So much for a serious challenge to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn from the tea party wing of the Texas Republican Party.

U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Loony Bin, had been counted on by many within the GOP to mount a stout bid to unseat the veteran lawmaker.

Silly them. It didn’t happen. It won’t happen.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/texas-steve-stockman-john-cornyn-republican-senate-primary-elections-2014-103754.html?hp=f2

The tea party wing of the reliably Republican Party of Texas has abandoned Stockman, who’s vanished from the campaign trail — yet again. He’s been a no-show at campaign events. His dismal campaign effort has been described as “horrible” by Texas tea party bigwig JoAnn Fleming.

I’m still trying to figure out why the righties dislike Cornyn so much. He’s racked up a generally conservative voting record in the Senate. He’s led the Senate campaign committee effort to recruit solid GOP candidates for Congress’s upper chamber. He’s been pretty darn critical of his Senate Democratic colleagues and the Democrat who lives in the White House.

What brought about this idiotic challenge — from the likes of Steve Stockman, no less?

They disliked his vote to avoid going over the “fiscal cliff.” He didn’t stand with tea party favorite U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s effort to defund the Affordable Care Act. And just recently he voted to extend the nation’s borrowing limit without attaching any spending limits.

In other words, he ain’t vicious enough.

Stockman emerged as the leading challenge to Cornyn within the Republican Party. The congressman held true to his form, however, in acting weirdly in public. He invited has-been rocker and Second Amendment firebrand Ted Nugent to the State of the Union speech in January. He’s faced questions about his staff’s campaign activities — but has disappeared for days and weeks on end to avoid answering them.

Sen. Cornyn will be re-nominated in a few days. He’ll go to on face a Democrat this fall. He’ll likely be re-elected.

I was hoping for a more serious challenge for Cornyn. Sigh. It wasn’t meant to be.

So long, Rep. Stockman.