wasn't in the Senate yet when the aid for the wildfires and drought were requested, but he also voted against the disaster aid for Hurricane Sandy victims. Cruz and Cornyn were among 36 Senate Republicans who voted against Hurricane Sandy relief.

What will these two senators say now that Governor Perry has asked for disaster relief from the federal government for the explosion in West, Texas. Cornyn will probably ask for the relief to be given -- since he has a history of wanting aid for Texas, while denying aid to disaster victims in other states. It should be interesting to see what Cruz does. Is he just an a-hole when the aid is going to others, or is he an a-hole all the time? Either is unacceptable.

I hope the people of West get the federal aid they need, and I expect they will. President Obama (and the majority in Congress) are not as selfish and hypocritical as the two Texas senators.

Big Surprise! - Cornyn Opposes Kagan

Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), best known for protecting Americans against marriage to box turtles, says he has made a decision about Elena Kagan (who has been nominated for a seat on the United States Supreme Court). He has now announced that he will vote against approving Kagan's nomination.

Cornyn said he opposes Kagan because of her lack of experience as a judge. He was also upset because she wouldn't rule out overturning any recent Supreme Court decisions. He said that made him believe she wouldn't work within constitutional limits (which means she might make a decision he and his right-wing buddies wouldn't approve of).

Of course neither of these reasons were enough for him to oppose any of George Bush's nominations, even though the criticisms were just as valid for those nominations. Cornyn fully supported the Harriet Miers nomination and it didn't seem to bother him that she had no judicial experience. He also supported the nomination of John Roberts -- one of the most activist judges on the court.

These bogus reasons for not supporting Kagan's nomination are no real surprise, since Cornyn has always acted as a puppet and mouthpiece for right-wing dogma. We already knew Cornyn would not support Elena Kagan and why. In an extremely rare moment of honesty a couple of weeks ago Cornyn admitted that Republicans oppose Kagan's nomination "simply because President Obama nominated her."

I guess that moment of honesty was not approved of by his fellow right-wingers, because he is now back to spouting the same talking points as them.

Another Cornyn Flip-Flop

A few days ago, President Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to replace Justice Stevens on the United States Supreme Court. In response to this, Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) only took a couple of days to embarrass himself and his home state with his rabidly anti-Obama and partisan take on the nomination.

Cornyn has never been a believer in bipartisanship. He slavishly follows the Republican party talking points no matter how silly they may be. And this time, it doesn't seem to bother Cornyn that his current spouting of a Republican talking point requires a gigantic flip-flop of a position he took just a few years ago (for a Bush nomination to the court).

Cornyn, along with Sen. McConnell (R-Kentucky) and Sen. DeMint (R-South Carolina), is saying he cannot support the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court because she has a lack of judicial experience. He says, "Ms. Kagan is likewise a surprising choice because she lacks judicial experience. Most Americans believe that prior judicial experience is a necessary credential for a Supreme Court justice."

Cornyn is ignoring (and hoping we have forgotten) the fact that he took just the opposite view in 2005 with the nomination of Harriet Miers. After Miers withdrew her nomination, Cornyn is quoted as saying, "I mean, one reason I felt so strongly about Harriet Miers's qualifications is I thought she would fill some very important gaps in the Supreme Court. Because right now you have people who've been federal judges, circuit judges most of their lives, or academicians. And what you see is a lack of grounding in reality and common sense that I think would be very beneficial."

Can Kagan not fill that "very important gap"? Not for Cornyn. He obviously thinks that something that is good for a Republican president to do, is horrible for a Democratic president to do. What partisan rubbish!

The idea that a Supreme Court justice must have a background with extensive judicial experience is pure nonsense anyway. Some of our greatest justices have not had a judicial background. Blogger tnlib at Parsley's Pics makes this very clear by posting a list of 40 Supreme Court justices without prior judicial experience. I list here only the first twenty on that list, but I urge you to go read the entire list. The president who nominated each is in parentheses.

William Rehnquist - U.S. Attorney General (Nixon)

Lewis Powell - American Bar Assoc. president (Nixon)

Abe Fortas - private practice (Johnson)

Byron White - Dep. U.S. Attorney General (Kennedy)

Arthur Goldberg - U.S. Sec. of Labor (Kennedy)

Earl Warren - Governor of California (Eisenhower)

Tom Clark - U.S. Attorney General (Truman)

Harold Burton - U.S. Senator (Truman)

Robert Jackson - U.S. Attorney General (Roosevelt)

James Francis Byrnes - U.S. Senator (Roosevelt)

William O. Douglas - S.E.C. chairman (Roosevelt)

Felix Frankfurter - Asst. U.S. Attorney (Roosevelt)

Stanley Forman Reed - U.S. Solicitor General (Roosevelt)

Owen Josephus Rogers - "Teapot Dome" Special Counsel (Hoover)

Harlan Fiske Stone - U.S. Attorney General (Coolidge)

Pierce Butler - County Attorney (Harding)

George Sutherland - U.S. Senator (Harding)

Louis Brandeis - private practice (Wilson)

James Clark McReynolds - U.S. Attorney General (Wilson)

Charles Evans Hughes - Governor of New York (Taft)

Cornyn Lectures Reid On African-Americans

This is almost too ridiculous to believe. Texas Senator John Cornyn actually thinks he has the right to lecture Majority Leader Reid about how to treat African-Americans. That sounds to me like the blind leading the slightly visually-impaired.

Senator Reid did make a stupid and bone-headed statement back in 2008 about candidate Barack Obama. It was exposed in a new book that Senator Reid said Obama could be a successful candidate because he had speech patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." Obviously, Senator Reid doesn't have nearly enough African-American friends or he would have known better than to say that.

What was he thinking? Surely he doesn't think all African-Americans naturally speak ebonics or in the language of Hip-Hop. African-Americans are just like the rest of us -- they speak like the people they are around.

I grew up in the country talking like a hick. I also graduated from college. I speak just as good English as anyone, but when I get back into a country setting I can slip back into that way of talking very quickly. It's just a natural thing for humans to start talking like the people they are around. When I was younger, I spent some time in Canada and it just took a couple of weeks for Canadian speech patterns to start showing up in my speech.

African-Americans are no different. I've never noticed the educated people I've been around as talking "different" from anyone else -- regardless of their color or place of origin. However, Senator Reid has apologized sincerely for his bone-headed mistake and I really don't think he meant to hurt anyone's feelings.

But Senator Cornyn does have a lot of gall to preach to Senator Reid about how to treat African-Americans. Cornyn said, "As we await his explanation, Sen. Reid should do the right thing...and step down as majority leader." First, Senator Reid does not owe any explanation to Cornyn. Second, Cornyn has no right to ask the majority leader to step down -- that is a matter for Democrats to decide.

At least Senator Reid has a good record of voting for issues that are important to African-Americans and other minorities. Senator Cornyn does not, and he has no right to set his lily-white personage up as a spokesman for African-American interests. Just ask the Black Caucus how many times Cornyn has voted with them, and I'll bet their answer would be zero.

Senator Cornyn is a big enough embarrassment to the citizens of Texas without setting himself up as an authority on things he knows nothing about.

Cornyn Should Reject Hagee's Anti-Catholicism

A couple of weeks ago, our Republican senator stood on the same stage with John McCain as he received an endorsement from San Antonio preacher and bigot, John Hagee. Since then, McCain has repudiated Hagee's hateful statements about the Catholic Church. Hagee (pictured above) had called the Catholic Church "the great whore", "the antichrist" and a "false cult system".

Republicans like Cornyn are quick to condemn people like Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam, but they don't mind crawling into bed with other hatemongers who are just as bad, if not worse. Hagee is one of those right-wing fundies that's convinced that he's right and everyone else is a sinner or worse.

His bigoted descriptions of the Catholic Church are beyond the pale of decency. McCain finally realized this and repudiated it. It's time for Cornyn to do the same, that is, unless he agrees with those views.

Democratic spokesman Hector Nieto put it well when he said, "The Texas Democratic party would hope to see Sen. Cornyn do the right thing and denounce Hagee's comments, but after watching Cornyn vote lock-step for President Bush and Karl Rove's radical agenda for the last eight years, no one here is holding their breath."

I'm not holding my breath either. Cornyn is very comfortable with the "holier-than-thou" fundie crowd -- he's one of them. I don't expect him to stand up for tolerance.

Fortunately for Texans, We 've got another candidate running for the U.S. Senate this year against Cornyn. His name is Rick Noriega. Noriega is a candidate who believes in tolerance, fairness and equality for all Americans. Check him out at Rick Noriega for Texas. I think you'll like what you see.

But Cornyn already has a huge war chest. If you can, give Rick a few dollars so Texas can have a great senator. It doesn't have to be much -- every five or ten dollars will help. I don't have much money myself, but I've been sending him $30 a month and will continue to do so. I urge you to help also. Consider it your gift to Texas.