One of these is right
Sometimes you can be surprised where you find good writing. Bill James is the preeminent baseball statistician from the last 50 years. However, what makes him unique is not necessarily how good his statistics are, but in how artfully he uses them to craft a narrative. I still remember his foreword in the first edition of the Fielding Bible.
He simply described watching video of Adam Everett and Derek Jeter play shortstop. He instinctively knew that he was watching the best and the worst defensive shortstops in the game. Without seeing the numbers he couldn’t tell you which one was which, but the eyeball test didn’t fail. They were polar opposites of each other.
The same thing is happening in Texas in the governor’s race. You can approach these things with snark, sarcasm, and all of the disdain you can muster. I imagine many people will. What I’m prepared to say beyond a shadow of a doubt is that one of these candidates is the kind of human being we should all aspire to be. The other is just not a very good person. I’m not sure of any other way to put it.
The juxtaposition can be seen most clearly in what is happening with a North Texas family. Greg Abbott has them under investigation because they have a transgender teen. Beto O’Rourke visited them on Mother’s Day and even cooked dinner for them.
To be perfectly fair, it is reasonable to ask whether O’Rourke would have visited them in a year when he wasn’t running for statewide office. I’m guessing he wouldn’t have. Would he have helped them cook dinner if the cameras weren’t there taking pictures? Again, I’m guessing the answer is no.
Then again, we could ask the same of Abbott. Would he be investigating a family for child abuse if this weren’t an election year? Would he threaten Texas families with charges and family separation if the movers and shakers in his party weren’t applying that pressure? My guess is also no.
So, here we are. We are left with the most vivid example of the difference between the two parties. One party wants to help make the world a better place and safer for all of its citizens. One party does not. One party wants to reach into homes and into people’s bodies to impose its will. One party does not. At this point it doesn’t make much sense to point out who is who and which is which. Everyone must answer that for themselves. What we can’t do is assert that they are all the same. Clearly they are not. One of these must win and one of these must be driven from polite society. I’ll leave the which is which up to you.
“Inasmuch as you have done this to the least of these my children you have done it to me.”
1The mainstream press, local and national, must daily highlight the clear differences between the parties and candidates, not normalize coverage as a “horse race” where X is ahead. Which candidate supports democracy is the question.
For an example of the difference in the parties, in PA the press is now barred from live-covering the major R candidates for Senate. Even TFG let the press in, though putting them in a separate “cage” in the area.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1526298815044718592
2Beto O’Rourke stepped up to call people to see if they needed help during the “Big Freeze” here while Ted Cruz jetted off to Cancun. So, yeah, I could see him doing this even if he wasn’t running for governor.
3I agree with TexasTrailerParkTrash, Beto O’Rourke would have gladly helped cook dinner for this family even if he wasn’t in an election year. That’s who he is. On the other hand, abbutt is a prick and always running to be the biggest (small) prick. He wants to be a prick president like TFFG.
4The big difference I’ve seen is that Abbott is controlled by his donors to do what they want while he tries to say what he thinks voters want to hear. Beto seems to just try to do what’s right in each situation, you know, treating people how he would want to be treated.
5This article below fits with the birthday cake segment below but I’m guessing, abbutt is a follower as well (along with so many loudmouth R politicians- disciples of tucker carlson).
https://apple.news/Aj_-TPwUYRTqKMsOfTcM9xQ
6One candidate offers a chicken in every pot, without exception, even cook it for a constituent on occasion.
The other guy says he’ll take a chicken out of the pots he doesn’t like. He doesn’t have to give his voters the chicken, he only has to promise he’ll take one away from someone else.
7Tangental subject:Vindication – today Lawrence ODonnel pins the starter of our political demise straight onto rupert murdoch which is what I have been shouting out here on a number of occasions over the years. Of all the bad actors since nixon he is the leader and what made it suck was that he skated on any reckoning while others took the fall.
8At times it felt like I must be nuts since there was no discernible response.
https://crooksandliars.com/2022/05/lawrence-odonnel-rupert-murdoch-has-blood
“I’m not sure of any other way to put it.”
Slightly off-topic, but good grief, Nick. You’re a Texas boy, so surely you’ve got lots of other ways, and some of them are actually acceptable in print. E.g, for Abbot
He’s as crooked as the Brazos.
He’s got a big hole in his screen door.
He’s so mean he’d steal a fly from a blind spider.
He’s steal the nickels off a dead man’s eyes.
He’s so low you couldn’t put a rug under him.
He’s a real revolving son of a bitch.
I’d like to buy him for what he’s worth and sell him for what he thinks he’ll bring.
He ain’t fit to shoot at when you want to unload and clean your gun.
He’s as useful as an eyeless needle, or hip pockets on a hog.
He could give splinters to a brain surgeon.
and my great-grandfather’s all time favorite: If I ordered a whole trainload of sons of bitches and they only sent him, I’d accept it as a full shipment.
As for Beto
He’s so honest you could shoot craps with him over the phone.
He’s as fine as dollar cotton.
As long as he’s got a biscuit, you got half.
Yeah, I remember far more Texas-isms that are insults than are compliments. But I’m sure the other denizens can come up with others.
9Touché’ Surly. You got me there. My mother has a hundred of them but I was really trying to be magnanimous.
10Surly, I’m stealing those.
11Thanks to my cotton-pickin’ Mama:
“Useless as tits on a boar hog”. Seems to describe most R’s.
12WA Skeptic: thank you! For all of my long life I thought only my father used that phrase. Now that I know it’s a Standard Saying (TM) I can use it freely. Although not when teaching undergrads. Or in faculty meetings. Or around my wife. Come to think of it, maybe I can’t use it so freely after all.
For uselessness, we also have “Republicans are as useful as Anne Frank’s drum set”. Back to Abbot:
So crooked he has to unscrew his britches at night.
So crooked that if he swallowed a nail he’d spit up a corkscrew.
He’s yellow as mustard but without the bite.
He’s so low he’d steal the widow’s ax.
He wouldn’t scratch his own mama’s fleas.
Two more for Beto, and I promise not to hijack the thread anymore:
If he says a hen dips snuff, you can look under her wing for the can.
13There’s no slack in his rope.
WA Skeptic – the correct response to that is “they break up the blankness of the manly chest”. Which I always thought was quite funny as a response.
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