![\"Democratic](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/AP26289077856728.jpg\")
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Texas state Rep. James Talarico speaks Thursday during a campaign event in San Marcos, Texas. (AP Photo\/Eric Gay)<\/p>\nLike most Pennsylvanians, I haven\u2019t been paying much attention to the Senate race in Texas.<\/p>\n
To be honest, I rarely pay attention to anything in Texas, unless it has to do with Dallas playing the Eagles in which case my focus is strictly limited to defaming the Cowgirls. However, I realize that this is an extremely important state, one of great beauty and historical significance, so respect must be paid.<\/p>\n
I also know that Texas is as red as they come, so very few Republicans have had to sweat it out during election season. As I recall, the last time a Democrat went to the Senate from the Lone Star State was almost 40 years ago, when Lloyd \u201cI knew Jack Kennedy, and you\u2019re no Jack Kennedy\u201d Bentsen won a seat.<\/p>\n
But times have changed, people are very different, and even Texas has been invaded by people from places where \u201cHate Has No Home Here\u201d signs have replaced the white picket fence. It\u2019s like the conservatives were at the Alamo, and Santa Ana has an Upper West Side accent.<\/p>\n
Perhaps that\u2019s a bit much, because Texas is still very likely to send a Republican back to the Senate next month.<\/p>\n
But the mere fact that Democrats even think they have a chance shows how strong the winds of change really are.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d expect this in California, which has been bluer than blue for the last four decades. You would suspect this from Michigan, where there\u2019s a very large disaffected Arab American population. You would not raise an eyebrow in New York, where they elected a mayor who palled around with someone who thought America deserved 9\/11.<\/p>\n
Texas, though, is another matter altogether.<\/p>\n
Which is why I found myself watching a Town Hall on CNN the other night, where the Democrat running against the not-so-sure-bet Republican candidate expressed his views on everything from immigration to abortion, from data centers to the national debt, from God to his\/her pronouns, and everything in between.<\/p>\n
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Texas state Rep. James Talarico speaks Thursday during a campaign event in San Marcos, Texas. (AP Photo\/Eric Gay)<\/p>\n
James Talarico was there by himself, in a fairly friendly environment, because his opponent Ken Paxton would not agree to a debate. Now let me tell you how I feel about Paxton.<\/p>\n
I despise him.<\/p>\n
This is a man who sued the Catholic Church and accused it of human trafficking because of welcome centers that it runs at the Mexican border.<\/p>\n
I have been to one of those centers, and there were no trafficked children. There were priests conducting Mass, teachers singing songs to kids, and hot meals being prepared for a transient community that was waiting to be reunited with family inside the United States.<\/p>\n
This is also a man with no moral core, who played around on his wife with his new cutie-poo while in the presence of criminal fugitives.<\/p>\n
Frankly, there is nothing particularly shocking about immorality among politicians. The list is so long this column would become the Encyclopedia Britannica if I mentioned them all by name. But Paxton was always big on law and order and being an upstanding guy, and so it\u2019s ironic when we find out that he spends much more time horizontal than upstanding, with people he\u2019s not married to.<\/p>\n
And then there was that impeachment \u2026 from his \u201cfriends\u201d in the Republican party.<\/p>\n
In short, Paxton is the most pathetic thing that\u2019s passed through Texas since the Cowboys record in the playoffs, at least this century.<\/p>\n
However, if I were a Texan, there is no way that I could ever vote for Talarico.\u00a0 And that is because the man is a human Mr. Potato Head, a political Frankenstein who has not one authentic part of his being.<\/p>\n
At the town hall, when confronted with the fact that he had called God \u201cbinary,\u201d he backtracked, the sweat visible on his forehead under the studio lights. The man seemed ready to completely disavow his allegiance to \u201ctrans kids\u201d and made it seem as if his God comments were simply being used for shock value.<\/p>\n
Sure, Jan.<\/p>\n
Then there was his dance on the immigration issue, something particularly important to me.<\/p>\n
He started out pretending to be in favor of a secure border, and mentioned Biden in passing, but then started pouring out the same old rhetoric about how Trump\u2019s fascist state is scooping up people who have done absolutely nothing wrong.<\/p>\n
That is not true. There are far too many innocent people being picked up in raids, and due process has become a casualty, but to make it seem as if the only people being targeted for deportation are Uber drivers and U.S. citizens is ridiculous.<\/p>\n
That sort of messaging might work in Minnesota, but it will not fly in the Lone Star State, not even among Latinos who are justifiably angry about racial profiling. If Talarico had been more honest about the crisis, he would have gained points with the \u201claw and order\u201d Texans who rightfully blame Biden for a porous border, and in the same breath, attack Trump for his excesses.<\/p>\n
Then there was his comment that abortion isn\u2019t mentioned in the Bible. Fortunately, a very sharp Catholic woman reminded him, respectfully, of the Ten Commandments, particularly the 6th one that reads: Thou Shalt Not Kill.<\/p>\n
But the thing that angered me the most, and the thing that should deprive Talarico of every Catholic vote in Texas, is his use of the Virgin Mary, so sacred to us, in his support for abortion.<\/p>\n
He actually suggested at some point during his campaign that Mary\u2019s \u201cconsent\u201d to be Christ\u2019s mother was an example of why reproductive autonomy is a Christian thing.<\/p>\n
It made me sick, to see this Presbyterian \u201cminister\u201d literally use one of the most sacred figures in Catholicism to advance his crusade for abortion. It\u2019s nothing less than depraved.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure Californians and New Yorkers might justify that.<\/p>\n
I know some Pennsylvanians east of the Susquehanna would. But I\u2019m hoping Texans will not. In fact, I\u2019m praying.<\/p>\n
And will be reading a passage from the Bible that Pastor Talarico missed, from Jeremiah: \u201cBefore I formed you in the womb, I knew you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christine Flowers can be reached at cflowers1961@gmail.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like most Pennsylvanians, I haven\u2019t been paying much attention to the Senate race in Texas. To be honest,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1631,76797,27,29,28,31650],"class_list":["post-468076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-opinion","tag-opinion-columnists","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-top-stories-dtd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}