In the months leading up to the March 3 primary, Senator John Cornyn appeared on my radio show more frequently than Ken Paxton did. The Senator’s people were aware that my lane of conservatism was likely to place me among voters skeptical of his attempt at a fifth 6-year term, but to his credit, he showed up and answered every question, including those voiced by voters who were suspicious of his loyalty to President Trump, which struck many as election-season opportunism.
I even asked the bottom-line question: “If you win, will you be as MAGA-friendly as you seem now, and will you remain an ally of that agenda even after he leaves the White House?” He assured me, and thus assured listeners, that he would.
Today, John Cornyn is a free spirit, liberated from Election Day pressures. What we have seen in the weeks since the May 26 runoff is either a display of his true ideological stripes or an outright conversion fueled by the pain and anger of voter rejection.
I choose the former. While the gut-punch of losing is very real, it is unlikely to hatch an entire new philosophy in a wounded candidate. The obvious conclusion is that after a loss that spells the end of an incumbency, what we see afterward is the real person.
In Cornyn’s case, you see a Senator willing to welcome in a Democrat successor to punish voters for having the nerve to reject him. From Cornyn to other wounded Texas establishment figures, past and present, failure to back Paxton reveals an inarguable willingness to see a Democrat win a U.S. Senate seat in Texas for the first time since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988.
Talarico makes Bentsen look like Ted Cruz, but that matters little to the petulant corner of the Texas GOP that is caught up in a tantrum likely to last until November. They will attempt to float bizarre logic suggesting that a Paxton loss would somehow cleanse a wayward party from its inexplicable desire to move past them. Cornyn said as much in a weekend interview with CNN’s Manu Raju, who asked him why he would not lift a finger to help Paxton raise money. “The risk for Republicans,” he replied, “is if we nominate flawed candidates in November, we risk losing.”
Really? Know what else brings a risk of losing? Stubborn malcontents failing to unite behind the choice of the voters. Cornyn continued: “This is the way that majority parties become minority parties – by nominating candidates that are less than appealing to a general election electorate.”
Interesting quote from the candidate who was substantially “less appealing” in the Republican primary runoff, by a margin approaching 2-to-1. I do understand the Senator’s point. His assertion, shared by many soaked in establishment nostalgia, is that he would have fared better in November than Paxton will.
That is simply impossible to know, but there is a metric for assessing its validity. It is to compare the expected reaction of disappointed voters in both cases– the Republicans who would willingly make November victory harder by their refusal to unite. What we are seeing today is a small but vocal cohort of the Texas GOP that seems willing to hand Talarico a victory in order to earn a momentary I-told-you-so. So how big a problem would we have if Cornyn had won and the Paxton base would need prodding?
I assert it would be a steeper climb. Grassroots conservatives who have voted for Cornyn primary opponents over the years have been lectured all along about the necessity of sucking it up and backing him. The vast majority have complied. If he had been able to squeeze out a narrow primary win this year, there would have been an army of frustrated, downtrodden Paxton voters who would have said, “We’re done.”
In that scenario, they would be the ones I would be leaning on to get over their bitterness and join the fight against Talarico, which many would do, but many would not. This notion that voters have mortgaged a guaranteed easy win by passing on Cornyn is an ill-informed myth.
Meanwhile, the Senator’s obstinacy is as senseless as it is exasperating. Imagine if he had managed to get over himself enough to appear onstage with Paxton at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas. Imagine the speech: “I would have preferred to stand here as the nominee, bot voters had other plans. I hear them, and I hope they hear me as I stand here ready to call on everyone who voted for me, to vote for Ken to keep our Senate majority and stop the terrible prospect of a Talarico victory.”
The appreciation would have been loud and genuine. Conservatives skeptical of Cornyn for years would have had to admit that in the end, he did the right thing.
And it would have been the smart thing. One presumes that GOP moderates will spend the next six years searching for a new hero no matter who wins. They would have a stronger foundation if they had joined the current fight. If Talarico wins by a hair, today’s Republican troublemakers will be thrilled, but memories of their mischief will be long, and forgiveness will not be on the table. It is a stunning misread to believe that voters will seek the input of turncoats if we endure six years of a Democrat Senator.
Ultimately, and sadly, John Cornyn had a chance to tie a bow around a legacy of service to Texas with a show of grace and selflessness. Instead we see a resentful, vanquished warrior in a display of revulsion toward Texas voters who dared to prefer someone else. In the days leading up to November 3 and beyond, never forget that this was not simply a personal vendetta against Paxton. This was not a UFC fight, it was an election. Cornyn was not “beaten” by Paxton in some personal sense; he was rejected by Republican voters.
That has to be hard, but it is no excuse to turn on those Texans, many of whom had voted for him for years. No one with a shred of conservatism can make an argument for this spiteful hissy fit designed to sabotage the attempt to keep the Cornyn seat Republican.
There is still time for the Senator to join the fight. It would be welcomed by millions of Texas Republicans who would cheer his change of heart. But there is no reason to believe that will happen. Those of us who have appreciated his many successes on behalf of our state and our party are thus left to pray that in his last chosen mission, he fails.
Mark Davis is a talk show host for Salem Media: 660amtheanswer.com. X: @markdavis
