{"id":39423,"date":"2019-10-23T21:56:58","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T21:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=39423"},"modified":"2019-10-23T21:56:58","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T21:56:58","slug":"just-wondering-was-bonnen-set-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=39423","title":{"rendered":"Just wondering: Was Bonnen set up?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I believe it is fair to wonder about a possible element in the shocking downfall of Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen.<\/p>\n

The lame-duck speaker and a right-wing zealot had this conversation in June in which the zealot, Michael Quinn Sullivan, received the names of 10 Republican legislators he could target in the 2020 legislative election.<\/p>\n

I do not know Bonnen or Sullivan. I have understood, though, that they are not considered political allies. Therefore, here’s my question:<\/p>\n

Did Sullivan, the head of Empower Texans, lure Bonnen into a trap that he sprung when he released the recording of the conversation the men had several months ago?<\/em> The recording went public, Bonnen’s words were revealed to stunned legislators, many of whom called for his resignation; Bonnen then decided he won’t seek re-election in 2020. He is done as speaker of the Texas House.<\/p>\n

How in the world did this meeting occur? What kind of politician — other than someone who adheres to the rigid ideology espoused by Empower Texans — make such an agreement?<\/p>\n

Bonnen’s decision to step away after the current term has brought some praise from media outlets and politicians who have talked of the speaker’s sense of principle.<\/p>\n

Was he snookered somehow by Sullivan? For that matter, why did Sullivan feel the need to record that conversation?<\/p>\n

My sense is that a bare-knuckled political operative records conversations surreptitiously for nefarious reasons.<\/p>\n

I watched Sullivan’s tactics unfold during a couple of Texas Senate campaigns in the Panhandle over two election cycles. He sought to topple state Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo. He failed both times by running the same TEA Party-favorite candidate — Mike Canon of Midland — against Seliger. He played rough. So did Canon. Seliger was able to use his considerable knowledge of legislative matters to maximum advantage.<\/p>\n

He won the GOP nomination in 2018, even though he also had to run against a third<\/em> archconservative, Amarillo businessman Victor Leal, in the primary.<\/p>\n

Seliger calls himself a conservative. He is proud of his conservative voting record and his conservative political views. He just isn’t conservative enough to suit Sullivan.<\/p>\n

I am wondering, therefore, if Dennis Bonnen falls into that category and that Sullivan wants a House speaker to emerge from the GOP ranks who follows the same extreme ideology as he does.<\/p>\n

As the late U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen once said, “Politics in Texas is a contact sport.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I believe it is fair to wonder about a possible element in the shocking downfall of Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen. The lame-duck speaker and a right-wing zealot had this conversation in June in which the zealot, Michael Quinn Sullivan, received the names of 10 Republican legislators he could target in the 2020 legislative election. … Continue reading Just wondering: Was Bonnen set up?<\/span> →<\/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":[18],"tags":[8265,1582,2646,3031],"class_list":["post-39423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news","tag-dennis-bonnen","tag-empower-texans","tag-kel-seliger","tag-michael-quinn-sullivan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39423","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=39423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39424,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39423\/revisions\/39424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}