James Talarico said Americans should look to Western Europe for democratic inspiration in a resurfaced clip that drew a blunt response from Elon Musk.
Page A2From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 16 September 2026
Vice president joins pile-on against Texas state legislator four points ahead in the polls.
As it ran on the front
James Talarico is a state representative from Texas, one of 181 members of a legislature that meets for 140 days every two years. On September 8, a man who spent nearly a decade as Attorney General Ken Paxton's director of law enforcement — the same aide who reported Paxton to the FBI six years ago — cut an ad backing Talarico instead. On September 9, Talarico told CBS News that voters were "tired of this professional wrestling" in politics. On September 10, the AARP poll landed: Talarico 48, Paxton 44, a four-point lead in the race to replace retiring Senator John Cornyn. The same day, Talarico used the Republican National Committee's own midterm convention in Dallas to needle Paxton directly, and the Washington Examiner ran a piece accusing him of lying about a position he says he's held for years.
On September 11, the response arrived in person. Vice President Vance flew to Dallas and used a speech at that same RNC convention to criticize a Texas state representative by name — the kind of attention usually reserved for governors, not for members of a state house.…
…(cont) By September 16, the attention had a sequel. Fox News resurfaced a clip of Talarico saying Americans should look to Western Europe for democratic inspiration, drawing a response from Elon Musk. The New York Post ran a separate story the same day: Talarico had quickly named his favorite drag performer, and Republicans piled on. A state rep who has spent years defending Texas drag performers answered a question about one, and it became news twice in a single day.
None of this is illegal. A vice president can fly anywhere he wants. A network can resurface old footage. A newspaper can run an item about a favorite drag queen. But a travel schedule is also a budget, and the RNC spent a vice president's Thursday in Dallas attacking a state representative four points ahead in a Senate poll released the day before. A wire day is also a budget: two outlets spent the same news cycle on one old clip and one quick answer about a drag performer.
The receipts run in order: a whistleblower's ad, a "professional wrestling" jab, a four-point poll, a vice president's plane ticket, and then, six days later, two separate stories about a drag queen and a clip from before the campaign started. Talarico is not backsliding. The attention on him is.
“They flew a sitting vice president to Dallas to go after a state rep from Austin — that's a travel budget spent on message control, and it landed the same week a poll had their guy down four. The volume didn't come from anything new Talarico said; it came from the number. A drag queen question and a five-year-old clip about Europe are the whole case against him, which tells you exactly how thin it is when the internal numbers turn.”
“The Vice President goes where the fight is, that's just what leadership look— no, that's not what I meant to say. Look, he was already in Dallas for the convention, it's not like they built a special trip around one state legislator. And the drag queen comment, the backsliding clip, people are genuinely bothered by those, it's not manufactured — okay, it's a little convenient both landed the same week as the poll, but that's just how a news cycle works.”
The receipts
James Talarico has long praised and defended Texas drag performers.
· Talarico leads Paxton in Texas by 4 points: Poll from the morgue, 10 Sep 2026
· Vance takes aim at Talarico in Texas convention speech from the morgue, 11 Sep 2026
· James Talarico lies about his ‘new’ position on transgenderism from the morgue, 10 Sep 2026
· James Talarico needles Ken Paxton amid GOP midterm convention from the morgue, 10 Sep 2026
· Texas Senate candidate James Talarico: Voters are "tired of this professional wrestling" in politics from the morgue, 9 Sep 2026
· Former Texas attorney general aide, Paxton whistleblower backs Talarico in attack ad from the morgue, 8 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.