It is Labor Day and the start of the "official" campaign season, so here's your four — yes, four — official candidates.
First is Republican Greg Abbott, aka Dr. Strangeabbott. Like his counterpart, Dr. Strangelove, one wonders if Abbott is always about to break into a Nazi salute. His salute would be either to rich campaign donors, especially if they have any vague, tenuous connect to cancer and can come under the CPRIT umbrella, or if they're gun nuts.
Abbott has never met a fetus he didn't like, unless its mother liked Medicaid. He's never met a schooling idea he didn't like, unless it involved money.
In short, he's a tougher, more bare-knuckled version of Rick Perry pretending to be a kinder, gentler one. He's also, given his losing track record on lawsuits against the feds, a more stubborn version of Perry.
Second is Democrat Wendy Davis, aka Wendy O. Williams. I settled on that nickname last week, because Davis' campaign seems like a discombobulated whirl of energy, when it's not on internal lockdown of some sort.
Davis had a great filibuster in the Capitol last August and has generally gone downhill since. Actually, she got close to the bottom of the downhill last December, shortly after her campaign started. When you openly pander for "moderate" Republican voters at your first major campaign event, that's not a good sign.
Since then, Davis has dodged abortion and reproductive choice issues like a vial of plutonium
Third is Libertarian Kathie Glass, also known as the Lawyer from Hell, who probably thinks that GOP Senator Ted Cruz is a softie on the "treason" and "tyranny" being instituted across the land by Barack Obama.
Glass has also never met a lawsuit she didn't like — at least if she thinks it helps business. You'll notice her website has nothing decrying either forced binding arbitration, or the monstrosity called "tort reform."
Fourth is Green candidate Brandon Parmer. Does anybody know if he's still alive? With a Facebook page not updated in six months and no website, it looks like he self-suspended his campaign. I don't mean that in the sense that some Greens hinted at him suspending his campaign if a deal could be made with Wendy O. Williams, which I blogged against.
I just mean that he seems to have been kidnapped by aliens, joined ISIS, or otherwise dropped off the face of Texas. Parmer's had plenty of chances to fill in gaps in real liberalism left by Davis, and we've heard bupkis.
Anyway, Parmer's so dead I don't even have a nickname for him.
Two years from now, Texas Green Party? Put in a "none of the above" voting option, so that if there's an exceptionally weak candidate, even by third party standards, and he or she is unopposed, the party still doesn't have to put him or her on the ballot, OK? It's nice that the party has its largest ballot numbers ever this year; for 2016 and beyond, let's work on quality as well as quantity.
2 comments:
Well, as for "none of the above" (NOTA) on ballots at Green Party conventions, that is standard practice. In fact, this year, a couple of us spoke in favor of NOTA for Governor this time around. (That is, we proposed running nobody. Our reasons had nothing to do with Brandon Parmer, but everything to do with life-and-death effects of having Greg Abbott win; he will continue refusing Medicaid money, and continue closing health clinics across the state that possibly provide abortions, thus denying many people family planning and well-woman health care.) However, even though Mr. Parmer was not at the convention, he had allies who spoke for him; also, there are quite a few people who feel it is necessary to run as many Green Party candidates for as many offices as possible, period. (Art Browning)
Well, I know that I'm not the only person who is, at least in the abstract, favorable to GP candidates who wonders why Parmer isn't on a missing kids milk carton, first.
I've spoken elsewhere, of course, about having an official candidate then asking him not to campaign.
I don't know how common this is for Greens in other states, but I"m sure states that have an active Socialist party don't do this.
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