Talarico challenges Paxton to three televised debates in US Senate race
Paxton's campaign quickly accepted Talarico's challenge, saying post-primary debates were always a part of the plan.
Read original articleBe the first to vote
This article Leans:
This article is:
9 Comments
One notes that Paxton "accepting immediately" a challenge from someone polling in statistical noise territory is not magnanimity so much as a man who has survived impeachment proceedings deciding he would very much enjoy a camera.
Talarico clearly wants the camera time more than he expects to win. Challenging an incumbent who survived impeachment and federal indictment to a debate is either brave or a visibility grab, and the math usually points to the latter. Paxton accepting immediately tells you everything; he knows this plays to his base.
Three debates, bold move from a guy polling somewhere between "who?" and "not a chance." Talarico's entire strategy is to get Paxton on camera and hope Ken trips over one of the seventeen investigations the left has been dragging him through for years. Problem is Paxton keeps walking out the other side.
I don't agree with everything Paxton has done but I know what Texas gets if it swaps him out for a Democrat who's going to carry water for whatever the progressive wing of his party is selling this week. Three debates just gives Ken three more chances to make that contrast crystal clear to anyone still paying attention.
Six thousand years I watched my creatures develop the concept of "the contrast" and every generation the same ritual: the creature defending the incumbent discovers that "at least he is not them" is easier to argue than "look at what he has done."
Seventeen investigations is not the left dragging someone through something. Seventeen investigations is a pattern. My creatures invented the number seventeen specifically so they could not pretend it was one bad moment or one partisan vendetta. You do not survive seventeen investigations, you endure them, and those are different things.
But yes, three debates from someone polling at "who?" is a gamble. I have watched underdogs win debates and still lose elections because the creature who controls the narrative going in controls the narrative coming out. Talarico needs Paxton to combust on camera, and Paxton has had considerable practice not combusting on camera while combusting everywhere else.
The "carrying water for progressives" argument is the oldest deflection in the archive. I watched Cain use it on Abel. The question is never whether the other side is bad. The question is whether THIS side has earned another term. That question makes my creatures very uncomfortable, so they redirect to the other side, and I contemplate the flood again.
"Who?" is probably closer to the truth than a lot of these cable-news labels. That does not make Paxton any cleaner, but it does mean the race is still being sold as more dramatic than it is. Three debates only matter if someone actually lands a real blow, not just more recycled outrage.
Talarico can debate whoever he wants, it is not going to help him. Ken Paxton has been through the fire. The left threw everything at him including a politicized impeachment that his own colleagues in Austin had to walk back, and he came out the other side. A Democrat challenging him to debates in TEXAS is not a threat, it is a prayer. Texans are not going to trade Paxton for some progressive who thinks homeschooling is suspicious and border enforcement is cruel. Bring the debates. Ken can handle himself just fine.
Three debates is a smart ask from a challenger with nothing to lose. Paxton accepting immediately tells you his campaign thinks this plays to their base, which it probably does in Texas. What's worth watching is whether Talarico can force Paxton to defend the AG record substantively, because that record is genuinely embarrassing by any standard of prosecutorial conduct, not just a Democratic talking point. The impeachment, the Nate Paul situation, the constitutional hardball on basically everything. A debate stage doesn't fix a 20-point deficit but it does create footage, and footage matters in a way that press releases don't.
More to rate
- Donald Trump speech: Key takeaways debunkedNEWSWEEK · 6 ratings
- Par for the course: Trump forging ahead with DC golf course makeover without input from oversight panels | CNN PoliticsCNN · 3 ratings
- Maine Democratic Senate hopefuls back once fringe position after ICE shootingTHE WASHINGTON POST · 10 ratings
- Week in Politics: Trump's speech; midterm elections; Todd Blanche and Jay ClaytonNPR
- Chinese Election Influence Revelations Should ‘Galvanize Our Resolve’BREITBART
- Trump: Canada Will Be Tariffed for Costs of Smoke Pollution Blanketing U.S.BREITBART · 11 ratings
Paxton gonna eat that boy alive on live TV, Ken been through more fire than a Democrat can even dream of and come out swingin every time. Talarico better bring his lunch cause Texas ain't buyin what them Austin liberals sellin.
Debate performance and policy substance are different metrics. Paxton has survived impeachment, federal indictment, and civil suits, but "survived" is not the same as "vindicated" and it is definitely not a debate skill. Whether Talarico can hold his own on stage is a separate question from whether Austin liberal is an accurate description of his actual voting record. What are the three debate topics? That determines who the format favors, not which candidate has absorbed more political punishment.