Inside James Talarico's Bid to Flip Texas [View all]

LUBBOCK, Texas—The audience at Covenant Presbyterian sits in silence, transfixed by the seminarian at the pulpit. James Talarico is speaking at a deliberate pace and with a practiced cadence, nimbly mixing the Gospels of Matthew and Luke with an avowed progressivism and references to current-day political tyranny and Christian nationalism. While delivering a sermon about secularism, he dashes in the merits of religious diversity and suggests that the Pentagon brass post “turn the other cheek” in their war-planning rooms. And Talarico is doing this in West Texas, in a county that Donald Trump won by 40 points.

“If your heart is breaking as you watch what's happening to our beloved country, it means you still have a heart,” the 36-year-old state representative and U.S. Senate candidate says.

I am in the back pew, the only reporter watching this former teacher command a crowd of a few dozen congregants with nary an empty row, shortly after becoming the subject of the kind of national media attention other campaigns would murder for. Stephen Colbert turned Talarico into a household name after alleging CBS was blocking him from airing his interview with the rising Democrat. “Donald Trump is worried that we're about to flip Texas,” Talarico said in the interview, which was posted to YouTube and quickly drew almost 9 million views. The attention helped him rake in $2.5 million in donations in 24 hours and 4,000 new volunteers.

At the Lubbock church, Talarico is providing a masterclass on how a Democrat can link faith, culture, and politics together in a way that makes sense. A secularist at heart, he asserts religion and politics should never meet lest both be corrupted. His credibility in making that argument is baked into his biography, having led the opposition in the Texas House to state-manded displays of the Ten Commandments in public school.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/she-t-win-inside-james-194533825.html