By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Gosh, we just finished a contentious presidential election that produced a violent transition of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

Now it’s time to look just a bit ahead to 2022 and what is shaping up here in Texas. A potential donnybrook between Gov. Greg Abbott and former Congressman Beto O’Rourke.

Oh, boy. Pass the popcorn.

O’Rourke spilled some of the beans when he told an El Paso radio station that he might run for governor in 2022, seeking to generate the excitement he ginned up when he almost defeated U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. Unfortunately for O’Rourke, the Texas buzz didn’t play on the national stage as he sought the presidency in 2020; he dropped out early from the Democratic Party primary contest.

He did make some news, though, he declared “Hell yes,” he intends to take away people’s AR-15 assault weapons.

Abbott wasted no time capitalizing on that exclamation, declaring that O’Rourke would seek to do that very thing in gun-loving Texas if he is elected governor.

As the Texas Tribune reported: “You’re talking about a person who says they want to run for governor who said, ‘Heck yes,’ he’s gonna come and take your guns,” Abbott said, referring to O’Rourke’s 2019 embrace of a mandatory buyback program for assault weapons. “Heck yes, he’s for open borders. Heck yes, he’s for killing the energy sector and fossil fuels in the state of Texas. I don’t think that’s gonna sell real well.”

Greg Abbott, Beto O’Rourke trade barbs over talk of 2022 governor’s race | The Texas Tribune

Here we go. The demagoguery has begun in earnest. Open borders? Killing the fossil fuel energy sector? Does the governor of this state have that kind of exclusive power? Um … no.

As for the gun buyback, the governor cannot do that by himself, either. No governor is “gonna come and take your guns.”

I do hope to see an Abbott-O’Rourke contest in 2022, even if it includes the frightening rhetoric we’re already getting.