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).
