Posts Tagged ‘Operation Lone Star’

Texas Governor’s Race Update For February 23, 2022

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2022

When I surveyed readers about what they wanted to see covered, several voiced support for more state political news. And early voting ends Friday. So here’s a long-in-gestation post on the state of the Governor’s Race.

The problem is that, while I’d love to see a competitive Republican primary, I’m not sure there is one.

Despite Allen West claiming he’s in the lead (don’t buy it) and Don Huffines dropping a significant amount of direct mailers, this is not only Greg Abbott’s race to lose, at this point I doubt he’s even going to be drawn into a runoff.

Before we get to the details, let’s deal with the incredulity outside the state that Abbott is even in any sort of race at all. He’s a conservative Republican incumbent, isn’t he?

Incumbent? Yes. Republican? Yes. Conservative? By the standards of Democrat-run states, unquestionably. I’m sure the Republican residents of California, Michigan, New York and Washington would love to trade their Democratic governors for Abbott. But among conservative activists, there is a simmering resentment that Abbott hasn’t been nearly as conservative on a number of topics as he could be, that he’s “left money on the table” and talks a much better game than he’s actually accomplished.

But let’s start with the things Abbott has gotten right. Under Abbott, Texas has generally controlled spending, and the low tax and low regulation environment has seen the Texas economy recovery quickly from the Flu Manchu lockdown recession. So too has Texas continued to lure big companies and projects from other states to Texas, from Apple to Samsung to Tesla.

So too, Abbott has been on the right side of just about social issue. He’s been consistently pro-Second Amendment. Texas’ innovative abortion law was hailed by pro-life groups across the country. Abbott has talked a good game on the Biden Administration’s inability to secure the border, and got funding for border wall construction passed.

But a lot of conservative activists have accused Abbott of being all hat and no cattle. For example:

  • Take Abbott’s much-vaunted Operation Lone Star, an effort by the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard to secure the Texas border with Mexico. Sounds like a good idea, right? Well, the implementation leaves much to be desired:

    “It was common knowledge inside the command group that [Operation Lone Star] is just a political stunt,” retired Command Sergeant Major Jason Featherston, who served as Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Texas Army National Guard, told Chronicles. “Do I think we should have soldiers on the border? Absolutely. But what’s gone wrong with this is that it was hastily done and poorly planned.”

    Featherston was present at the birth of Operation Lone Star and retired from his career while overseeing the Texas Military Department’s largest branch (the Army National Guard), with 19,000 people under him. Featherston said that while he cares little for politics, his “number one priority in all of this is making sure soldiers get paid on time and get the equipment they need and that they and their families are treated the way they need to be treated.” A lot of that isn’t happening or has been fraught with setbacks.

    The border guards lack of basic equipment, and many troops don’t even have access to portable bathrooms, Featherston said.

    There are also continued reports of persistent paycheck problems, and reports of lawyers for detainees gaming the system in hope of overstressing it.

  • There is also the huge issue of the 2021 ice storm power outage. Obviously Greg Abbott doesn’t control the weather, but he does control appointments to ERCOT, and touted trendy renewable energy that proved inadequate for preserving baseline power needs during the emergency. All that said, the grid held up just fine during the most recent (far less severe) cold snap, which may eliminate the last hope of Abbott’s primary opponents (and Beto O’Rourke) to lay a glove on him.
  • While Abbott lifted Texas lockdown restrictions earlier than many states, he did issue a slew of constitutionally questionable mandates during the early states of the coronavirus pandemic, including lockdowns and mask mandates. He was also notably slower than governors like Ron DeSantis at lifting restrictions.
  • Abbott has frequently been criticized both for being more reactive on culture war issues like Critical Race Theory and transsexual genital mutilation procedures on children, and that he has relied on executive orders rather than pushing for special session bills to pass laws to rectify the problem.
  • Abbott has also been dinged for raising money in California, something Ted Cruz (rightly) dinged both David Dewhurst and Beto O’Rourke over.
  • There’s a lot of truth to some of these charges, but I also don’t think any of them will actually derail Battleship Abbott. With his huge name recognition, money advantage and polling currently showing him at 60%, I expect Abbott to win to the primary and slaughter O’Rourke in the general.

    Here are the requisite links to candidate sites:

  • Greg Abbott (Twitter)
  • Don Huffines (Twitter)
  • Ricky Lynn Perry, AKA “not that Rick Perry.” I cannot find either website or Twitter feed for this guy, so that link goes to a Texas Tribune article on him. Here’s his iVoter profile. He’s not a serious candidate, and I only mention him here so nobody gets fooled by seeing “Rick Perry” on the ballot.
  • Chad Prather (Twitter)
  • Allen West (Twitter)
  • I’m ignoring Paul Belew, Danny Harrison and Kandy Kaye Horn as I see no signs any are running viable campaigns.
  • And here are some links on the race:

  • The Back Mic provides a lot of coverage of various Texas races, including governor.
  • iVoterGuide, featuring lots of Texas races, including questionnaire responses from the candidates themselves.
  • Here’s the Texas Scorecard tracker for the race. They’ve been pretty critical of Abbott for the last year or two.
  • Here’s that poll West cites with him in the lead, but I’m not sold on the methodology, and the crosstabs are scanty.
  • Abbott is blowing away his primary foes in the money race.

    Unsurprisingly, Abbott’s war chest tops the charts, with $62.6 million cash on hand, having raised nearly $1.5 million in the first 20 days of January. Abbott has also spent more than $4.5 million in the same period as he campaigns around the state, releasing mailers and radio and TV advertisements.

    Solidly in second, Huffines raised more than $1.1 million in the same timespan, bringing his total cash on hand to $2.3 million. Huffines’ expenditures show more than $2.7 million spent as he crisscrosses the state campaigning to Texans.

    Meanwhile, West raised $331,000 and maintains about $83,000 cash on hand as of January 20. West spent more than $230,000 in 20 days on campaigning and advertising as he traverses the state to speak with Texans.

    The Texas Ethics Commission is not showing Prather’s January 31 report, only his previous report accounting for July-December 2021. During that time, the report shows Prather raised more than $100,000 and had around $20,000 cash on hand.

    That little money for Allen West doesn’t show a candidate that’s ahead.

  • Abbott did get Ted Cruz’s endorsement.
  • Here’s an article on an Abbott keynote address and a separate candidate forum with his challengers. Abbott is pursuing the time-honored strategy of well-known, well-funded incumbents ignoring primary opponents. (Hat tip: Push Junction.)
  • Texas ranks fifth among states that reopened quickly after Flu Manchu lockdowns under Abbott, behind Iowa, Florida, Wyoming and South Dakota.
  • Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller complains that he’s never able to meet with Abbott.

    I’ve tried numerous times to get a meeting with the governor,” said Miller. “In the seven years that we’ve both been in our offices, I’ve never got a meeting with the governor, never got a phone call returned, never got an email or letter returned.”

    Miller continued to express his frustration in Abbott’s lack of communication and explained just how difficult it is to get in contact with the governor.

    “Well, it’s kind of like working with sasquatch,” said Miller. “Everybody knows he’s real and some people have seen him, but I’ve never seen him. I can’t get a meeting with him.”

  • I’ve gotten several direct mailers from Huffines, including one in which he states his opposition to Critical Race Theory and LGBT ideology. I’ve gotten none from Abbott (though he has sent me a zillion fundraising emails) or West (and a lesser number of fundraiser emails).
  • 52 County Sheriffs endorsed Abbott:

  • Don Huffines endorsements. Heavy on conservative activists, light on any actual office-holders.
  • Though Huffines did pick up an endorsement from Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.
  • Allen West’s endorsements are even slimmer. The biggest name there is Ted Nugent.
  • FYI, when I looked at Abbott’s endorsements page, it appeared to be broken.