I've noted through the history of the blog that I was born in Texas as an Air Force brat who left a few months later with my Dad's reassignments, returning to Texas after my Dad's isolated tour to Southeast Asia just in time for high school. I then spent most of the next 17 years earning all 4 of my college degrees through my UH doctorate in Texas, except for my interim brief Navy service in Florida. I started working on my UH MBA part-time, looking to advance my IT career as a programmer/analyst. This means that my years as a young adult and my exposure to politics were spent in Texas, before Texas became the deep-red state it is today. (I also worked on two Texas-based gigs later, as a 1-year UTEP professor, and a couple of years later, after I left academia.)
As the familiar reader may know, I, as a young adult, was mostly a liberal Democrat, with a fusion of pro-life and military and fiscal conservative views. Texas had been solidly Democratic since Reconstruction, except that John Tower, a former Democrat, won LBJ's seat after the latter became VP. Clements became the first GOP governor (2 nonconsecutive terms) starting in 1979. By then, I was transitioning from my youthful naïve idealism into an increasing skepticism of the growing government; this grew as I took graduate economics courses during my MBA studies (which were not ideological in any way). I was more of a conservative Democrat, like Congressman Gramm, who switched parties during Reagan's first term and later succeeded Tower as senator. [Cornyn succeeded Gramm's 3 Senate terms.] We (conservative) Southern Democrats found ourselves marginalized in an increasingly strident leftist party. For me, the breaking point was the defeat of Bork's SCOTUS nomination. Rick Perry, another former Democrat, switched parties in 1989 and succeeded Bush as governor when Bush was elected POTUS. Perry went on to be elected to 3 terms on his own, becoming the longest-serving governor in Texas history.
I don't speak for other Southern Democrats. I had been a student volunteer during the first Carter campaign (I was particularly attracted to his advocacy of zero-based budgeting), but I soured on the reality of Carter. I wasn't really that partisan; I probably would have supported Ford's reelection, except I strongly disagreed with the Nixon pardon.
I have not lived in Texas since 1993 (although my folks retired near San Antonio, and at least half of my siblings have lived in the state for the last 20 years, so I've traveled there several times since). So I wasn't there when Cornyn won the battle to succeed Sen. Gramm in 2002
Cornyn's public life began as a Texas District judge (1985). Texas Supreme Court (1991). Texas Attorney General (1999). and Texas US Senator (2002). I was registered in Illinois in 2002 and didn't vote in Texas. I was a big Gramm fan who would have liked him to extend his tenure, but I was impressed with Cornyn's Texas state-wide service, and keep in mind how motivated I was after the failure of Bork's nomination. Cornyn has a lifetime 85 CPAC rating, according to some accounts, among the most conservative senators. Cornyn drew some criticism for some bipartisan legislation and guns. spending and procedural votes (e.g., cloture votes).Via Google AI,
Paxton was not the first Texas "conservative" to try to primary "liberal" Cornyn (see FactCheck's account of Cornyn's 2012 primary challenger). Now, personally, I have concerns with professional political careers and politicians in their senior years, as a 4-term senator in his 70's. Cornyn's last general election was his closest, and he faced a difficult midterm with an increasingly unpopular Trump. Still,. Cornyn was a Senate GOP leader, one of the leading contenders to succeed McConnell as Majority Leader. There is no doubt that another Texas statewide officeholder would pose a primary challenge. I still did not expect the controversial Ken Paxton, impeached by a GOP state House on corruption and other charges, could prevail in a tough general election:
Cornyn narrowly won a plurality in the primary, in a 3-way contest. However, he needed a majority to win re-nomination without a runoff. Trump seemed to want to use his coveted endorsement to pressure Cornyn on winning Senate approval of the SAVE Act. (See my earlier essays on that bill). But the Senate lacked the votes to thwart the filibuster or the GOP votes needed to weaken the rule. Trump then decided to endorse Paxton. I personally don't think the endorsement was a big deal. Given a close primary, a majority vote against Cornyn had made a Cornyn runoff victory unlikely, with motivated Trumpkins for Paxton. Cornyn primarily had to argue the electability against Paxton in the general election.
