Hey Abbott!!

It's official.  Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is going to attempt the fill the vacuum left by Governor Rick Perry's Hair.  Not that I'm surprised by this announcement, nor is anyone else for that matter.  I just finished reading a commentary about Mr. Abbott in the Austin Chronicle by Richard Whittaker titled, "If You Liked Rick Perry, You'll Love Greg Abbott".  You should read it.  It's entertaining if anything.  

Mr. Whittaker has been writing for The Austin Chronicle since 2006 and has 3,483 articles there as of 4:15PM July 19th.  I couldn’t find a biography on Mr. Whittaker, but I would gather from his writing and the publication that he writes for that he is a Liberal Democrat with a highly secular viewpoint.  The article targets exactly this type of audience by using inflammatory wording such as "extremist", "fundamentalist", and "attack" in regards to AG Abbot's religious fervor while in office.  He doesn’t resort to outright name calling, but it is pretty close.

The goal in this commentary is obviously to paint Greg Abbott as a right-wing religious nut job who he thinks would be a horrible governor.  He does this by going through a list of hot topic issues that the AG has either lead or been a part of.  These topics are clearly picked for his target audience.  In fact, there doesn’t seem to be any topic in his list that would go over well with his readers.  This seems a little unfair to me, as I find it hard to believe that there is not at least one thing that Mr. Abbot has done that his readers would find ok.   But I guess if you’re trying to persuade people to not like someone, you don’t exactly talk about their good points.

Some of the main talking points in the commentary are Abbott’s propensity to sue the federal government, push to integrate religion into government, and his actions against gay rights and abortion.  He does a fairly good job at providing links to his claims, although the links are to other articles within the Austin Chronicle.  It would have been nice if there was at least one outside reference, but I understand trying to keep consumers on the site you work for.  This doesn’t nullify their validity though, as they are all claims that can easily be checked.

I personally agree with a lot of what Mr. Whittaker states, in that it would be nice to have what I believe to be a more level headed leader as governor.  Greg Abbott is way to far to the right for my taste.