{"id":51162,"date":"2022-04-11T00:00:04","date_gmt":"2022-04-11T00:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=51162"},"modified":"2022-04-11T00:00:04","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T00:00:04","slug":"beto-has-a-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=51162","title":{"rendered":"Beto has a shot?"},"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\/10\/Abbott-Gov-Presser-EG-TT-04.webp\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-49440\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Abbott-Gov-Presser-EG-TT-04-300x201.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Abbott-Gov-Presser-EG-TT-04-300x201.webp 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Abbott-Gov-Presser-EG-TT-04-1024x686.webp 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Abbott-Gov-Presser-EG-TT-04-768x515.webp 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Abbott-Gov-Presser-EG-TT-04.webp 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You know, there once was a time &#8212; not many weeks ago &#8212; that I considered Greg Abbott a shoo-in for re-election as Texas governor.<\/p>\n<p>That Robert Francis &#8220;Beto&#8221; O&#8217;Rourke didn&#8217;t have a Democrat&#8217;s chance in blazing hell of defeating the Republican incumbent.<\/p>\n<p>Today? I am not so sure about that gloomy forecast.<\/p>\n<p>Am I going to predict a Beto O&#8217;Rourke victory this November, breaking the GOP vise-grip on statewide elected office, ending the Republican dynasty at the top of the Texas political food chain?<\/p>\n<p><em>Not &#8230; on &#8230; your &#8230; life!<\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_39627\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-39627\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/beto-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-39627\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/beto-1-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/beto-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/beto-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/beto-1-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/beto-1.jpg 1160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-39627\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Photo by Scott Olson\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>However, I am going to suggest that the Abbott-O&#8217;Rourke contest well might become one of those races that the national media will be watching with intense interest.<\/p>\n<p>This won&#8217;t surprise any readers of this blog, but my fervent hope is that O&#8217;Rourke defeats Abbott. The governor has become show horse, a guy who wants to elevate his personal political profile with an eye toward seeking the White House in 2024. Abbott&#8217;s idiotic pledge to send &#8220;illegal immigrants&#8221; to Washington, D.C., to hand the problem to the feds is an example of a politician looking to make headlines without offering the hint of a solution.<\/p>\n<p>He doesn&#8217;t have a solution. Abbott has no interest in working with Democrats or seeking cooperation from President Biden.<\/p>\n<p>I have no clue about how O&#8217;Rourke might handle this matter were he elected governor. I feel confident, though, in suggesting that O&#8217;Rourke, who hails from El Paso, knows plenty about border issues and he <em>does not favor an &#8220;open border&#8221; policy.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Nor do I believe that O&#8217;Rourke is going to single-handedly disarm Texans by stripping us of our firearms. He knows better than to mess with the Constitution! That won&#8217;t stop Abbott and his cabal of demagogues from portraying O&#8217;Rourke as a soft-on-crime liberal.<\/p>\n<p>I want this race to remain competitive. I want O&#8217;Rourke to make Abbott answer for the way the state handled the 2021 winter freeze. I want O&#8217;Rourke to offer a reasonable alternative to the Abbott posturing in the face of crisis after crisis.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s more, I want O&#8217;Rourke to tell Texans how he plans to govern and how he intends to end the state&#8217;s war against its gay residents, how he intends to make voting easier, not harder, for Texas.<\/p>\n<p>And I want Beto O&#8217;Rourke to remain firm against the attacks that are sure to come from Greg Abbott.<\/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>You know, there once was a time &#8212; not many weeks ago &#8212; that I considered Greg Abbott a shoo-in for re-election as Texas governor. That Robert Francis &#8220;Beto&#8221; O&#8217;Rourke didn&#8217;t have a Democrat&#8217;s chance in blazing hell of defeating the Republican incumbent. Today? I am not so sure about that gloomy forecast. Am I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=51162\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Beto has a shot?<\/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":[7043,1343,1941,2006,4627],"class_list":["post-51162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news","tag-beto-orourke","tag-democrats","tag-gop","tag-greg-abbott","tag-texas-governor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51162","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=51162"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51164,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51162\/revisions\/51164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}