Tom Pauken is pushing Greg Abbott hard for a debate — or a series of debates — leading up to next spring’s Texas Republican gubernatorial primary.
Abbott ought to take up the challenge.
http://blog.chron.com/texaspolitics/2013/07/pauken-presses-for-debate-with-abbott/
The Texas attorney general has been deemed the prohibitive favorite to win the GOP nomination next spring and with that, the election in the fall against whomever the Democratic Party nominates.
Pauken, a Dallas lawyer and the former chairman of the state Republican Party, is having none of it.
He calls Abbott the “$25 million man,” alluding to the massive war chest the AG has accumulated. Pauken said he believes Abbott thinks of himself as having some kind of “divine right of succession” to the governorship being vacated at the end of next year by Rick Perry.
Actually, Pauken is right to press for debates. I like the idea of two serious candidates for governor arguing in public over policy differences. They can be entertaining to be sure. More than that, they can be educational and informative.
Some critics lampooned the 2012 GOP presidential primary for having too many debates. I wasn’t among them. My only concern about that series of joint appearances became the carnival atmosphere that accompanied so many of them. The candidates would prance out onto debate stages to roaring crowds, waving atĀ audience membersĀ like game-show contestants. It detracted from the serious nature of what was at stake.
Abbott and Pauken seem like studious men to me. They both know the issues. They both have positions — I reckon — on all of them.
So let’s hear them articulate their view of where Texas ought to go in the post-Rick Perry era.
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