No, it's not the canine who's challenging Texas Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary, it's his master. Dwayne apparently isn't a big fan of "Beltway turtle" Mitch McConnell.by KenHowie passed along this clip, and what can I say? It's Texas, friends. If you're two-term Sen. John Cornyn, and you've spent your political career trying to be the kind of right-wing crackpot every Lone Star redneck crackpot can be proud of, the reality is that if you're up for reelection in 2014, the thing you have to watch out for is someone from the new generation of crackpots slithering around at you from the Even Farther Right. The senator has responded by trying to run on the coattails of his junior colleague, Sen. Rafael "Ted" Cruz. And luckily for the senator, nobody terribly scary has turned up, and according to Wikipedia the field is looking something like this:
• Curt Cleaver, hotel industry consultant and candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2012• Ken Cope, aerospace executive and retired Army Lieutenant Colonel• John Cornyn, incumbent U.S. Senator• Chris Mapp, businessman• Reid Reasor, Tea Party member• Steve Stockman, U.S. Representative• Dwayne Stovall, bridge construction contractor• Linda Vega, attorney and immigration activist
And would you believe that the most "serious" candidate is our old friend Steve Stockman, a man who has to be on anyone's short list for the Wackiest Member of Congress. (See Howie's February 2013 post "Texas Congressman Steve Stockman -- Domestic Terrorist?," and my post from the month before, "What's frightening, says Dana Milbank, is that the wacky Steve Stockman of the '90s 'no longer sounds like an outlier"'.")Naturally our Steve is hoping to rally Teabagger support, seen as the new key to unseating merely "far right" Republican incumbents. Unfortunately for Steve, he's having trouble with his image as Mr. Conservative, partly because of rumblings about "ethical lapses."Into the breach steps . . . Dwayne Stovall, who last week won the endorsement of a statewide Teabagger group called Grassroots America-We the People. Dwayne says he was waiting for a suitably "Jeffersonian" candidate to enter the race, and when it didn't happen, he had to take the plunge himself.I'll bet ol' Tom Jefferson, wherever he is, couldn't be more proud.#