TUE brief 1.11.22
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Today’s Stories
GREG ABBOTT is running for governor.
Normal candidates publicly announced for office months ago, but Greg isn’t normal. Since the end of the third special session, he’s been angling for a coronation, nothing doing partner.
It’s increasingly clear that Abbott will have to hustle (and spend) to avoid a run-off. Even with a push on his part, escaping that fate is hard to envisage.
That run-off bound blood is in the water if the chattering class is any barometer.
Newsletter purveyor Scott Braddock, who spends most of his time passing off inside information as forecasting, took time last weekend to rip on Abbott over property taxes.
Abbott has spent two terms in office lying about providing property tax relief, and those chickens may be coming home to roost. Pointing it out does him harm, and the intended benefactors are Democrats, namely Beto O’Rourke, but Abbott’s primary opponents also benefit more immediately.
This represents an advancement of the narrative that was baked into the cake last year during the summer by Democrats. While they’re a lackluster permanent opposition party in Texas, this messaging shift makes sense.
They needed non-kooky issues on which to run and property taxes, paying troops on time, and keeping the lights on all fit the bill.
CHIP ROY has endorsed ELLEN TROXCLAIR.
This isn’t surprising, but it’s nevertheless positive.
Troxclair and Roy share the trait that, in addition to being consistently and verifiably conservative, they do so in a non-cringe manner. In this respect, they’re very similar to gubernatorial candidate Chad Prather. (AC)
GOVERNMENT EDUCATION is losing ground.
Last year Shane Parish, a New York dwelling first principal’s soothsayer commenting on the quality of his children’s education, surmised its “basically daycare” (aka babysitting).
Sane observation.
Of course, there are exceptions that prove the rule. Are there going to be good outcomes to some public school education, sure? But there will also be a whole heap of bad ones. These are the rule, not exceptions.
Suggesting that government education in Texas or America is a top-tier product is a heavy lift public relations battle. A battle that would fail if taxpayer dollars weren’t subsidizing it.
Politicians and the media working overtime in 2022 on this effort are shades of the 2021 gubernatorial election in Virginia.
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