Mike Huckabee rouses evangelicals in Texas

Transcript of today's show:

Mike Huckabee has focused his Texas primary campaign on his core constituency in the Texas Bible Belt. Huckabee may bring enough conservative fundamentalist voters to the polls on March 4 to swing the balance of power on the Texas school board to supporters of creationism. One school board seat may go to Republican Barney Maddox who calls Darwin's theories "pre-Civil War fairy tales."

[source: Time]

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from Greg Laden's Blog:

On one hand, we have the Huckabee factor ... Huckabee's draw on hard right voters in tomorrows primary may lead anti-evolutionists to victory. On the other hand, we have the Obama factor ... Obama's draw on moderate republicans may lead to a cleansing of pernicious liberal elements from the Republican party.

Hilary Hylton has an interesting and informative piece in, of all places, Time, about tomorrow's events in Texas. You need to know this.

Texas has a state-wide school board. This means that when it comes to textbook adoption, Texas is the largest single customer, and thus, traditionally, Texas has determined the fundamental nature of textbook production in the United States for years.

Fortunately, children nation wide are protected by the constitution even from Texans, and strong political efforts in Texas and elsewhere, including pressure on publishers, has meant that social studies and science textbooks available for adoption across the country for grade school and high school have not been as bad as they might have been had Texas conservatives succeeded in their plan to take over education nationally. [read full blog post]

from a comment posted on the Bad Astronomy Blog:

Some info for district 2 voters (which includes Corpus Christi) can be found in this article:

http://www.caller.com/news/2008/feb/26/teaching-of-evolution-may-be-affected/

The vote will be on electing a member to the State Board of Education, which determines text books used in TX schools.

Bad:

Lupe A. Gonzales wants to stop teachers from teaching science by insisting that the sound scientific theories of evolution be taught alongside creationism.

Good:

Mary Helen Berlanga wants to ‘leave God out of science’. Not because it promotes atheism, but because religion has no place in the science class.

[read full blog post]

Kathy Miller, executive director of the Texas Freedom Network, quoted in an article in the Dallas Morning News:

When you think about the fact that the State Board of Education in Texas determines what every child in Texas public schools will be taught in K through 12, the impact that those members have is extraordinary on the future of Texas. These races are absolutely critical. ... Membership of the State Board of Education is clearly, very evenly divided between the far right faction of the board and everyone else. [read complete article]