The best you got in your U.S. Senate campaign against Democrat rival James Talarico is: he eats vegetables and is queer (Texan for gay)? Man, how long ago in the way-back machine are you still living? No 21st century Texan, especially young voters with all their tats and piercings and in-your-face defiance, gives a rat’s behind about anyone being vegetarian or gay. Well, I may have to take that last part back. As a lifelong Texan myself (and that’s another claim you can’t make, Paxton), maybe a lotta Texans are still anti-gay as much as they are anti-vegetarian. But for my little Texas self, I haven’t eaten pork or beef since, like, 1988. And I see your point; I am a liberal Democrat, suspect among my own people. Oh, for years living in small-town Texas, I used to get strange looks when ordering a vegetable pizza (“You don’t want no meat on it?” No, I don’t, I kindly replied as to not make waves or draw attention to myself. And then afterwards the cooks would come out to meet me, saying they’d never made a vegetable pizza or meatless spaghetti sauce before. They were seeking my approval that the food tasted good, and it did.) For years at the Dairy Queen, I’d order the BLT without the bacon. I love a vegetable sandwich. You should try it.
As a teacher in the city, I realized a number of students, perhaps 20 percent or more per school, opted for the salad instead of the sandwich or hot-meat meal offered for lunch in the cafeterias. So, times and people, especially young people, have changed. And these are kids from poor families growing up right here in Texas. In the classroom, a few of the athletes and pro-ball wannabes refused sugary energy drinks, calling them ‘nasty’ and saying they’d never put that stuff in their bodies. Times have changed, or don’t you know?
As for the ugly insinuation Talarico (a former teacher and ecumenical minister) is homosexual, I’m sorry to say that could win you some voters in Texas. But in case you and your ilk are unaware, gays and lesbians have the right to marry each other—the implication being from a federal viewpoint, homosexuals are considered human beings with all the rights and privileges permitted in this country—no matter what Texas thinks.
And that ridiculous caricature of you drawn up in a strong muscular manly football body against an effeminate Talarico donning a Cowboys’ cheerleader outfit, bruh-ther. That will no doubt get you some more male voters whose Tex-Mex machismo and self-perception of harboring a physically fit body are to the rest of us grand delusions. Women know what it takes to maintain a hard bod, and well, who has the time? We’d rather have men who CARE about women, understand their need for affordable daycare, paid time off and businesss support for family emergencies like caring for our elderly parents and children, and affordable housing. Hey, these can’t be issues of only Texas women.
You got a point taking a page from the elect Trump playbook: Always depict yourself as Mr. Man whether posting your grinning mug, as your buddy Trump has, as a fighter pilot, the pope or Jesus Christ Himself. I mean, Jesus Christ, even you can’t believe your own propaganda.
The audacity. The vulgarity. The comical nonsense. The total bullshi+.
Get real
State Representative Talarico’s platform focuses on the economy, public education and fair taxation whereby billionaires pay a portion of their income equal to instead of way, way less than the rest of us. This compares with your election promises of MAGA MAGA MAGA, voter IDs, and as Texas Attorney General social media lawsuits. Talarico has countered your pitiful dirty campaign measures by reminding voters of your real-life scandals, Texas impeachment, and winner of the Bum Steer Award by Texas Monthly.
I guess as usual this election will be divided between the educated and the uneducated. And that is not to say white collar and blue collar, college degreed and high school graduate, beer drinkers and wine sippers, gun nuts and hippies, wrestling fans and pickleballers, Baptists and Episcopalians. But we have been sharply divided … since the election of Barack Obama. And that political and social fissure was about race and deep-seated bigotry that modern Texans assumed was buried in the 1960s. But no. We were wrong. Our neighbors, colleagues, families, spouses, and media all deeply divided perhaps never to reason together again.
But the Paxton-Talarico election is, ho hum, a couple of white men vying to represent the great state of Texas in the U.S. Senate. Both are of good age to serve. Both have government experience as elected officials at the state level.
The only difference I can see is one side slinging cowpies while the other side tries to take the higher ground, those who want progress and those who want to drag Texas back to the long-gone 20th century. All the other states think things don’t change much in Texas. Our backwoodsness is legendary along with our unwavering stubbornness even when faced with substantiated new knowledge and facts. And there’s an entire political party banking on Texas being just Texas, county-by-county practically blood Red, once again this time around.