Paxton is one of the biggest slimeballs in American politics right now, which is really saying something. This is really only a hint of the kind of bullshit he’s going to be flinging Talarico’s way from now until Election Day, especially if they can’t find any real dirt on him. I hope Talarico has a tough skin, and I hope he also has a few dirty tricks up his sleeve, because this is going to be a nasty, nasty fight.
A live boy or dead girl in Paxton’s bed would ordinarily do nicely, but with this bunch I wouldn’t bet on it.
From Heather Cox Richardson today:
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The “not one of us” theme is also playing out in Texas, where Republicans appear to be attacking Democratic candidate for senator James Talarico primarily with accusations that he is not manly enough for Texas, falsely saying he is a transgender vegan. Paxton has called Talarico “tofu Talarico,” “six-gender Jimmy,” “James Talafreako” and “low-T Talarico” and has said that Talarico “is a threat to our very way of life and our values. “But Talarico seems to have gotten the memo. He welcomed Cornyn supporters to his campaign and responded to the Republican attacks by telling Ben Meiselas of Meidas Touch: “I’m an eighth-generation Texan. I’ve been eating barbecue since before Ken Paxton’s first indictment. If all they have on me is lying about me being a vegan, I feel pretty good about our chances this November.”
He has refused to take the bait and has stood firmly on the idea of a government that works for everyday Americans. To Meiselas, he made a point of suggesting that “many of my family members, my friends, my neighbors” voted for Trump because they thought he would lower costs, end forever wars, release the Epstein files, and “drain the swamp.” Instead, “he’s done the exact opposite.” Talarico said he wants to “speak directly to those Texans who feel disillusioned, who feel like the system doesn’t work for them, that it only works for billionaires and puppet politicians like Paxton and Cornyn.” If “we can bring those Texans together across all these divisions in our politics, if we can see past the distractions and the culture war tactics, I think we can do something extraordinary,” Talarico said. “We can end thirty years of one-party rule in Texas, and we can transform American politics in the process.”
Today his campaign announced a tour called “THE PEOPLE vs. KEN PAXTON.”
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I like the cut of his jib.
It’s basically what Paxton did to Cornyn. Not the transgender stuff, or the vegan stuff, but trying to make the opponent appear to be a “beta male”. Of course Cornyn scored an own goal in that department by what he did to himself with his groveling to Trump. It will be a lot less effective against Talarico because anyone who is persuaded by those types of insults is already in Paxton’s camp. AKA Paxton is preaching to the choir with that tactic.
More on Texas:
“The most corrupt politician in America just became the Republican nominee for the United States Senate,” Talarico said in a video posted to social media. “For 50 years, megadonors and their puppet politicians like Ken Paxton have stolen from us, with their bribes, bailouts and billionaire tax breaks. Ken Paxton has gotten away with it — they’ve all gotten away with it. But that ends this year, in this state, in this race.”
Talarico launched a five-stop “The People vs. Ken Paxton Tour” of Texas this week, starting with Houston on Wednesday — the first full day of the general election, and the third anniversary of Paxton’s impeachment by the GOP-dominated Texas House on charges of corruption and abuse of office. Paxton was later acquitted by the state Senate.
Talarico’s general election stump speech, auditioned first on Wednesday, was heavy on themes of service — drawing a direct contrast to what he cast as Paxton’s self-dealing and corruption on behalf of his billionaire donors. He opened his remarks with a story about his great-grandfather, whose favorite Bible verse came from the Gospel of Matthew and features Jesus telling his disciples, “The greatest among you will be a servant.”
“I ran for office not to be served, but to serve. And then there’s Ken Paxton.” Talarico said. “I have a legislative record — Ken Paxton has a criminal record.”
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Go, Jimmy!
The Texas Tribune is a free, non-partisan but liberal-oriented, non-profit news site and a reliable source for stuff about Texas (if anyone is interested).
This contest is getting beaucoups of coverage. I’m going to make one of my patented predictions: this is going to propel Talarico into the national spotlight Big Time.
Please God, don’t let him screw it up. Let him see the great opportunity…
More and more people are going to start thinking this way if he can keep his wits about him. Goodness knows, there’s no other Democrat on the horizon, and the Dems desperately need someone who will capture the popular imagination and create a center of gravity.
Two things are as certain as bluebonnets in spring now that Ken Paxton is the Republican nominee for the Senate in Texas: Democrats have a better-than-usual chance of winning statewide. And the next 23 weeks are going to be hideous.
Paxton’s big win comes days after President Trump stuck his finger into the wind, determined that incumbent, John Cornyn, was toast, and gave the attorney general his last-minute support. Even though the nearly 28-point margin was surprising, it was probably always going to be Paxton. …The kind of Republican who might argue, as one woman did in Dallas when I spoke with her last week, that Paxton and Trump are bringing masculinity back to the party like Bambi’s father “coming out of the forest with those huge antlers.”
Gotta love that imagery! Do big antlers imply big… you know…
Of course, a good MAGA would just shoot Bambi Senior and stick the head up on the wall in his rumpus room.
Now that these dutiful Republicans have secured the animated stag of their dreams, they will turn their attention to his general-election opponent: James Talarico, the 37-year-old Democratic state lawmaker and aspiring Presbyterian minister. In some ways, the two men have become avatars for their respective parties, which will spend the next five months ruthlessly attacking each other.
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Although Talarico doesn’t yet have Paxton’s name recognition, he does have strong youth-pastor energy and, at least for now, the moral high ground. As a faith-forward economic populist, Talarico has a core campaign message of love triumphing over hate, and little guys taking on the billionaires. Republicans know that they’ve got a tough race ahead of them, which is why they’ve already settled on a strategy: make Talarico seem like a weird dude.
Unfortunately for Democrats, Talarico has been more than a little helpful in this effort. In 2021, the state lawmaker said that “God is nonbinary,” a statement that is off-putting to some Christians, not because they believe that God is literally a man but because they can’t fathom why someone would drag God into the earthly debate over gender identity. Talarico has also said that there are six biological sexes and that he supports access to abortion, in part, because God asked for consent when he blessed Mary with the baby Jesus. As a candidate in 2022, he pledged to run a “non-meat campaign,” which was never going to play well in cattle country.
Lately, Talarico has been doing some backtracking. “I know there are two sexes, men and women. I also know there’s a very small percentage of people who have these chromosomal abnormalities, and I believe they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” he told CBS this week, adding that there are “some statements that I’ve made that I certainly regret.” Whenever Talarico is accused of being insufficiently pro-meat, his campaign circulates a photo of the candidate gnawing on a turkey leg at the state fair.
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My bold.
Yeah, Jim… if you want national appeal stop speaking in parables and metaphors.
I hope “chromosomal abnormalities” doesn’t bite him in the ass. “Chromosomal variants” would have been smarter. Use the thesaurus, my friend!
Liking this Talarico quote from Richardson’s substack:
Good to see him coming out swingin’.
There’s a picture that’s been making the rounds among conservatives on social media this morning showing Talarico eating a turkey leg. The problems, as they see it: a) the implication that he was lying about being a vegan (even though he, of course, has never claimed to be a vegan), and b) he’s using a napkin to hold the turkey leg, which I guess in Texas is considered “unmanly.”
Anyway, this is a sign that Paxton and his acolytes haven’t been able to dig up any real dirt on the guy. But, as I said above, you can expect plenty more of this petty horseshit over the next several months. Heaven forbid Talarico shows up somewhere wearing a tan suit.
Thank you for the reminder that he isn’t already there. As a Texan, it seems like everybody already knows who he is. I shouldn’t fall into the trap of not looking outside my bubble.
I’ll take that as a good sign, for the reasons I mentioned above. Anyone swayed by those kinds of attacks is already in the Paxton camp.
Heck, he doesn’t even masturbate in porta-potties that we know of!
(A reference to a recent “scandal” involving ME candidate Graham Platner)
First post-primary poll has Talarico up by 3.
Meanwhile, in Alaska, some kind of skullduggery is afoot, but it’s not clear who’s responsible or if they’re actually associated with any candidate.
Heather Cox Richardson this morning:
This morning [May 29], Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), who just lost his primary after President Donald J. Trump endorsed Republican challenger Ken Paxton, posted:
“An old, but apt fable:
“A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: ‘I am sorry, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s my character.’”
Cornyn appears to be firing a shot across the president’s bow, and now that Trump has alienated Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas by endorsing their opponents, there are six Republican senators who may be willing to stop moving in lockstep with him.
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Remarkable. And encouraging.
Yeah, real manly men don’t eat vegan food! They eat good ol’ American plant-based food.
Yet more Republican logic. “He’s eating meat, therefore he’s not just vegan, he’s a hypocritical vegan!”.
What it means to be a man is a theme in Texas Senate race as Paxton attacks Talarico
With Texas Senate face off set, Paxton attacks Talarico on manhood : NPR
Oh, Lord.
Maybe just get Paxton and Talarico to stand next to each other and see who can pee the farthest. (Is that how these activities are scored? Like most females I don’t have a clue.)
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White House advisor Stephen Miller used “transgender” as an insult, telling Fox News that Talarico is the Democrats’ “first transgender Senate candidate.” Talarico is not transgender.“He’s clearly transitioning into a female,” Miller said. “When Talarico goes in for a blood test, when he gets a physical, blood doesn’t come out. Soy milk comes out.”
Florida Republican congressional candidate Dan Weldon questioned Talarico’s masculinity by questioning his football knowledge: “It’s a huge problem for the Democrat Party that you take one look at the men they run for elected office and just know that they couldn’t name a single obscure wide receiver from the early 2000s.”
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Geez, as if Stephen Miller is a role model for human beings, let alone men.
I think this might be the crux of it, if there is a crux:
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While candidates tried to out-man each other long before Trump, he brought the manhood contests to new heights, both in touting his own masculinity and diminishing others’.…
Steinhauser, the Republican strategist, thinks Trump has not only changed how the GOP talks about men, but has inspired an effort to rewind modern views of gender roles.
“I think there is an attempt to sort of bring back a traditional view of masculinity and also to try and label certain men and certain types of men as weaker or as not real men,” he said.
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That manosphere has had a visible impact on political discourse, says Dan Cassino, a political scientist at Fairleigh Dickinson University who studies gender in politics. He points to the fact that the language around manhood has become so explicit – that testosterone levels are mentioned as a qualification for office.
“In the past, we haven’t had this sort of very explicit claim about masculinity using the language of online forums, using the language of the manosphere,” he said. “And you know, this is all red pill, black pill, incel stuff. And it’s a little terrifying that it’s leaking out into mainstream political dialogue.”
The harsh, immediate gendered attacks in the Texas U.S. Senate race are happening for complex reasons, but Cassino theorizes that it’s in part about the fact that Talarico is himself a man.
“The hierarchy is already under threat,” he said, noting economic problems that have dogged some working-class men. “And then if a white Christian man comes out and says, ‘No, actually, we should be more compassionate. We should not be maintaining these hierarchies where white men are on top of everything,’ that’s a huge threat because he is potentially a trusted messenger.”
My bold.
The threat is because “the call is coming from inside the gender.” IOW it’s a straight, white, Christian family man who is telling us that our message is wrong. Not a man of color or a woman or a gay man or a transgendered man-- it’s One of Us!
So we will attack him by labeling him some or all of those things. Yeah, that’s the ticket! That will work great and make our dicks longer at the same time!
It’s remarkable to me that it took him so long to notice, and that so many apparently haven’t noticed. Especially among Senators, who at least ought to be getting their information not only from very limited news sources.
It’s as if they watch the leopard eating people, right next to them, day after day; but it’s not until the leopard starts chewing on them that they suddenly think ‘Hey, this leopard eats people.’
However, if some of them are finally noticing, I’m in favor of that.
It would be nice. Although my inner pessimist takes that as Cornyn admitting that he’s the frog and will keep carrying the scorpion / Trump and letting it sting him.
OK, so which early 2000s obscure wide receiver was it that Weldon had a crush on?
No sympathy from me, especially Senators. Too fucking little, too fucking late. If they gave a damn about the country instead of grasping to keep power in their party they would have settled things at the first or second impeachment six years ago and his nibs would have been relegated to a footnote, if not actually in prison, instead of going down in history as the man who destroyed America.
Oh, I didn’t mean that I’ve got sympathy for them about it. Just that I’m in favor of them finally noticing, and saying it out loud.
I’d be even more in favor of it if they actually do something useful in the time they’ve got left in office. I’m not counting on it, though.