Texas Two-Step

After tomorrow's Texas Democratic U.S. Senate Democratic primary, the party nominee for the seat currently held by Republican John Cornyn will be either State Representative James Talarico . . .

. . . or U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett.

As far as I can discern, Talarico and Crockett agree on basic Democratic Party orthodoxy, but of course they are stylistically different.  Talarico is a teacher who holds a master's degree in divinity, while Crockett is a civil rights lawyer who doesn't suffer fools gladly.  Oh - is one of them a white man and the other a black woman?  I didn't notice.  

Yeah, right.  Texas Democrats certainly have.  Moderate Democrats obviously feel comfortable with Talarico and his righteous indignation toward Trump and Texas Republicans, while progressives see  Crockett as an angry warrior who loves to take MAGA down several notches, as she did in trading insults with then-U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene over physical appearances.  And race certainly has to do with this.  Progressives in Texas see Talarico as just another polite white boy - too eager to seek cooperation in Congress - while mainstream Texas Democrats think that Crockett will be seen as just another angry black woman who's out to humiliate anyone who disagrees with her on the most trivial differences.

I don't have anything against Jasmine Crockett, but I have a feeling that she would have had a better chance of getting elected to the Senate from Missouri, her native state, instead of Texas.  Similarly, Talarico, despite his obvious political talent and his equally obvious knack for connecting with people, looks to be another conventional liberal who is going to fall short of wining a Senate seat from Texas if he is the nominee.  The reasons for my doubts are one and the same for each - it's Texas.

I think I can say without fear of contradiction that a black woman can't get elected to the Senate from Texas.  Texas is far different from Delaware and Maryland, which, respectively, elected black women Lisa Blunt Rochester and Angela Alsobrooks to the U.S. Senate.  Texas voters are still rigidly conservative (read bigoted) and oppose Crockett's Big Government agenda (read "are greedy bastards").  But whenever I hear Talarico be described as a once-in-a-lifetime political talent in the manner of Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, I remember that the same thing was said about Beto O'Rourke, and look what happened to him.  Nothing.

The polls are close, but right now, Talarico seems to have the edge.  The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) certainly thinks so, as it banned an interview Stephen Colbert conducted with Talarico on his soon-to-be-defunct late-night talk show from being aired because it did not offer equal time to Crockett.  FCC Chairman Brendan Carr knows that the seat is much more winnable for the Republicans if the Democrats choose a nominee who rubs too many Texas voters the wrong way, and he thinks Crockett is it.  Talarico, he seems to believe, would likely be in a better position to win, so he made sure that no one would see his interview with Colbert.  Except for one thing - Colbert released the Talarico interview online and it quickly went viral . . . and raised lots of cash for Talarico just as quickly.

All things considered, if Democrats nominate Talarico, they may still lose in November.  If they nominate Crockett, they likely will already have lost.

And the Republican nominee is likely not to be Senator Cornyn but Ken Paxton, the intolerable state Attorney General who's so corrupt, he was impeached (but not convicted) by state legislators in his own party.  Which means that he is only a couple of easy steps away from serving in the U.S. Senate alongside Ted Cruz.

Good luck, Texas.  You're going to need it.