U.S. Senator
John Cornyn
Notes from Evan Smith
"If you believe the polls — which may be unwise in this exceedingly unpredictable election cycle — John Cornyn will defeat Rick Noriega and be returned to the United State Senate, where he’ll serve a second six-year term in a body controlled overwhelmingly by Democrats. He’s been one of the most reliably conservative members of Congress and is likely to remain so, and he’s been a close ally of his old pal George W. Bush’s — two data points that don’t necessarily work in his favor in 2008, when the president’s approval ratings are way down and the country is aggressively asserting its centrist tendencies. But Texas is an outlier this time around, still red if not as red as it used to be, and Cornyn is an outlier too, rare among Republican incumbents is remaining ahead of his Democratic challenger by enough of a margin, somewhere in the high single digits, that the state is not generally considered in play in what is otherwise a blue year. And so Cornyn’s backing of the controversial $700 billion Wall Street bailout, and his vote against expanding the children’s health insurance rolls, and his belief that we stay the course in Iraq, and his support of a more hardline immigration policy than the one favored by some in his party, to name four prickly issues, come without any real consequences. The Republican faithful clearly love the 56-year-old native of San Antonio, who previously served as Texas Attorney General and a Texas Supreme Court Justice, and he is certainly smart and genial and charming. Democrats dismiss him as an empty suit, or, variously, an ideologue in sheep’s clothing, but thus far they have not been able to best him on Election Day, when we find out the results of the only poll that really matters." - Evan Smith, Texas Monthly Talks, Broadcast 1.5.06
