TEA Party Still Going Strong in TEA for Texas…But Education…

Here in Texas we had ourselves a primary runoff yesterday. Yes, yesterday, July 31^st. This is a day, you know, where, on a good day in March or early April, Texans show up in dribs and drabs. Yesterday conflicted with stuff like summer vacation. So the day was ripe for TEA Partiers who normally turn out slightly over-representing the conservative fringe voter here, but yesterday, and in the early vote leading up to yesterday, TEA Partiers turned out to absolutely dominate this election while the rest of conservativedom lazed in the sun sipping yet another glass of iced tea.

And it showed in the results.

First, most of the Republican runoff races were between non-incumbents, meaning of course that they were vying for an empty seat or in newly drawn districts.

Let’s look at the second one first.

In HD 11, State Rep Chuck Hopson was trounced by Travis Clardy. Hopson was a newly reformed Republican, having seen the light as he faced a 2 to 1 opposition in the House, and switched sides. But re-election is not gonna happen here in the TEA Party capitol and Hopson was trounced by Clardy, who campaigned as a “real conservative.”

HD 12, however, was a squeaker where Kyle Kacal eked out a victory over Tucker Anderson. Truthfully I cannot drive a one-penny nail between these two idealogically. Both are grist for the TEA Party mill, but only Kacal listed as endorsers the Conservative Republicans of Texas, a group with ties to the Alliance for Progress, a TEA Party organization.

But in HD 23 it looks like a romp with Wayne Faircloth thrashing Bill Wallace by over 12 points. Now why this happened is a mystery to me because of this item which has reported that Faircloth has written numerous campaign contributions to his rival-to-be, Democrat Craig Eiland for the self same office

In redrawn HD 59, State Rep Sid Miller was soundly beaten by J.D. Sheffield who, himself was beaten by Miller in 2010. Even though Miller authored the much-hated sonogram law it wasn’t enough to overcome public outrage over the shortchanging of public schools in the 2011 budget, a trend we are going to see again below.

District 85 seems to be echoing the trend in HD 59 in that incumbent Jim Landroop was soundly beaten by a school board president: Ken King. Even though he was ranked as 4th most conservative Republican in the previous legislative session, Landroop will ever have the school budget bill around his neck like an albatross, which turned out to be fertile ground for the former school board president, whose rural district was massively impacted by the disastrous 2011 budget. That and the fact that former state rep Wayne Chisum came out and endorsed his opponent 4 days before the election, something that can be viewed as political payback for his former colleague.

But the really fun one this time was in Senate District 25, where incumbent Jeff Wentworth was soundly defeated by TEA Party Diva Donna Campbell. Wentworth went on and noted how the TEA Party had done to his campaign what they did to that of Lt. Governor David Dewhurst in coming out in total support of their favorites, Campbell and the probable new Texas junior senator Ted Cruz.  Wentworth decried the focus of the TEA Party, saying that they didn’t seem to care whether the target was a federal vs. a state official.

Which they don’t.

And that, friends and neighbors, is why Texas is soon to go Purple. When Texans truly wake up and see the kinds of wack jobs their TEA Party lunatic fringe have foisted on them, the sooner they will flee the Republican Party of Texas.

A party on its last legs.