Greg Abbott - The Phantom Gubernatorial Candidate

(The cartoon image above is by John Branch in the San Antonio Express-News.)

In his past electoral ventures, Greg Abbott has depended on his fund-raising and the coattails of more popular Republican candidates -- and that has been good enough for him to be successful. But those days are over. He is running for governor this year, and that means his race is the one in the news. He must lead his party to victory and provide the coattails for others to use. Unfortunately for Abbott, it turns out he's not nearly as good at campaigning as he is at buying campaign ads.

His campaign for governor has not gotten off to a good start -- and he can't blame anyone but himself. The wounds are all self-inflicted. It started with a poor decision on his part to ask right-wing extremist pedophile Ted Nugent to join him on the campaign trail. He immediately regretted that decision as the bad publicity began to roll in, and quietly asked Nugent to make himself scarce.

Then he made an even worse decision -- one that could alienate a significant portion of the electorate. He came out against equal pay for women, and through a campaign spokesman, said he would veto any law passed guaranteeing equal pay for women once he was governor. And it turns out that he practices what he preaches, and really does believe women should be paid less than men. As the San Antonio Express-News discovered, during his term as attorney general he paid female attorneys less than he paid male attorneys FOR THE SAME WORK!

How can he defend that? His campaign issued a weak statement saying the male attorneys had been there longer (an argument that just doesn't hold water), but the candidate himself has just chosen to avoid the media. Here is how the Lone Star Project describes it:

• Greg Abbott has refused to meet with editorial boards both during and since the Texas primary.
   
• Abbott spent more than three weeks (March 6 – 29) without any public events.
   
  • During this period (March 9 – 24) he refused to personally answer any questions on equal pay – even questions regarding salaries within his own AG office.
     
• Abbott canceled an April 4th scheduled and publicized address to the Texas Renewal Project – an organization of Christian pastors.
   
• Abbott declined an April 5th opportunity to address the Texas AP Managing Editors Association in Padre Island.
   
• Abbott’s campaign scheduled an April 7th press conference and Abbott simply failed to appear, not even bothering to send the press a cancellation notice.

Is this how Abbott is going to run his campaign? Is he going to avoid the press as much as possible, and count on Texas being a red state and buying $20 million in television ads to put him over the top in November? I think it's a pretty safe bet that he won't dare to debate Wendy Davis. He's not about to put himself on the same stage with Wendy, and have the press ask tough questions -- after all, Abbott is no smarter than Rick Perry (whose presidential ambitions were ended when he blew a debate against some very mediocre competition in 2012).

It seems that the Republicans have nominated a phantom candidate for governor this year -- one who would rather hide than fight. But I don't really blame him. With the policies he supports, he should hide.

 (Cartoon image is by Bill Day at cagle.com.)