Pauken OUT of Texas GOP gov's race

Well, barring a last-minute entry, it looks like Greg Abbott has a free ride to the Republican nomination for the Texas governor's race. Challenger Tom Pauken is bowing out.

From a letter to supporters:

Thanksgiving week ... gave me the opportunity to reflect on where we were in the campaign and what we should do, going forward. Filing deadline is only days away, and I have to be realistic about our prospects. When I first filed our exploratory committee in March, I said at the time that there were certain, minimum objectives we needed to achieve to win the Republican nomination: (1) We had to raise a minimum of $2 million; (2) We had to build a strong, statewide organization; (3) We had to develop a major social media presence in a short period of time.

Even though I have worked hard to get our message out across the state the past six months, unfortunately we are nowhere near where we need to be financially and organizationally to win this race. And, the primary is only three months away. I can no longer in good conscience ask friends and fellow conservatives to continue to help me when there appears to be no realistic path to victory. Greg Abbott has a $25 million war chest and the media depicts this as a Greg Abbott v. Wendy Davis race.

Oh, technically, Abbott still has three challengers, but, they're even lower on the radar screen than Pauken. As for Pauken's complaint that his message wasn't sticking, he had numerous chances to refine that message to appeal to the far right better than he did. The real issue is that Pauken just isn't a good electoral candidate politician.

Speaking of Abbott v. Davis, I'm sure a Green candidate will pop up. Libertarians have three. That said, whether Abbott having more of a free pass helps or hurts him or Davis remains to be seen.