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Talarico
We didn’t know the meaning of the word
Brain was only blanking, giving nothing in return

We’re sure that Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico has a full staff of incredibly capable campaign managers, pollsters and PoliSci types. At this point, we’re not sure that they’re necessary. He may be the first candidate with a national profile built entirely via the Streisand Effect.

In case you’ve never heard the term, the “Streisand Effect” refers to any instance where an attempt to suppress something only boosts it into the public consciousness. The effect was named for a lawsuit filed by Barbra Streisand, who attempted to have photos of her Malibu mansion removed from an archive of thousands of photos documenting California coastal erosion. The photo had been downloaded six times, including two visits by her attorneys, prior to the lawsuit being filed. The filing spiked public interest in the archive, with more than 400,000 people visiting the website in the next month.

Twice so far in the upstart Democrat’s attempt to win his party’s nomination in March and then unseat Texas Sen. John Cornyn, he’s rocketed into headlines through no fault (or work) of his own. Earlier this week, CBS News squashed an late-night interview with Talarico, currently a Texas state representative, over ominous rumblings from the FCC about the freshly dusted-off “equal time” rule for broadcast networks.

CBS’ apparent belief that an interview with a state-level Democratic backbencher was too hot for television (networks seeking Trump’s approval) led to a televised back-and-forth between the network and host Stephen Colbert.

“I was told in some uncertain terms that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on. And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this. Let’s talk about this,” Colbert said on Monday.

CBS denied the allegation that it prohibited the interview from airing. On Tuesday, Colbert held the network’s statement up before the cameras and called it “crap.” The web-exclusive release of the Talarico interview has since been viewed more than 6 million times on YouTube. A typical “Late Show” upload’s view count can be measured using six figures.

This comes mere weeks after a podcaster’s offhand remark about Talarico’s chances in the Texas Senate race sparked outrage from supporters of his primary opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett. The ensuing controversy – in which “Las Culturistas” host Matt Rogers was forced to apologize for saying he thought Talarico was more electable – also succeeded in spreading a clip about Talarico to a massive online audience.

Early voting has already started in the Texas primaries, and many of the people who just heard Talarico’s name for the first time from these tiffs are unlikely to live in the state. But should he happen to eke out a narrow win in the Lone Star state after this dual blitz of unearned media, we definitely can’t conclude it hurt him either.

What do you think? Had you heard of Talarico before these dual controversies? Sound off in the comments.

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