Christopher Hooks
By Christopher Hooks:
On the Road With Beto: Is O’Rourke’s Personality-Driven Campaign Reaching the Right Voters?
Greg Abbott’s Weird Primary Gamble
The governor tried love and botched it, so now he’s trying the politics of fear.
Greg Abbott’s Weird Primary Gamble The governor tried love and botched it, so now he’s trying the politics of fear. Governor Greg Abbott was born in Wichita Falls, the grandson of a country preacher, but his own political origin story … Read More
How Democrats Can Fix the Broken Two-Party System in Texas
What works poorly in other states doesn't work here at all.
Here’s how a two-party system works, in theory: One party wins office on the strength of its plans to fix problems, and its elected officials then use the power of government to partially implement policies. Over time, they start to … Read More
One Last Kick in the Nuts: On Joe Straus’ Republican Censure
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up men to gather wood, divide work and to give orders,” said Amy Clark, vice chair of the Republican Party of Texas, at a meeting of party leadership on Saturday. “If … Read More
Four Things to Watch as Election 2018 Gets Underway in Texas
Above all, this is a time for nutty, weird politics.
We have extremely bad news for you: It’s election season again. It has been a year filled with too much Politics, but more is coming, and will keep coming, ad infinitum, until the sun swallows the earth. Monday was the … Read More
Imperfect Ten: Taking Stock of the Crowded Democratic Slate for Texas Governor
What is a Texas Democrat, and why do they matter? That’s no easy task, because most Texas Democrats couldn’t tell you.
For much of the year, Texas Democrats have fretted at the possibility that they might not have a gubernatorial candidate — now, they have too many. It’s a bizarre problem in a year of bizarre problems. In the language of … Read More
Civil Offenses: Those Calling for Political Civility Often Have the Least to Lose
The superficial critique of political dysfunction allows us to ignore its more substantive causes.
Everyone thinks there’s something amiss in the American political system falls into one of two camps — they either have a stylistic critique or a substantive one. Stylists think the way we do politics is corrupting things from the top … Read More
Hardly Anyone Showed up to a Brain-Melting Anti-LGBT Conference in Texas
The #Teens4Truth conference had few teens but numerous speakers explaining how equal rights for gay and transgender people could lead “to the death of Christianity.”
David Pickup, ex-gay psychotherapist, takes the stage at the Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary’s conference center in south Fort Worth. Pickup specializes in reparative therapy, the process by which people with deviant homosexual urges are rid of them. Run out of … Read More
Greg Abbott Declares War on Moderate Republicans
The Texas governor endorsed a primary opponent of Representative Sarah Davis, who is probably the GOP’s best chance to retain the district in upscale west Houston.
In the latest episode of Texas Politics, God’s dumbest reality show, Governor Greg Abbott celebrated the beginning of Republican primary season by going to war — against a popular incumbent lawmaker in his own party, in a district that Hillary … Read More
Burning Down the House: Joe Straus and the End of the Moderate Texas Republican
A tremendous amount now depends on whether a Straus-type successor can be elected speaker.
Joe Straus’ reputation is that of a boring and studious moderate, but that’s dead wrong. The speaker of the Texas House is a freak, a space oddity, an aberration of nature too weird to live and too rare to die. … Read More