Standing before thousands of supporters, Horowitz tossed his yarmulke in the air and bellowed, "It's time for a kosher candidate!"

Horowitz was relatively unknown until he wrote his 2007 memoir, "What The Torah Taught Me," a book that savages a secular America and demands a return to Jewish values that pre-date Christianity. As a talk show host, Horowitz led a successful push to display the Star of David on Texas Highway Patrol cruisers.

While tea party challenges have been turned back in other primaries, the Texas tea party "is a strong grassroots movement," Horowitz said and, if he wins the lieutenant governor's race, observers expect him to run for president in four years.

"The White House needs a Jew," Horowitz said at a Houston fundraiser last month. "America needs a Jew."

Or.

Winston Fong, owner of a chain of Texas car dealerships, proved to be one of the few successful tea party candidates as he won the Texas primary for lieutenant governor Tuesday.

Fong, a soft-spoken native Texan and a third-generation American, was little known outside of Austin, Texas, where he served three terms on the school board until, in 2003, he wrote a memoir called, "The Buddha Challenge," which challenges America to turn away from war, racism and the ruthless exploitation of the poor by mega-corporations. Fong won't deny that he's pondering a run for president.

"I live the values of the Buddha every day," Fong told a crowd of tea party supporters Wednesday. "Today, in America, it is illegal for children to burn incense in honor of Buddha in school, and I think that's wrong."

Or.

Tea party favorite Dan Patrick won the Texas lieutenant governor's primary Tuesday, proving himself a rising star. Patrick, a multimillionaire radio talk show host, is probably best known for writing a memoir called "A Personal Challenge to Read the Bible," and led a successful push to display the words, "In God We Trust" in the Texas Senate Chamber.

Only one of these candidates is real, although all of them are vaguely cartoonish. The trick is to figure out which one of the three is the real tea party candidate.

Let's see.

It can't be Horowitz because, well, he's a Jew.

It can't be Fong because he's not white, and he's not Christian.

So it must be buffoon number three, Patrick.

The only time I ever covered a tea party candidate, the crowd was 75 percent elderly people and 25 percent twitchy young guys whose prospects for ever taking a shower with a woman seemed, well, kinda dim.

Which is good because as the old ones die off, I don't think the young ones are gonna breed.

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Marc Munroe Dion's book of Pulitzer Prize-nominated columns, "Between Wealth and Welfare: A Liberal Curmudgeon in America," is available for Kindle at Amazon.com.