Chad’s Morning Brief: Greg Abbott and Wendy Davis Battle It Out and Other Top Stories
Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of August 11, 2014. Give me your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11am. Remember, you can listen online at KFYO.com or on your iPhone/Android with the radioPup App.
Abbott Speaks at RedState Gathering
At RedState Gathering in Ft. Worth over the weekend, Greg Abbott spoke to the audience about Obama's "ideological twin"... Wendy Davis. According to the Texas Tribune, Abbott expressed confidence in his campaign. Which he should.
Dismissing his opponent as “Barack Obama’s ideological twin,” Attorney General Greg Abbott on Saturday expressed confidence that he will trounce Democrat Wendy Davis in the gubernatorial election in November.
“My opponent’s vision is toxic to the free enterprise principles that have elevated Texas to the very economic pinnacle of this country,” Abbott said at the RedState Gathering, a national conference hosted by the conservative blog. “Well I have news for the Obama Democrats: Texans value life, we trust God, we disdain taxes, and Texans know that the Second Amendment and the Tenth Amendment are not suggestions, they are guaranteed rights.”
In a lengthy takedown of Davis, Abbott brought up her filibuster of a bill to increase restrictions on abortion clinics that drew her national attention.
“She stood 13 hours to advocate for abortion even after five months of pregnancy,” Abbott said. “Then of all things, she went out and said she was pro-life because she wanted every child to have a chance at life. But she forgot that for a child to have a chance in life, that child first must have a chance at life.”
Looks like the Governor's race is back in the headlines and it could stay there for a while. Read the entire story by clicking on the link above.
Wendy Davis Targets Abbott in New Ad
Wendy Davis is bringing up an old rape case as a shot towards Greg Abbott. As the Houston Chronicle points out, the ad is a risky move by the Davis campaign.
Twenty-four years later, another woman has raised the issue of rape - in this instance an actual incident - into her campaign to be the state's first Democratic governor since Richards. While political strategists and experts praised the boldness of state Sen. Wendy Davis's new ad accusing Attorney General Greg Abbott of "siding with a corporation over a rape victim," some said it carries the chance of a backlash that could doom the long-shot campaign.
"Absolutely, it is a risk," said Allan Saxe, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Arlington.
The risk may be especially high after the Davis campaign acknowledged Friday it had not spoken with the victim before releasing the ad Thursday night.
Davis spokesman Zac Petkanas said the victim spoke out about her case at the time and he thinks a Democratic organization warned her earlier this year it may be brought up in the governor's race.
Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson said not consulting the woman "sounds like political malpractice."
"If that's right, the campaign is at moral and political fault," Jillson said.
The Houston Chronicle was unable to reach the woman Friday.
Throughout the day, the ad generated a variety of reactions amid a flurry of media coverage, including some criticism from unexpected corners. One progressive journalist who personally supports Davis wrote on Twitter that the ad "rubs me the wrong way." The executive director of a rape-crisis clinic told the Chronicle that the commercial may trigger traumatic memories among victims.
The 60-second ad criticizes Abbott's 1998 dissenting opinion as a Texas Supreme Court justice in a case involving a rape victim suing a vacuum company.
The Seguin victim, who said she was raped by a vacuum salesman she had let into her home for a demonstration as her children slept in another room, sued manufacturer The Kirby Co. after learning the man - a contractor for an independent local distributor - had a conviction the company did not know about because it had not conducted a background check.
Abbott, who served on the court between 1995 and 2001 before becoming attorney general in 2002, wroteKirby "owed no duty" to the woman because the company did not have control over the distributor's salesman selection.
Two other justices agreed, but six disagreed, and the woman won a $160,000 verdict.
'Gutter politics'
The ad, Davis' first of the general election, plays ominous music and shows grainy video of a man entering and leaving a home. It is scheduled to run in "multiple media markets," according to the campaign.
Abbott's camp on Thursday night called the commercial "despicable" and an example of "gutter politics."
On Friday, Abbott's campaign defended the attorney general's record of protecting women, touting a fugitive unit tasked with arrested sex offenders who violate their probation or parole, leading to more than 4,500 arrests.
The ad is notable, in part, because of the prominent role gender has played in the campaign thus far. Davis, who burst onto the national scene last summer with an unsuccessful filibuster against a restrictive new abortion law, is basing much of her campaign around appealing to women.
Several political consultants in Texas and around the country said the ad probably will help Davis solidify support among Democratic women and pick up a few independents.
"I have to say, I thought the ad was pretty effective," said Fred Davis, a GOP ad-maker who worked on Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. "The way it was written was really well-done to make Greg Abbott look like he's the only person in the world that voted in favor of, you know, the bad guys in your story, and then everybody else sided with the woman."
Glenn Smith, who served as a consultant for the Richards campaign, said it reminds him of her 1990 ad and predicted Davis' would be "very effective."
Other consultants said they were surprised by the ad's aggressive approach to a sensitive topic, as well as the fact it was used as an opening salvo in the air war. Traditionally, campaigns hold their fire until later in the fall, when more voters are paying attention.
Trash politics from Wendy Davis. You can read the entire story by clicking on the link above.
Other Top Stories:
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