Like most Pennsylvanians, I haven’t been paying much attention to the Senate race in Texas.

Texas is as red as they come, so very few Republicans have had to sweat it out during election season. As I recall, the last time a Democrat went to the Senate from the Lone Star State was almost 40 years ago, when Lloyd “I knew Jack Kennedy, and you’re no Jack Kennedy” Bentsen won a seat.

But times have changed, people are very different, and even Texas has been invaded by people from places where “Hate Has No Home Here” signs have replaced the white picket fence. It’s like the conservatives were at the Alamo, and Santa Ana has an Upper West Side accent.

The mere fact Democrats even think they have a chance shows how strong the winds of change really are.

I found myself watching a Town Hall on CNN the other night, where the Democrat running against the not-so-sure-bet Republican candidate expressed his views on everything from immigration to abortion, from data centers to the national debt, from God to his/her pronouns, and everything in between.

James Talarico was there by himself, in a fairly friendly environment, because his opponent, Ken Paxton, would not agree to a debate.

Now let me tell you how I feel about Paxton.

I despise him.

This is a man who sued the Catholic Church and accused it of human trafficking because of welcome centers that it runs at the Mexican border. I have been to one of those centers, and there were no trafficked children. There were priests conducting Mass, teachers singing songs to kids, and hot meals being prepared for a transient community that was waiting to be reunited with family inside the United States.

This is also a man with no moral core, who played around on his wife with his new cutie-poo while in the presence of criminal fugitives.

Paxton was always big on law and order and being an upstanding guy, so it’s ironic when we find out he spends much more time horizontal than upstanding, with people he’s not married to.

And then there was that impeachment … from his “friends” in the Republican Party.

In short, Paxton is the most pathetic thing that’s passed through Texas since the Cowboys record in the playoffs, at least this century.

However, if I were a Texan, there is no way that I could ever vote for Talarico. And that is because the man is a human Mr. Potato Head, a political Frankenstein who has not one authentic part of his being.

At the town hall, when confronted with the fact he had called God “binary,” he backtracked, the sweat visible on his forehead under the studio lights. The man seemed ready to completely disavow his allegiance to “trans kids” and made it seem as if his God comments were simply being used for shock value.

Sure, Jan.

Then there was his dance on the immigration issue, something particularly important to me.

He started out pretending to be in favor of a secure border, and mentioned Biden in passing, but then started pouring out the same old rhetoric about how Trump’s fascist state is scooping up people who have done absolutely nothing wrong.

That is not true. There are far too many innocent people being picked up in raids, and due process has become a casualty, but to make it seem as if the only people being targeted for deportation are Uber drivers and U.S. citizens is ridiculous.

That sort of messaging might work in Minnesota, but it will not fly in the Lone Star State, not even among Latinos who are justifiably angry about racial profiling. If Talarico had been more honest about the crisis, he would have gained points with the “law and order” Texans who rightfully blame Biden for a porous border, and in the same breath, attack Trump for his excesses.

Then there was his comment that abortion isn’t mentioned in the Bible. Fortunately, a very sharp Catholic woman reminded him, respectfully, of the Ten Commandments, particularly the 6th one that reads: Thou Shalt Not Kill.

But the thing that angered me the most, and the thing that should deprive Talarico of every Catholic vote in Texas, is his use of the Virgin Mary, so sacred to us, in his support for abortion.

He actually suggested at some point during his campaign that Mary’s “consent” to be Christ’s mother was an example of why reproductive autonomy is a Christian thing.

It made me sick to see this Presbyterian “minister” literally use one of the most sacred figures in Catholicism to advance his crusade for abortion. It’s nothing less than depraved.

I’m sure Californians and New Yorkers might justify that.

I know some Pennsylvanians east of the Susquehanna would. But I’m hoping Texans will not. In fact, I’m praying.

And I will be reading a passage from the Bible that Pastor Talarico missed, from Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”

Copyright 2026 Christine Flowers