{"id":49696,"date":"2021-11-17T22:10:45","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T22:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=49696"},"modified":"2021-11-17T22:10:45","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T22:10:45","slug":"beto-vs-abbott-shaping-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=49696","title":{"rendered":"Beto vs. Abbott shaping up"},"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><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/OIP.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-49697\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/OIP-300x201.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/OIP-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/OIP.jpg 474w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Oh, my &#8230; forgive me for referring to former West Texas congressman Beto O&#8217;Rourke by just his first name in this headline, which in reality is a nickname. It just sounds cool.<\/p>\n<p>Still, he and the man he hopes to defeat in 2022 are serious men. My hope is that O&#8217;Rourke and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott don&#8217;t tack too far to the left or right as they seek to curry favor with most Texas voters.<\/p>\n<p>I have declared myself to be a &#8220;good government progressive,&#8221; which I intend to mean that I am not opposed to compromise if it produces sound legislation and law.<\/p>\n<p>Abbott has veered to the far right since the start of the 2021 Legislature. I dislike his right-wing views. O&#8217;Rourke has appealed to the far left since losing a U.S. Senate race by just a little in 2018 and then flamed out in a 2020 bid for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. To be candid, I am not comfortable with the progressives&#8217; agenda.<\/p>\n<p>I am not sure that most Texans are comfortable with far left or far right politics. There is out here, in the words of the late Colin Powell, a &#8220;vast middle ground.&#8221; I hope O&#8217;Rourke and Abbott find themselves arguing for that middle-of-the-road avenue.<\/p>\n<p>As the Dallas Morning News noted in its editorial today, the state will be better off for it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"mailto:johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com\">johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/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>Oh, my &#8230; forgive me for referring to former West Texas congressman Beto O&#8217;Rourke by just his first name in this headline, which in reality is a nickname. It just sounds cool. Still, he and the man he hopes to defeat in 2022 are serious men. My hope is that O&#8217;Rourke and Texas Gov. Greg &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=49696\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Beto vs. Abbott shaping up<\/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":[18],"tags":[7043,2006],"class_list":["post-49696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news","tag-beto-orourke","tag-greg-abbott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49696","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=49696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49698,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49696\/revisions\/49698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}