Texans once again proved to the world on Tuesday that Big Money means a whole lot more than high principles.
In a year when anti-incumbent sentiment and Tea Party activism has created shocking results in other states, Texas Republicans rejected the high principles of 2009's protest movement in favor of who spent the most money -- and, most likely, guaranteed the birth of a third party.
And at the same time they were lining up the 2012 presidential campaign for Rick Perry, Texas Republicans also dealt a sharp setback to their party's religious conservatives with the defeat of two key members of the State Board of Education in favor of globalist-oriented neo-conservatives.
Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison both dropped more than $8 million on the governor's race, far in excess of the amount raised by challenger Debra Medina -- although Medina had more than six times the number of individual contributions. Combined with a virtual blackout by the major news media on coverage of Medina in the final days of the campaign, following the now-famous ambush of Medina by entertainer Glenn Beck, and the hopes by reformers for major change in the GOP in Texas crashed.
"Now back to your regularly-scheduled landgrabbing and pimping for Gardasil and the NAFTA superhighway," dead-panned Medina supporter Jeff Johnson.
"A vote for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil," observed another Medina supporter, Deborah TeSelle, in reference to November's race between Perry and former Houston mayor Bill White, who handily bested a seven-candidate field to win the Democratic gubernatorial nomination Tuesday.
The Texas Nationalist Movement was among the organizations which had endorsed Medina, and members of the TNM leadership hinted Tuesday that a new political party may be in the works.
"We have to continue to force Perry to live up to his rhetoric," TNM president Daniel Miller said, adding that failure by Perry to take action on issues of state sovereignty, border security and other concerns will likely lead to the organization taking on the official trappings of an organized political party by the fall.
If so, he said, TNM candidates may begin challenging at the city, county and school-board level, and "We'll come out of the chute in attack mode."
While Perry's victory is viewed by political pundits elsewhere as a victory for "conservatives" in Texas, it's notable that two of the state's more prominent and long-serving conservatives were defeated on Tuesday -- State Board of Education members Don McLeroy and Geraldine Miller.
McLeroy was defeated in a very narrow race by well-heeled lobbyist Thomas Ratliff, son of the notorious author of Texas' SB1, which took authority away from the State Board of Education back in the administration of George Bush and led to the implementation of "globalist" education in Texas, a problem which didn't get addressed until 2008 and has helped create a 33 percent dropout rate in the state. Miller was upset by another globalist, George M. Clayton.
Both McLeroy and Miller have been prominent members on the SBOE during its fight over curriculum standards rewrites, with a bloc of religious conservatives on the board fighting to reject what they view as re-writing of history in favor of wildly liberal indoctrination. The victories by Ratliff and Clayton mean that Democrats and "moderate" Republicans will likely return the board to its rubber-stamp days, automatically approving proposals by the state education agency.
Another SBOE race, in District 10, will see a runoff between the religious-conservative candidate, lawyer Brian Russell, and Dr. Marsha Farney to replace retiring Cynthia Dunbar. Farney narrowly edged Russell in a three-way race with Dr. Rebecca Osborne Tuesday.
Farney holds a degree in curriculum writing but has pointedly touted her credentials as a "family-values conservative," a phrase usually meant to mean "religious conservative."
Comments
Wow - that is a really fair, unbiased article. (yeah right) Your hatred is showing through. Why on earth would you want someone to govern our great state who is stupid enough to wonder if maybe 911 could have been an inside job? If Bush was as stupid as ya'll claim he was, he could never have planned such a feat!
Nice "Stan," how much do they pay for each piece of astroturf you lay? The moneyed interests in this country can't have anyone upsetting the status quo. These Americans trying to rise up and take back governance won't play by the standard rules of quid pro quo and back scratching that keeps those interests in their position of dominance. What the hell is wrong with people in this country.
I had the privilege yesterday of limping to the polling place in Roma, Texas yesterday. Sunday I was dragged by a horse I'm training. lo & behold there was no republican voting station there, I had to drive 10 miles in pain mind you to vote.
After the results last night I feel that as a member of TNM we were betrayed, there are so many people that paid lip service to the movement then went the money talks and bullshit walks way.
I feel the petitions to Perry for soverignty, or secession will continue to be ignored.
A new party? may work once those that don't walk the walk are weeded out.
several months ago I contacted two TNM members who were "On fire" to get involved in recruiting members and petitions signed. neither one would even return my calls, but should Texas gain independence I'm sure they will be the first to wave flags, and exclaim "We did it".
I'm 59 years old and want to live long enough to see a free Texas, or die trying. Texas is my Country!!!, and deserves better.
Good riddance to McLeroy. His anti-science stands have been an utter embarrassment to our state.
Our country needs a revolution, voting for a Democrat or a Republican is not revolutionary, it is big business as usual.
If we don’t overthrow out the corporate oligarch government and eliminate our domestic enemies, either through the ballot box or by force, we will inevitably be overthrown by our foreign enemies.
Neither party represents the average hard working American. America needs a populist third party alternative to break up the corporate globalist controlled oligarchy we now have.
Worried about splitting the vote? Well turn to the words of Republican Senator Jim DeMints for comfort... “I’d rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who believe in the principles of freedom than 60 who don’t believe in anything
A third party would not need to vote out every RINO, neocon, Republican or Liberal Democrat. We only need to take 10% of the House seats; this is very doable in conservative states. With 10% of congress we could control the agenda in Washington. Eventually,
I wonder if many people didn't get scared at the last minute and vote for Perry. I knew I wouldn't vote for Hutchison when she ran for governor when she should have been in Washington during this danger.
I voted for Medina and I'm glad I did. After all, the supposed lesser evil won -- assuming he is reelected. All you can do is keep trying.
What are "globalist-oriented neo-conservatives?" Is this a common term, or are you just making it up as you go?
N -- I was being polite. Globalists are working for the one-world government so favored by multinational corporations. Neo-conservatives are the politicians like Bush who lead the religious right around by the nose by talking about "conservatism" like they actually believe in it, but otherwise do nothing to accomplish conservative goals.
I guess I could have just called them "fascists," since that's what they are.
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