Report from the Texas Straw Poll
A very interesting column about the Texas straw poll. A good bit about Ron Paul, all good news, but I found his end-note most interesting:
A last note: It appears the Republican Party of Texas has southern history and southern heritage in its crosshairs. A video by David Barton on the Reconstruction Era, while accurate in some of its facts, took those same facts in large part out of context; much as his comments on church and state have often done. David Barton sells his materials for a living. It might be helpful to the party if there were a wall of separation between Mr. Barton’s stilted view of history, along with his commercial interest and the podium of the Republican Party.
I concur with his comments about David Barton and Wallbuilders. Overall, it’s a decent ministry I suppose, but he’s a little too enamored of New England universalists like John Quincy Adams (an illegitimate one-term loser if there ever was one). The more recent propaganda from Wallbuilders smacks of a pathetic attempt to woo the black vote by focusing on the “Republican” role in Reconstruction following the War Between the States. You see, it was those evil Democrats who were racists, and so you black folks ought to really be Republicans; they just need Barton’s Powerpoint presentation to enlighten them. Funny thing is, black people aren’t political autistics like Barton, and vote based on their interests (which through affirmative action, set-asides, etc are well-served by the Democrats), not based on ideology and labels.
He really needs to shutup about this. The reason the Republican Party even exists in this state is because time has healed enough wounds (and the Republican Party became more principled than the corrupt hypocritical Pharisees of Lincoln and Grant, while the Democratic Party became degenerate under FDR and LBJ) that the sons and daughters of Confederate Texas could hold their nose and vote “R”. These are scabs nearly healed that really should not be picked at. All it would take is one smart culturally conservative Democrat to run some ads talking about Republican leaders insulting Confederate heritage and all the purported gains of “minority outreach” would vanish in a puff of smoke if even 10% of the former yellow dogs were called home.
I met David Barton once and asked him about the immigration issue- his response: he was annoyed that immigration laws meant that he couldn’t hire who he wanted to at his ranch without having to do a bunch of paperwork. The defining issue of our political age- and he’s concerned about what’s inconvenient for David Barton. That told me all I needed to know about David Barton.