ED MORRISSEY: Talarico Pulls Race Card for Some Reason – Hilarity Ensues.
[Texas Railroad Commissioner candidate Bo] French’s dumb tweet is not anyone else’s responsibility but French’s. Cornyn must have a lot of time on his hands these days to be playing Twitter Cop rather than U.S. Senator, which may explain why Texans decided to nominate Paxton in his place. Why Cornyn wants to apply the Akin Strategy to his own party over one stupid tweet by French rather than focus on the rapid rise of Marxists and Islamist sympathizers among Democrats in Texas, Florida, Michigan, New York, Maine, and elsewhere is a question Cornyn will have to answer … and should.
That brings us to Talarico, who has all but disappeared over the last few weeks in Texas, both on the stump and in TV ads. Paxton and the GOP have combined up for over $50 million in new ads hammering Talarico’s record, which started almost as soon as the RNC Midterm Convention closed on Thursday night. Talarico apparently also had nothing better to do than troll X/Twitter, and transformed Cornyn’s attack on French into an attack accusing Paxton of racism instead:
Thank you @JohnCornyn for your leadership.
Racism has no place in Texas.@KenPaxtonTX: will you condemn this blatant racism or will you cower to extremists? https://t.co/MWHEvrPdPV
— James Talarico (@jamestalarico) September 13, 2026
Oh, does Talarico want to talk about cowering to “extremists”? This is quite the election cycle for that discussion, which the GOP all but demanded in their convention last week. Rather than go after Abdul El-Sayed, Hasan Piker, Darializer Chevalier, Angie Nixon, or the DSA in response, however, Paxton instead targeted the extremism of Talarico directly:
I condemn racism in all its forms, including James Talarico saying white men are America's top terror threat and that he prays to overcome his own 'whiteness,' whatever that means. Only one person in this race has a history of dividing Texans by race, and it’s James Talarico. I… https://t.co/24Tlp3Rd5U
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) September 13, 2026
[Paxton’s tweet concludes] “I will continue to focus on uniting our State and bringing together the broadest possible coalition to fight for Texas, our values, and our families.”
Whatever that means, indeed. Talarico has been a font of Academia-speak racism for the entirety of his career, not to mention an extremist on transgender issues and abortion. Now that the general election has begun, Talarico has had to reverse himself on allowing pediatric sex-change operations, declaring the existence of six genders (which he never named), God being “non-binary,” whatever that means, and hating his own “whiteness” as well as Christianity, when it was unenlightened by “Islamic mystics.” At present, the man who wants Paxton to be held accountable for racism is spending most of his time and resources in Houston and parts of Dallas to convince black voters to show up for him, after Jasmine Crockett accused Talarico and Texas Democrats of being the real racists in 2026.
Paxton’s response made it clear that he’s not going to play the woke rhetoric game with Talarico, and that the Democrat nominee is out of his depth and desperate for relevance. And we all know how desperation plays in politics and dating.
Which is why Kurt Schlichter adds: Don’t Believe the Hype About James Talarico.
The Republicans have vaults of video clips of this guy saying the remarkably obnoxious things, and the worst of them are related to his much-vaunted pseudo-Christianity. Leftists have no understanding of Christianity. They think that they can pull the string on their little Charlie Anti-McCarthy and have their dummy babble about sandals-n’-socialism Jesus to fool the religious rubes. But southern Christians are actual Christians, and they are well aware of the false-prophet problem in Protestantism. They hear this guy babbling about how Jesus isn’t the only way to salvation; Allah is too, and that ain’t going to play.
Talarico already has a lot of problems among blacks, which his blasphemy is not going to help. He beat Jasmine Crockett, but she and her supporters think he stole the primary. The Texas Democrats are divided between affluent whites and traditional black voters, many of whom are going to take one look at this guy and shake their heads. They may not vote for Paxton, but they may just stay home and not vote for Satan’s little demon. Same with Latinos — the dude gives off vibes that are no bueno to these traditional, family-oriented, hard-working patriots.
Don’t get cocky, y’all.
Related: They Call Him ‘Talafreako’ for a Reason — Wait Until You Hear What He Said About Parents.