{"id":2352,"date":"2013-07-07T20:14:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-07T20:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/07\/07\/political-alliance-proves-to-be-most-fragile\/"},"modified":"2013-07-07T20:14:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-07T20:14:11","slug":"political-alliance-proves-to-be-most-fragile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=2352","title":{"rendered":"Political alliance proves to be most fragile"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Political alliances have\u00a0produced among the most fragile bonds possible.<\/p>\n<p>Isn\u2019t that right, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and state Sen. Dan Patrick?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/07\/07\/in-lt-gov-race-from-rivals-to-allies-to-opponents\/\">http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/07\/07\/in-lt-gov-race-from-rivals-to-allies-to-opponents\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Dewhurst\u2019s performance as presiding officer of the Texas Senate has come under intense fire from within the body\u2019s Republican majority. Thus, one of those senators, Patrick, has decided to challenge Dewhurst\u2019s bid for re-election next year. Not only are these men both Republicans, they both hail from Houston, which suggests that their respective collection of supporters contains many of the same names and organizations.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t that long ago, as the Texas Tribune reports, that Dewhurst and Patrick were big-time pals. Patrick supported Dewhurst\u2019s futile bid to become U.S. senator, replacing fellow Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, who retired.<\/p>\n<p>Now it\u2019s Patrick declaring the need for \u201cauthentic conservative leadership\u201d in the Texas Senate, which he implies Dewhurst hasn\u2019t provided.<\/p>\n<p>Given the state of Dewhurst\u2019s political standing of late, I am unwilling to write off Patrick\u2019s challenge as some kind of quixotic endeavor. But he\u2019s got a crowded GOP primary field awaiting him. In addition to Dewhurst, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples are running for the Republican nomination to be lieutenant governor.<\/p>\n<p>It really stinks, at this moment, to be David Dewhurst.<\/p>\n<p>In a number of other states, one might think a crowded field in one party primary would divide allegiances to the point of damaging the nominee who emerges in his or her campaign in the fall against the nominee of the other party.<\/p>\n<p>But not in Texas. I\u2019m struck by the utter lack of any serious public discussion among Democrats about who they might nominate for this important government office.<\/p>\n<p>For now, the focus has turned on two former allies who I\u2019m guessing will become intense foes. When the dust settles after next spring\u2019s party primary, it\u2019ll be interesting to see if\u00a0Dewhurst and Patrick \u2013\u00a0along with Patterson and Staples\u00a0\u2013\u00a0can become\u00a0allies once again.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Political alliances have\u00a0produced among the most fragile bonds possible. Isn\u2019t that right, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and state Sen. Dan Patrick? http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/07\/07\/in-lt-gov-race-from-rivals-to-allies-to-opponents\/ Dewhurst\u2019s performance as presiding officer of the Texas Senate has come under intense fire from within the body\u2019s Republican majority. Thus, one of those senators, Patrick, has decided to challenge Dewhurst\u2019s bid for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=2352\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Political alliance proves to be most fragile<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}