Ron Kirk doesn’t care about West Texas. He doesn’t care about your vote. He doesn’t care about what you care about. But he wants you to vote for him as if he’s the logical choice.

Kirk, Democratic mayor of Dallas, claims he’ll represent the entire state of Texas if we give him the chance to live inside the Beltway. Really?

“I’m not running as mayor of Texas,” Kirk told the Associated Press earlier this month. “I’m running for U.S. Senator from Dallas.”

That’s a telling statement from Kirk, who has spent all of one day in Abilene, campaigning with Tony Sanchez as they did a quick run-through of West Texas in September. Aside from that, he hasn’t been here. He hasn’t addressed a single West Texas concern. But he has been busy making sure every East and North Texas resident votes for him.

Kirk could make no graver mistake in his bid to take back a Republican seat held for years by retiring Sen. Phil Gramm. Millions of West Texas voters from Abilene to Amarillo to El Paso are watching this campaign.

They are watching Kirk claim he is not running on his race while ignoring white-dominated portions of the state. They are watching Kirk claim he will represent Texas if he’s elected to the Senate while he’s campaigning as if the state ends in the German Hill Country.

Either Kirk is monumentally stupid or badly misinformed about the nature of West Texas. Abilene is stereotyped as conservative, but it’s only a third Republican.

Rep. Charles Stenholm is a Democratic mainstay here, representing one of the largest districts in the state. Democrats can win here, if they try.

But right now, Kirk is content to let Cornyn walk all over him in the West so he can focus his attention on Dallas, Houston, Austin and all points in between.

This, combined with Kirk’s incessant race mongering and his less-than-stellar record in the Dallas school system, will give John Cornyn and the GOP one less seat to worry about on Nov. 5.