This probably isn't a good idea.
Not in terms of my personal preferences, since I never voted for him to begin with.
But one of the contributing factors to how wacky and clown car-ish the 2014 GOP primaries in Texas were was the fact that Rick Perry stayed in office too long and created a pileup of lower officeholders who were fed up with waiting to move up to new positions.
If Abbott is going to stay, that leaves nowhere for Dan Patrick to go, and that could be problematic.
Out of interest, what are the problems caused by boxing Patrick into the Liuetenant Governor's office? Is it that it prevents other officials (George P. Bush etc) from moving up the totem pole?
Moving up the totem pole to what?
I think after the 2018 elections, the TX GOP is in this weird state where it's dominant enough to generally expect to win a given statewide office election, but not dominant enough that regularly contested primaries can become a thing the way they were for Texas Democrats prior to the 1960s.
Dan Patrick being boxed in to the lieutenant governorship is a problem because, for starters, he's terrible at the job. And I don't mean that from an ideological perspective. He's needlessly pissed off senators from his own party and started off the legislative session by picking a fight with the most senior Republican in the chamber. If the Republicans' majority in the state senate narrows after 2020, it leaves less room for his bull-in-a-china-shop approach to the job.
If Abbott doesn't retire, nobody can "move up" without primarying someone else.
I get that Patrick is a terrible LG, and that the office has outsized power in Texas. But given the state still has a strong R lean (don’t @ me people, we can talk once a dem candidate wins statewide), isn’t it better to keep him in that office, rather than risk Governor Patrick? If he stays in office, isn’t he likely to invite a primary challenge eventually?
The last time somebody launched a primary challenge against an incumbent Governor down here in 2010..... it backfired on that challenger.
Abbott looks like he's going to win 3rd term & he's super popular.
why did KBH lose again? Was it because she was moderately pro-choice?
