Brian Birdwell is consistently rated the most conservative State Senator. He was seriously wounded at the Pentagon on 9/11. He’s a great choice.
His dipwad of an opponent in his first race tried to claim that he wasn’t qualified as a Texas Resident to run because of the time he spent in a rehab hospital in Virginia.
Interestingly, the seat became open for Birdwell because the republican incumbent (to avoid a major scandal) dropped out of that race (for “health” reasons) without a democrat challenger leaving the race with one GOP primary candidate after the deadline. The establishment in Waco worked with democrats to ensure that lone conservative GOP candidate wouldn’t get 50% of the vote so that both parties could field candidates and the local GOP wouldn’t be stuck with a non-Waco conservative.
They failed. Their hand-picked establishment guy lost handily to Birdwell from Granbury. Now, the local Waco party is stuck with a non-local Senator whom is also the most conservative senator in the state.
I will say that the Waco GOP leadership has changed since then and Sen. Birdwell is now a favorite son.
There is definitely a method to the madness of Ted Cruz gathering these “losers” for his campaign.
There is pent up energy among their past supporters that can now be reignited and directed toward Cruz.
Birdwell is great. I met him last year. He still bears the physical scars of the Pentagon attack.