A technique often used in engineering problems is to use what's called Risk Weighted Analysis. It's where, instead of deciding all at once what to do, you look at various aspects of the problem, assign probabilities to different scenarios, and then see what the overall risk weighted outcomes are.
For Texas governor, the knock on Abbott seems to be that he did too much lockdown stuff in the early days of the Wuhan virus, and that various other candidates claim they would have done it differently. But you only have their promise, after the fact, that they would have resisted all the Wuhan panic and kept everything open and running at 100%.
Being generous to them, it's a 50% - 50% chance they would. Lots of elected officials claim one thing, get into office, then act completely different.
So, using this, electing someone besides Abbott gives you a 50% chance of them being better.
But - there's also a general election to deal with. Abbott in the general election would have about a 90-95% chance of winning, against the most likely opponent of Beta Male. Abbots won the governors race twice before, last time by 13%. He can't at this point be typecast as a "meanie who hates!!!', which is the Democrat - Media's favorite line about Republicans. His wife is Hispanic so he gets good support from that group for a Republican.
Now Beta Male failed in his last race for statewide office, in 2018. He had huge funding, was constantly pumped up by the media as a fresh young leader, and was running against a very conservative Cruz, who could be typecast as a meanie, and thus didn't get a lot of support from the afternoon wino book club crowd. And all this is a good year for Democrats nationwide. He still lost by 3%.
Abbott vs. Beta Male in 22, with Slow Joe the drooling President having about a 30% approval rate, won't be close. Unless something unusual happens like some hitherto unknow scandal popping up about Abbott, expect another 60/40 blow out like in 14 against the Abortion Barbie Wendy Davis.
But for West/Huffines/Prather, it's much less. Again, call it 50/50. 2022 will be a good year for the GOP, but any of those candidates are going to have a much harder race than Abbott would. Plenty of opportunity for unknown scandals, real or media created, to pop up. And, it wouldn't be surprising for the establishment wing of the GOP to do their usual thing when their candidate doesn't win the primary, and take their ball and go home crying, and not support the GOP nominee.
So, you have a 50% chance that West/Huffines/Prather wins the general election, and then a 50% chance that they would do better than Abbott. That's a 25% chance overall.
And, you now have a 50% chance that instead of them, or the decent but not great Abbott is governor, you have Beta Male as governor, and the endless celebratory stories of "Texas turns Blue!!!". If that communist was governor now, you'd still have the state as locked down as he could possibly have it.
Here's what a vote for West/Huffines/Prather means:
25% chance you'll have a more conservative governor that Abbott
25% chance you'll have the same type of governor as Abbott
50% chance you'll have a communist swine as governor. And don't count on the Texas Legislature as a backstop - in the event of a Beta Male win as governor, the momentum of him winning could bring in more Democrats into the Legislature. The Texas Senate is 18-13 R, so a swap of 3 seats, and it's a Democrat run Senate.
Any of West/Huffines/Prather are going to have a hard race in the general election - and if you vote for them in the primary, are you going to do your part to help them in the general? Donate to their campaigns, make phone calls, knock on doors, hold signs at intersections - the hard work of getting someone elected, not marking a ballot and then doing nothing else. Going with West/Huffines/Prather is a bold move for the general election, and if you are not prepared to put in the work to keep Beta Male out of the office, then don't vote for them.
Abbott doesn't do much for me, and I certainly would not vote for him in a presidential primary. If Milk Carton Cornyn finally disappears in 2026 and doesn't run for re-election, I'd look for about any other viable candidate for that seat. But he's been an OK governor, and is such a slam dunk for the governor's race in 22 I'm voting for him, hoping he doesn't have a runoff to deal with, and will enjoy the easy win against Beta Male, while I donate and volunteer for other races.
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