WCMessenger.com: Wise County weathers political blizzard

The remnants of last week's freak snow storm vanished almost as quickly as it came. After a couple of days, only a few pale patches hiding in the cover of shade remained.

In the same week, the Texas primary ran its course as well. A few political signs jutting out of yards and the corners of intersections were all that was left come Friday.

Political opponents were vanquished just as sure as the Texas sun melted the nutaryuk. Nutaryuk is the Eskimo word for fresh fallen snow on the ground. The Eskimos use scores of words for snow. Texans use as many words for politicians, but most are probably not fit to print in a community newspaper.

The eight inches of snow falling on Wise County was as shocking as some of the local primary results. What appeared to be a tight race between state representative Phil King and challenger Joe Tison morphed into a runaway as King drew more than double Tison's votes in Wise County. The opposing campaigns grew into a snowball fight. Both sides hurled accusations as quick as a Roger Clemens fastball. But the end result was about as exciting as a congressional hearing.

Also as surprising as the blizzard was the amount of Democrats who voted in the primary. Forty percent of the 9,737 Wise County voters in the primary picked names from the Democratic ticket.

I know some conservative radio demagogues, such as Rush Limbaugh, were asking people to vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton. This could create some crossover. But it's hard to believe many Republicans would do this due to the high number of contested local and state offices. The best way to make a difference is to engage politically at the local level. Forsaking the chance of effecting local change in hopes of somehow throwing a monkey wrench into a presidential election is silly at best.

But the most dumbfounding election statistic of all was the number of votes cast for Larry Kilgore, a Republican from Mansfield challenging incumbent John Cornyn for a spot in the U.S. Senate race in November. A whopping 1,503 people from Wise County voted for Kilgore. He pulled in almost six times the number of votes as presidential hopeful Ron Paul. Kilgore received 30 percent of the votes for the Republican U.S. Senate race in Wise County. Amazingly, he also received 18.5 percent from across the entire state.

I've got little love for Cornyn, believe me, but Kilgore is as close to a Taliban-like figure one can find in North Texas.

If elected, Kilgore's first goal was to re-establish the legendary Republic of Texas and break off from the rest of the "U.S. Empire." For Kilgore campaigned that democracy and terrorism are "two faces of the same evil." He wants no part of the wise laws laid out in the U.S. Constitution, which happens to be the oldest working, federal constitution in the entire world.

Step two was to enact biblical law across the new sovereign nation of Texas. It is a good thing to use your faith as a moral compass when making political decisions, but Kilgore wants to take it a bit further.

A cursory stroll through the pages of the Book of Leviticus demonstrates fairly quickly what a bad idea this would be. Here are some examples: Leviticus 20:9 states that any person who curses their parents must be killed, 20:27 states that all psychics and wizards must be stoned to death, 19:19 forbids different types of cattle from grazing in the same field and 21:17-18 says people with flat noses, or those who are blind or lame, can't go before the altar of God.

Kilgore himself could already be tried for violating biblical law. Leviticus 20:9 reads that a man can't cut his hair or shave his beard. Kilgore looks as clean cut as an ancient Greek statue of the god Eros.

A major concern with terror groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban is that they want to impose religious laws on the people. The idea that so many people in Wise County might support such a similar notion leaves me shivering much more than last week's pirtuk. For those interested, pirtuk is an Inuit word for blizzard.