Texas tea party activists eager to send another firebrand in the mold of Ted Cruz to the Senate have launched a movement to draft evangelical historian David Barton to run against Sen. John Cornyn.
Barton, who hosts a daily radio broadcast, has wide name recognition and respect on the religious right as a Constitutional scholar dedicated to restoring the America the Founding Fathers envisioned, though his scholarship on that point has been widely discredited in the world of academia.
I kind of doubt that David Barton’s scholarship takes into account the fact that the author of the Declaration of Independence rewrote the New Testament and removed all the miracles, or that Andrew Jackson was the first president who believed in the Trinity (and he only converted after he left office). Of course David Barton’s scholarship is widely ridiculed in academic circles.
Barton has deep political roots, having spent nearly a decade as vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party. He is a skilled orator. And he’s got the stagecraft down pat: He travels the country to deliver rousing tributes to patriotism, often in red, white and blue Western shirts.
He sounds perfect. He’s exactly what the country needs.
