A Hot and Annoying Summer Forecast

"It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it. If I had to do it over again, I would avoid any semblance of involvement in partisan politics." - Billy Graham

Now, I can certainly understand how the late Billy Graham might have soured on his past political involvement. After all, when you have a photo like this hanging over your head...

Whoops. But, to his credit Graham realized that to tie yourself to politicians too closely runs the risk of not just embarrassment, but a seeming lack of theological consistency.

An old friend, Bill Martin of the Rice University School of Sociology wrote a book back in 2018 called "A Prophet with Honor" about Graham. Martin said that whatever arguments one might have with Graham's view of the Bible, he was honest and owned up to mistakes and even doubts. Martin told me that if he found any inkling of Graham having feet of clay, he would have written about it.

Why Franklin Graham has decided that Dad had it wrong and tied himself to MAGA like Odysseus to the mast is beyond me. But apparently the apple can fall very far from the tree and in this case, apparently into the next county.

This is my long and meandering way of getting to the upcoming Texas Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talerico. There will be lots of religious pontificating and warnings of hellfire, but come on people, this is just a Texas Senate race.

I chronicled the sins of Ken Paxton in my last piece just before the primary runoff, but Texas Republicans have made their choice.

As I mentioned before, I always found Senator John Cornyn a fairly standard conservative Republican with whom I often disagreed. But even in interviews when I'd confront him, he answered calmly and with patience with what many would consider my hostile questions. They weren't really, and I have asked them of Democrats as well with varying degrees of responsiveness. And despite his servile groveling to Trump in the last year, I still, kind of, felt that way.

But I have never had the chance to interview Attorney General Ken Paxton or Representative James Talerico. And now that I've hung up my headsets on broadcast journalism and am resorting to articles like this, and a new podcast ("Another Fine Mess"), along with about 98% of my fellow Americans seemingly, I probably won't get that chance. But the lines of attack on both sides are pretty clear.

For the Talerico campaign, the Paxton issues are obvious. He's as shady as that old oak in my back yard. Examples....

• Securities Fraud Charges: In 2015, Paxton was indicted on felony securities fraud charges. The nearly decade-long case was resolved in 2024 via a pretrial diversion agreement where he paid nearly $300,000 in restitution, completed 100 hours of community service, and received ethics training. The charges were officially dismissed in 2025.
• Whistleblower Retaliation: Top deputies reported Paxton to the FBI in 2020 for allegedly abusing his office to benefit a political donor, Nate Paul. Paxton fired the whistleblowers, leading to a major lawsuit that resulted in his office being ordered to pay $6.6 million in settlements.
• Impeachment: The whistleblower allegations and federal investigations led the Texas House to impeach Paxton in May 2023. However, he was acquitted of all 16 articles of impeachment by the state Senate later that year (Thank you Dan Patrick).
• Federal Investigation: The FBI conducted an extensive investigation regarding the bribery and abuse-of-office allegations. The Trump Department of Justice formally declined to prosecute Paxton.

We can throw in the personal stuff involving adultery leading to Paxton's pending divorce. Meanwhile though, Paxton has endeared himself to MAGA by filing over 100 lawsuits against the Biden-Harris administration, challenging policies across immigration, environmental regulations, and healthcare. Notable lawsuits include challenges to the administration's climate policies, Title X guidelines on parental consent, and environmental rules regarding endangered species.

And of course, he supported Trump's fanciful challenges to the 2020 election, which the President continues to pursue like a dog with a bone.

But the Republican attacks on Talerico are becoming pretty clear as well. He's an unmanly unTexan and no God-fearing real Texan could ever vote for him. Jesse Watters of Fox, the man with the most punchable face on television, and I have proof...

... referred to Talerico's "totally-not-fake girlfriend." White House aide, and part-time Bond villain, Stephen Miller abandoned any sense of proportion, or reality, calling Talerico a "trans candidate."

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OK, yes, Talerico looks like that guy who annoyed the hell out of me in High School debate tournaments and that cherubic look is a cross he'll just have to bear. And the gay and trans stuff is now pretty much the standard GOP campaign MO.

But in this case, Talerico has given them an opportunity with comments I assume are meant to show his support for LGBT folks. Republicans resurfaced a 2021 legislative debate clip where Talarico stated that "modern science recognizes six sexes." Talarico was referring to the fact that humans possess six scientifically documented chromosomal karyotypes: XX, XY, XXY, XYY, XXXY, and X.

Having watched the Texas legislature all my adult life, I fully understand that a technical statement like this will produce reactions like a chimp trying to open a suitcase. But even given that, it was a frankly stupid defense of whatever the hell he was trying to defend.

Now, he has a BA from that big college in Austin, a Masters in Education from Harvard and a Masters in Divinity from the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, but still, James, get a grip. Also, during a 2021 Texas House debate, Talarico (a progressive Christian and seminary student at the time) stated that "God is nonbinary" to emphasize that the divine transcends human categories and is beyond male and female.

That's not a particularly radical statement among modern theologians, but in a Texas political campaign, it is colossally stupid. And Talerico has said he regrets those comments. Yeah, I'll bet he does.

But Talerico has some other fences to mend. His primary race against Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett proved divisive in the white and black communities, and he has a job to do. Though she called for unity after the race, which these days is hard to imagine, he has work to do to win back the African-American vote in Texas.

You can certainly make the argument that he will be the most likely candidate who win over white independents or disaffected Republicans in a general election, but the race still stung for a lot of folks. An old friend, and perceptive observer wrote to me, and I quote him directly...

"What comes next is the “harm reduction” phase - the one where we’re needing to vote for not our preferred choice of candidate, but the candidate that offers to best options that serve our interests. It sucks, to be frank.

For the record, Talerico is not a bad candidate. He’s actually a good candidate… but as friend told me, her reasoning for voting for him is that he was the best chance to reach rural, white Texans. And damn her for being right.

Yes, black Texans have been in our feels about the outcome, but we also understand we face a graver threat (not challenge, threat) to our lives in the form of Ken Paxton."

If he has a chance to win, he has to win over black voters and that will, my friend observes, mean going beyond the occasional visit to a pulpit. It will mean real shoe-leather campaigning and convincing real people where they really live. We'll see how that goes.

Ken Paxton was the dream opponent for Democrats, but James Talerico still has a real hill to climb to run even with Trump's anointed candidate. This is still Texas after all. There's going to be a lot of Republican money thrown at this race to overcome Paxton's flaws, and no doubt Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott will weigh in. And despite Billy's warning, there will be a lot of religion thrown around.

Oh, Bette. If only it were just a bumpy night.