Gov Could Throw in Towel on Run
to Right with Convention Spurning

Capitol Inside
June 14, 2022

Governor Greg Abbott appears poised to give the conservative base a monumental cold shoulder at the Texas GOP Convention this week in Houston where the stars will be on the far right with U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and Attorney General Ken Paxton as the biggest draws at the party's first in-person gathering since 2018.

An Abbott no-show on the stage at the George R. Brown Convention would be tantamount to a white flag after trying for two years to convince the right wing that he's one of them. The shunning of a state party convention by a statewide candidate - especially an incumbent governor - is a move without apparent precedent. But it's not a surprise.

Abbott was brutalized by booing at a Donald Trump rally in Conroe in January - and he's avoided major public appearances ever since. The governor has ample cause to expect a reception that's just as harsh and louder at a state party convention that the far right will dominate. Abbott's camp may see Houston as an embarrassment in the making that he can afford to avoid without losing ground in a fight with Democrat Beto O'Rourke this fall in the marquee race on the Texas ticket.

The timing is bad for Abbott in the midst of a brewing tempest over the Department of Public Safety's inaction at a mass school shooting in Uvalde three weeks ago. State Senator Roland Gutierrez - a San Antonio Democrat who represents Uvalde County - told the San Antonio Express-News on Monday night that DPS Director Steve McCraw informed him that at least 13 troopers at the scene of the massacre at Robb Elementary. The agency didn't dispute the number when it sought to clarify the characterization of DPS officers massed in a hall when they'd been helping students evacuate.

McCraw had criticized local school police for allowing the melee to continue for more than an hour before U.S. Border Patrol agents arrived to end the siege. Gutierrez said McCraw told him in a separate conversation that the DPS would never again stand down - a statement that comes across much like an admission of guilt.

Abbott is scheduled to attend an event early Thursday night at an adjoining facility where supporters will be able to see him from a distance even if they don't get the chance to press the flesh. The Convention Welcome Reception could be off the beaten path for activists, however, with the first of two showings of the Dinesh D’Souza documentary 2,000 Mules playing simultaneously in a separate room at the downtown convention hall.

The film claims to lay out how Democrats stole the 2020 election in four major battleground states. It will give the biennial gathering a novel sideshow for Trump loyalists who've believed his baseless claims on massive voter fraud as the cause of his demise.

more to come ...

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

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