Who has a Friday night political debate in Texas? The answer is a governor who is up by 8 points and wants to get this debate thing over and very quickly! I’ve lived in Texas since 1984, we had three sons who played football and no one here talks politics on a September/October Friday night. We talk high school football and good luck with anything else.
Yes, I did watch the debate on my I-phone because I couldn’t find it on TV. It was a boring 60 minutes that won’t make anyone’s favorite video lists.
The candidates did what they had to do, I guess. O’Rourke blamed Abbott for everything and Abbott kept correcting him. I don’t know who won but Governor Abbott was ready for “O’Rourke-isms” and punched back effectively.
On abortion, O’Rourke said that we should go back to Roe v Wade and did not reject late-term abortions. On the other hand, the governor spoke effectively of his adopted daughter and adoption in general. I don’t think that either one was very effective but late-term abortion will not play well with Hispanic women in Texas.
On immigration and guns, O’Rourke was playing defense because the journalists played his videos about AR-15’s and denying the border crisis. The governor was better in this round by simply stating the obvious that we have a huge problem on the border. O’Rourke tried to blame the governor for the Uvalde school shooting but was not effective.
On the power grid, a big issue because of the problems in early 2021, O’Rourke fell short because the lights did not go out in February nor in the super hot month of August. So the grid worked and that was good for the governor. God did not answer Beto’s prayer about the lights going out.
The governor’s best point was tying O’Rourke to President Biden. O’Rourke was lost because the Biden presidency is more than underwater in Texas. It’s more like 20,000 leagues under the sea. O’Rourke tried but could not detach from the incumbent president’s record.