Dem
53
Ties
1
GOP
46
We have been trying to get to this item for about a week. And the damn thing is that, every time we delay, the whole race becomes even more wild and crazy.
We suppose we'll start with the relationship between Donald Trump and GOP candidate Ken Paxton, a relationship that is probably best described as "co-dependent." Trump, for his part, needs Paxton. The President wants as many Republican votes in the Senate as is possible, and he also does not want to be criticized for throwing a Senate seat away, if Paxton loses in a way that makes clear that, had the candidate been Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the GOP would have kept the seat. On top of that, Paxton kisses major rear end, and Trump likes that.
On the other hand, Trump clearly does not like or respect Paxton. We are not sure exactly what the issue is, but part of it is certainly that Paxton has a lazy eyelid, and so looks a little odd. Trump hates people who look odd. We suspect it's also that Paxton is not trouncing Democrat James Talarico. Trump has little regard for people who lose, or might lose, elections Trump thinks they should win easily. In any event, whatever the cause of the disrespect might be, Trump has developed a habit of regularly badmouthing Paxton, including at rallies and other events ostensibly intended to goose support for the Republican candidate. Trump even did that at the midterm "convention," which was held in Texas primarily so that Paxton would benefit.
Paxton, for his part, certainly needs Trump. After all, the Texas AG is going to need every MAGA vote if he hopes to defeat Talarico. And the only one who can rouse MAGA Nation to action is Trump (certainly Paxton, who is a lousy campaigner, can't do it). In addition, the Paxton campaign is having money trouble, and really needs help from Trump's PAC, which is MAGA Inc.
But despite being firmly attached to Trump at the hip (and possibly some other body parts), Paxton keeps getting recorded saying snotty things about Trump and his policies. At various times, the would-be Senator has said that the Iran War is dragging the GOP down, that the midterm convention was not helpful and may actually have done damage, and that Trump is hurting Republicans with moderate voters. These things are probably all true, but you don't help yourself in MAGA world by criticizing the throne. In the latest "What? Someone was recording me?" moment, Paxton griped about how he has little control over his campaign, and it's being run out of D.C. Paxton being caught on tape so many times suggests that he's either stupid or that he's passive-aggressively trying to poke Trump in the eye. Of course, it could be both.
And now, let us move on to... the flu. Talarico contracted a nasty case about 2 weeks ago. He is also a Type I diabetic. And so, he decided to suspend his campaign for about 10 days in order to give himself time to get better. That was preferable, in his view, to pushing through and letting the illness linger on through Election Day. This is hardly an unprecedented choice, either. Perhaps most famously, Richard Nixon took an extended break when he developed a leg infection during the 1960 presidential campaign.
When Nixon got hurt, John F. Kennedy had the grace to suspend HIS campaign, so as to not gain an unfair advantage. There is no way that Paxton has that kind of class. But, failing that, the smart play was for Paxton to take the 10 or so days where he was the only one campaigning, and to make the most of it.
As readers should know by now, Paxton rarely makes the smart play. So, what he did was try to squeeze the Talarico illness for extra juice. The original approach was to try to turn it into a Mitch McConnell-type situation. The Paxton campaign put up "wanted" posters, and the candidate did a lot of bloviating about how Talarico has a duty to make himself available to the people of Texas. Because what the people of Texas want, apparently, is to be infected with the flu.
You don't have to think long about the Talarico-McConnell comparison before the whole thing starts to fall apart. First, McConnell was absent for multiple months; with Talarico, it wasn't even multiple weeks. Second, McConnell was almost wholly invisible; Talarico was still doing some interviews and phone calls. Third, and most importantly, McConnell is being paid to do a job on behalf of the people who elected him, people who were going partly un-represented as long as he was on his extended sojourn. Talarico is not being paid to campaign, and no voter is being harmed by his absence until such point that he's an actual U.S. Senator, not just an aspiring U.S. Senator.
Perhaps because this angle was silly, eventually the Republicans began to change course, advancing the conspiratorial claim that Talarico wasn't actually suffering from the flu, but that instead he had checked into a mental institution. This theory was ostensibly given further credence when two right-wing operatives released audio footage of a phone call to Lindner Center of Hope near Cincinnati, OH, in which a hospital employee seems to confirm that Talarico was a recently discharged patient.
All we can say here is that if you're going to tell this outlandish a lie, knowing the scrutiny it will get, you need to do a much better job of it if you actually want to sell it. Not surprisingly, the audio was carefully edited. In the full recording, the hospital says Talarico was not a patient there, and never had been (and management later called a press conference to reiterate that). Talarico, for his part, says he has never been to Ohio at all, in any capacity. Further, his campaign released timestamped video footage of him at home, during the times he was allegedly in the mental hospital. Even worse, the night he was "discharged" (according to the phone call), Talarico was already back on the campaign trail and was doing a rally in Texas. Not so easy to be in two places, 1,000 miles apart, at exactly the same time.
In short, the conspiracy imploded, Eric Schmitt-style. But not before Donald Trump found a way to make things just a little bit worse. Here is the message Trump posted to social media:
Ladies and Gentlemen, upon information and belief, James TalaFREAKo, who is running for the United States Senate in Texas, is MISSING IN ACTION! No one has seen him for an extended period of time. Where is he? What is wrong with him? Bad rumors are coming out. He should immediately report to a Debate Stage against Ken Paxton, who is ready, willing, and able, one of the best Attorney Generals in the Country, and will soon be, hopefully, a United States Senator representing the Great People of Texas! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP
Trump rarely met a conspiracy theory he does not like, particularly if it involves Democrats.
The reason that Trump's message makes things worse is that it reminds everyone that the candidate who is ready, willing, and able to debate is actually Talarico. He has not only agreed to do four debates, he's even agreed to let Fox host them. It is Paxton, who knows he would get eaten alive, who refuses to make any such commitments. Heck, Paxton won't even answer the question "Will you debate?" when it is Fox who is asking. Anyhow, as Paxton ducks, dips, dives and dodges, Talarico has scheduled an event for tomorrow called the CNN & Jubilee Town Hall. We thought that maybe it was some sort of religious revival, but actually it's just that the co-sponsor is Jubilee Media.
And to wrap it up, at least for now, let's talk commercials. Whatever money Paxton and his allied PACs have got, they are spending on ad time to try to save the candidate's bacon. Well, it's Texas, so his brisket. Last week, there was a digital-only ad starring a "mom of 5" named Miriam. Though it is certainly not made clear in the ad, Miriam is a longtime Republican operative. In the ad, she makes the outlandish claim that the Democrat not only supports "taxpayer-funded sex changes on kids," but that he favors "parents in jail if they do not support surgically transitioning their children." None of this is true, and the latter part, in particular, isn't going to pass the smell test with very many people. There was a lot of blowback, and the ad appears to have been yanked from circulation.
If at first you don't succeed, though, then try, try again. As you may have heard, Angela Paxton filed for divorce from her not-so-beloved husband Ken "on Biblical grounds." Maybe he shoved one cheeseburger or pork chop too many into his mouth, but we suspect not. It was probably some other portion of the Bible he ran smack into, and with a different part of his anatomy. To say the two do not get along well now is a Texas-sized understatement.
Surely any other woman in this situation would get revenge on her soon-to-be-ex by cutting an ad for his opponent saying what an untrustworthy, lying, despicable scoundrel he really is. Nope, that's not Angela. Instead, she cut an ad that walked a fine line. Here is her ad (starts at 0:12):
The ad carefully advises voters to vote a straight Republican ticket to prevent Democrats from running Texas. It doesn't mention Paxton or Talarico by name.
Have they reconciled? What's going on here? Well, Angela Paxton has been a Texas state senator since 2019. She is an ambitious woman and may someday seek a higher office than state senator. She is a good enough politician to know that if she were to back a Democrat in such a high-profile race, that would be the end of her ambitions for higher office and might end her career as a state senator. But she probably couldn't force herself to actually support her husband, who actually is an untrustworthy, lying, despicable scoundrel (who was impeached by the Texas House on 20 articles of scoundrelness). So her compromise was to take one for the team and say voters should look at the big picture and which party they want to control the Senate. This allowed her to dodge the "candidate quality" issue and yet remain loyal to the red team. We cannot imagine for a second that she really wants him to win, although that would get him out of Texas.
Talarico responded to the ad by saying: "Asking Texans to close their eyes and vote for a political party instead of the best person for the job is exactly what is wrong with today's politics. My team isn't any political party. My team is Texas." That's actually a pretty slick response.
Incidentally, many voters outside of Texas have seen this ad on their TVs, particularly if those voters were watching NFL football (e.g., the game this weekend where the mighty Green Bay Packers decimated the hapless Chicago Bears). In this case, it's not a "Which Portland is it?" thing, like with Susan Collins and Troy Jackson. It's that buying commercial time in Texas' many media markets is expensive and adds up quickly, such that a national ad was actually cheaper than just targeting local viewers.
Anyhow, Texas has been giving America the very best soap operas in the land for half a century, and it's good to see that it's still living up to its reputation. (Z & V)