the whole cult lyndon larouche cult and conspiracy theory story is a story for another day. but the fact that the texas democrats could not get their u.s. senate candidate over the hump to avoid a runoff with the beyond the nutball lyndon larush everyone's hitler fringe, that is not a good sign for texas democrats at a time they're trying to convince they're going to be a real force in that state. there are a bunch of states that went all red that had complete republican takeovers in the last few years. republicans won more seats in state legislatures than any time since 1928. and that huge republican tide in 2010, it sealed complete republican control of the legislature and the governorship and a whole bunch of american says the. one of the things that we have covered intensively on this show, is what the consequences of that have been specifically for reproductive rights. social conservative issues are not all alike. the culture war is not being fought on one big right wing front. on gay rights, for example, gay rights in the states and federally, have sort of been on the

>> ah, the the crazy british empire conspiracy that larouche has been pushing for years.y've come out against rogers. four other candidates in that senate primary, desperately urging democrats not to vote for her. it would be an embarrassment for them, state-wide nominee for the senate could end up pushing her into that nomination. it's possible low turnout, low information primary, that she could win. to prevent larouche from getting nomination is a sign they're still struggling in this state. rick perry is not on the ballot today. for the first time since 1998, five of the six statewide top executive positions are open. governor's race where attorney general gray abbott and likely democratic opponent wendy davis are running with nominal opposition. they're using today's primary to kickoff their gubernato are. ial campaigns. the real test of the establishment versus the tea party, three republicans are taking on the incumbent, david dewhurst, lane commissioner jerry patterson. they believe he is beatable, especially after he lost the campaign against senator ted cruz. >>

for national democrats because her views which she draws from perennial fringe provocateur lyndon larouche outside the mainstream. for example, at a tea party event last month, she said this. >> what we're looking at with the fact that you have a puppet in the white house, president barack obama, who is a stooge of a wall street british empire who is about to take the nation to the brink of thermal nuclear war. >> joining me now, evan smith, ceo and editor in chief of "texas tribune." evan, where do i want to start in let's start with the bizarre spectacle of the steve stockman campaign which i gather even folks in texas are having a real hard time making heads or tails of. >> right, well, we know stockman as well as anybody. he's been elected two different times. nonconsecutive terms to the congress from texas. we've watched him up close and have a sense of who he is. i don't even think those of us who know who stockman is, how bizarre relatively speaking his behavior has been in the past expected anything like this. when he got into this race on the last day of filing, in the last second