We’re less than 6 hours into the first day of early voting in Texas, and we’ve already documented evidence of first (electoral) blood between gubernatorial candidates Greg Abbott and Wendy Davis.
Behold:
These tweets source back to Abbott’s recent interview with the San Antonio Express-News editorial board, in which he brushed aside questions regarding a hypothetical (and highly unconstitutional) scenario regarding a ban on interracial marriage (click through to Salon if you hit a paywall):
In an interview with San Antonio Express-News editorial board, flagged by Talking Points Memo, Abbott, who is married to a Latina, objected to answering the “hypothetical” question.“Right now, if there was a ban on interracial marriage, that’s already been ruled unconstitutional,” he told the paper. “And all I can do is deal with the issues that are before me … The job of an attorney general is to represent and defend in court the laws of their client, which is the state Legislature, unless and until a court strikes it down.”Challenged on the vagueness of his answer, Abbott continued to evade the question.“Actually, the reason why you’re uncertain about it is because I didn’t answer the question. And I can’t go back and answer some hypothetical question like that,” Abbott said.
He didn’t “evade” their “gotcha” question; he stated that the ban would be unconstitutional and moved on.
But even if we allow ourselves to assume that there is indeed some sort of secret Greg Abbott Interracial Marriage Ban Conspiracy brewing at campaign headquarters, there’s still a bit of a problem with Davis’s allegations:
It’s no surprise that something like this would come seeping out of the campaign of a woman who used an ad placement to mock Greg Abbott’s disability, but given the fact that Cecilia Abbott is set to become the first Latina First Lady of Texas (a fact that the Abbott campaign hasn’t stopped plugging since March,) this is one gutter roll that will backfire spectacularly for the Davis campaign.
For what it’s worth, the Real Clear Politics Average has Abbott up by 12 points, which explains a lot about Davis’s eleventh hour strategy.
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