Congressman Louie Gohmert has made it abundantly clear that he will resist Tea Party calls for him to run against Senator John Cornyn in this spring's GOP primary. No matter. Conservative activists have reportedly turned their attention to another candidate they hope can dethrone the upper chamber's No. 2 Republican, who has made the transformation from hardcore conservative to squish with remarkable speed.
The Tea Party's new champion, according to the National Review, is David Barton, the discredited pseudo-historian/Glenn Beck bestie from Aledo. The magazine quotes Rick Green, "one of Barton's closest advisers," saying in an email that "more than 1,000 (zero exaggeration, that is an actual number) tea party and republican party leaders have asked David Barton to run."
"David Barton will not 'seek' this office," Green adds, "but if the people of Texas speak loud enough in the next few days, he could most certainly be drafted in by the voters."
See also: The Tea Party Wants Louie Gohmert to Take John Cornyn's Seat in the Senate
Backing up Green's assertion are quotes from a couple of Texas activists -- JoAnnFleming of Grassroots America We the People and NE Tarrant Tea Party's Julie McCarty -- saying they'd be thrilled if Barton entered the race.
So what type of senator would Barton make? Hard to know exactly, given that he's never held public office, but his persona suggests he'd pair a Ted Cruz-like inflexibility with a laser-like focus on social issues. Judging by Right Wing Watch's voluminous David Barton archive, he would be particularly committed to defending Americans' right to bear tanks, bazookas and fighter jets, making offensively broad and ill-informed pronouncements about homosexuality, and returning the country to its imagined Biblical roots.
Whether Barton will accept the Tea Party's invitation remains to be seen. He has until December 9 to make up his mind.
