Christian historian David Barton is reportedly considering primarying Sen. John Cornyn, R.-Texas, as Texas Republicans question the senator’s conservative values.
Barton, who has been in the news for his controversial book about Thomas Jefferson, is being encouraged to run by tea party supporters.
Rick Green, a close adviser to Barton and a speaker for his WallBuilder’s organization, told National Review Online (NRO) that more than 1,000 tea party and Republican leaders have asked him to run.
“Polling says Sen. Cornyn is vulnerable and that’s why he is running ads right now,” Green said. “Like America’s Founding Fathers, David Barton will not ‘seek’ this office, but if the people of Texas speak loud enough in the next few days, he could most certainly be drafted in by the voters.”
According to JoAnn Fleming, executive director of Grassroots America We the People, a conservative political organization in Texas, Barton’s supporters are pretty adamant. Fleming says some tea party leaders are planning to have a conference call with Barton in the coming days.
“We need a constitutional conservative in that seat,” Fleming comments. “We believe that Sen. Cornyn has become part of the establishment, and we don’t believe that his priorities reflect the priorities of the people of Texas any longer.”
A Facebook group has been created called “Draft David Barton for US Senate,” reports The Blaze. The closed group, available by invite only, had more than 2,000 members by Friday afternoon.
“This group is set up to alert the grassroots that there is a movement taking place that would like to encourage David Barton with Wallbuilders to run for the US Senate against John Cornyn,” reads the description on Facebook.
The NRO notes that Cornyn caused some anger from tea party activists this summer when he removed his name from a letter calling his colleagues to oppose any continuing resolution that funded Obamacare. However, some are continuing to support Cornyn, who met with conservatives and tea party supporters just last week.
News of Barton’s potential grab for the Senate follows results of a poll from Human Events that revealed a generic tea party candidate beat Cornyn in a survey of Republican voters in Texas.
“The poll clearly shows Cornyn is trouble, especially when you see that in the poll Sen. R. Edward Cruz (R.-Texas) has a job approval rating of 73 percent among Republicans and Cornyn 46 percent, said the pollster Doug Kaplan,” Human Events reports.
