I wonder what these numbskulls thought of Tim Walz. He seemed to do the real, down-to-earth thing pretty well also.

Absolutely. See also: increasingly conservative Mexicans in US border states who support building a wall.

He could have, yes.

Instead, he doubled down on it and continued his campaign essentially with the message “Yes, I really do want to take away certain guns. Vote for me, Texans!”

Yep, but the states with sales tax get tired of getting cheated out of their tax revenue. The specific example where I saw this was a major hardware store chain in Oregon (no sales tax) right near the border of Washington (6.5% sales tax). They asked everyone “Washington or Oregon” at the register and checked ID for anyone who said Oregon.

Quick search says that Washington considers it a “sales and use” tax, so anything purchased out of state, but intended for use in Washington is supposed to be taxed. Kinda messed up, really.

In some cases like that, where you’re in a state that has no sales tax, but near the border of one that does, they’ll actually check ID and charge you sales tax if you’re from the sales tax state.

I’m really surprised as well. But if you think about where American culture was in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, there was a huge emphasis placed on being “normal.” You can be sure that most boomers were told by their parents or peers at some point to “just be normal” or criticized someone by saying they’re not normal, and there’s still plenty of conservative families raising their kids like that today.

I can only imagine that’s the nerve being touched by the “weird” criticism.

We already know what he looks like in a cowboy hat, and that ain’t it.