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Ep. 36 (Video): Texas Republicans Ranked From Least to Most Corrupt and Radical
23 Plays1 day ago
The primaries are over. The runoffs are done. What Texas Republicans just sent to the general election ballot may be the most corrupt and radical slate this state has ever seen. This week, Kate and Alex rank all eight GOP statewide nominees — scored on corruption and radicalism — and break down what Democrats need to know before November.
Plus: Alex is back from a week off with a new look and good news to share.
We discuss:
- The Paxton-Cornyn runoff is a postmortem on the Texas GOP establishment. Paxton won by nearly 30 points. Cook Political Report has shifted the Senate race to "Lean Republican" — real signal for the fall.
- The rankings, from least to most corrupt and radical:
#8 Nate Sheets (Agriculture Commissioner)
#7 Dawn Buckingham (Land Commissioner)
#6 Mayes Middleton (AG nominee)
#5 Greg Abbott (Governor)
#4 Bo French (Railroad Commissioner nominee)
#3 Don Huffines (Comptroller nominee)
#2 Dan Patrick (Lieutenant Governor)
#1 Ken Paxton (U.S. Senate nominee)
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Transcript
Texas Republican Election Overview
00:00:01
Kate Rumsey
Welcome back to Mission Texas. The primaries are over. The runoffs are done, thank God. What Texas Republicans just sent to the general election ballot may be the most corrupt and most radical state slate this state has ever seen. and today we're talking about them. We're gonna rank them from least to most corrupt and radical and recap everything else you need to know before November.
Alex's Return and Missed Opportunities
00:00:24
Kate Rumsey
Welcome back to the podcast, Alex. How was your week off? First of all, welcome back.
00:00:31
Alexander Clark
Yeah, I know. It's crazy that we're at this point in the podcast where you know a statewide candidate, someone who I would have loved to talk to, say Senator Eckhart, was was with you. And i just couldn't make it. i just i was i was else elsewhere I was otherwise engaged.
00:00:48
Alexander Clark
That's what I'm trying to say.
00:00:48
Kate Rumsey
Otherwise engaged, yeah.
00:00:49
Alexander Clark
Yes.
00:00:49
Kate Rumsey
And you changed your look. You've done a Clark Kent here. Yeah.
00:00:53
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:00:54
Kate Rumsey
All
00:00:55
Alexander Clark
For those of you who don't know, you're watching this maybe for the first time, I usually have a giant white beard that makes me look about 20 years older than I actually am.
00:01:07
Kate Rumsey
speaking
Runoff Recap and Republican Party Shift
00:01:07
Kate Rumsey
of older looking people, we before we dive into our rankings, I wanted to chit chat with you a little bit about what happened in the runoff since then. And we saw Cornyn versus Paxton. now normally we don't talk a ton about the Republicans, but now that we're out of the runoffs, we are now in the season of convincing voters not to vote for Republicans. So I thought, why not? Let's just start it off. And what did we see? What were your thoughts on Paxton's pretty big win and also Trump's endorsement? Like, did you think that he won because of the endorsement or was there something else going on?
00:01:41
Alexander Clark
Well, no, I think Paxton was going to win. either way. And i have receipts I'm sure I could pull from my Robin Hood account that proves that I believed that before the Trump endorsement.
00:01:53
Alexander Clark
I made some money.
00:01:53
Kate Rumsey
You put some money into it.
00:01:55
Alexander Clark
i made some money on the on the contracts there.
00:01:55
Kate Rumsey
Oh, okay.
00:01:58
Alexander Clark
No, I mean, i it doesn't take a political scientist to see the writing on the wall that the Today's Republican Party has moved on from the old guard. the The George W. Bush, Karl Rove, John Cornyn Republican Party is dead.
00:02:17
Alexander Clark
And if there is any question about it, The runoff on May 26 answered it. I mean, it's the final nail in the coffin there. And it's really a shame too, for if you're a supporter or at least have sympathy for John Cornyn, because he did everything under the sun to try to get that Trump endorsement. and And if he had gotten it, I don't know that he would have won, but it would have been a lot closer than the blowout that we saw.
Trump's Influence and Paxton's Victory
00:02:44
Alexander Clark
I mean, he he he's just every moment you saw him, he's like, I vote with him. Ninety nine percent of the time I am reading the art of the deal in a social media post.
00:02:51
Kate Rumsey
Mm-hmm.
00:02:55
Alexander Clark
Mr. Trump, would you like a highway named after you? I know my entire career I've been against getting rid of the filibuster, but if you want it, sir, now that Ken Paxton's brought it up, happy to nuke it.
00:02:58
Kate Rumsey
Right.
00:03:05
Alexander Clark
No problem.
00:03:06
Kate Rumsey
Yep.
00:03:06
Alexander Clark
Like he just, whatever spine he had before, I mean, the guy used to be a serious person.
00:03:13
Kate Rumsey
Mm-hmm.
00:03:14
Alexander Clark
He was the attorney general. He was on the Texas Supreme Court.
00:03:17
Kate Rumsey
Supreme Court.
00:03:17
Alexander Clark
he this is He's been in the Senate for four terms, which, you know, basic civics, right? Senate terms are six years. So he's been in the Senate for, he'll be 24 years in the Senate.
00:03:30
Alexander Clark
And then you have all that other time as a statewide candidate and elected official before that. So it's just, it's really kind of incredible to see how the Republican party is a lot less about stature and substance than it is just like absolute loyalty Donald Trump and vibes.
00:03:50
Kate Rumsey
Mm hmm. Well, even, yeah, vibes, consolidation of power, even Ezra Klein was saying with The New York Times that it seems less that Trump wants to win this midterm and more so that he wants to consolidate power and people loyal to him. and I think some folks are feeling that Ken Paxton, he got the endorsement not because he had did something to deserve it necessarily, but maybe because Trump saw that he was going to win And Trump wants to pick the winners or be perceived as picking the winners. And so he got that endorsement in the middle of early vote. So he didn't even do it before the early vote happened.
00:04:27
Kate Rumsey
and And what i think is interesting about this race is that Cook, they are the ones that
00:04:27
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:04:33
Kate Rumsey
objectively try to rank the states as far as how they lean. And they went from strong Republican to likely Republican to now, with Paxton's win, lean Republican. And so if you think of our state as a very solidly red state, then this should give us all hope that we are not and we have a real chance to win come the fall. So I thought that was really
Republican Voter Indifference to Corruption
00:04:54
Kate Rumsey
interesting. And I guess this was a quote from Cook's Paxton is a litany of ethical lapses for Democrats to exploit, which we'll talk about in the rankings from allegations of robbery misuse of his office to marital infidelity, which led his wife to divorce him on biblical grounds.
00:05:08
Kate Rumsey
His divorce trial coming up actually in Collin County. It
00:05:11
Alexander Clark
Breaking news just got canceled. just got canceled
00:05:14
Kate Rumsey
it got canceled.
00:05:14
Alexander Clark
Boo. I was looking forward to getting my popcorn out
00:05:15
Kate Rumsey
What? I know i was going to head up to Collin County.
00:05:18
Alexander Clark
No, I mean, i wouldn't actually have gone out of my way to watch that.
00:05:20
Kate Rumsey
Wow.
00:05:22
Alexander Clark
But, you know, it would have made for interesting political news and fodder.
00:05:28
Kate Rumsey
Yeah, you wonder, okay, well, I'm gonna have to look up why that was canceled. But I just think it's interesting how they have changed this race and what that means. But do you think that people are really moved?
00:05:39
Kate Rumsey
Does this runoff and what happened in the primary show that the base of Republicans don't really care about corruption or radicalism? What do you think they care about? Like, what do you think they're, it does it is it just loyalty to Trump? Is it carrying the flag of MAGA?
00:05:55
Kate Rumsey
So I'm curious what that means from this race. And we also saw a very low turnout of voters. And what does that mean for us as we get into the fall election about how many Republicans are going to stay out of the race? How many of them are just not going to turn out to vote? And does that help us?
00:06:12
Alexander Clark
Yeah, I mean, gosh, the turnout is always a problem when you're getting to a runoff. It's really a shame that we have runoffs in the first place. So we really ought to have like a a ranked choice voting situation so that you can have an instant runoff. You don't have to worry wonder what everybody's second choice would have been. You would just know.
00:06:29
Alexander Clark
You could just tabulate it like that. That would have a more accurate representation of people's preferences. Yeah. it's really a shame, he's stepping back even further, I mean, i i would have supported James Tallarico in the primary regardless. But even then on the Democratic side where we have this tremendous turnout, the idea that the only the people who showed up to vote in either of the two primaries are the ones picking who will ultimately be chosen in November.
00:06:59
Alexander Clark
That's a huge winnowing process that as a percentage of the overall population is not actually all that big. And so when you get down to a runoff like this, this, this Republican runoff, I mean, it's, it's just a vanishingly small number of people as a percentage of the overall electorate who are, who are making this decision. And so these are the hardest of the core Republican activists.
00:07:22
Alexander Clark
And yeah, I mean, to answer your question about, do they care about corruption? I mean, Who's the most popular Republican in the party right now?
00:07:29
Kate Rumsey
No. Yeah.
00:07:32
Alexander Clark
Donald Trump. I mean, corruption is not the test for today's party. Obviously, there are Republicans out there who care about it. They're just in the minority.
00:07:42
Kate Rumsey
Right.
00:07:43
Alexander Clark
they They aren't they aren't the the ruling faction at all. I think that if you were holding on hope that Cornyn was going to be able to to show that that stuff still mattered in the Republican Party,
00:07:56
Alexander Clark
You got your answer.
Cornyn's Loss and Changing GOP Base
00:07:57
Alexander Clark
I mean, what he lost by like 28, maybe 30 points by the by the time this is all said and done. That's a blowout.
00:08:02
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Well, they were also saying that Cornyn lost in areas that he was leading in, and the the general primary. and just And he lost so big in like Denton County here in Dallas.
00:08:16
Kate Rumsey
These were big strongholds for him. And so was telling that in this runoff where you have a concentration of very base core voters, they overwhelmingly voted for a man that we will see on our ranking scale, whether he's the most corrupt person in our state right now that's on our ballot.
00:08:30
Alexander Clark
He's got some serious competition. I'll i'll say that.
00:08:31
Kate Rumsey
Yeah, man.
Ranking Republican Candidates by Corruption and Radicalism
00:08:33
Kate Rumsey
Let's get into that. Okay. So we got eight people on our list and I'm just going to list them out before we get into the ranking. But at the top, we'll go from top to bottom of who's on the list.
00:08:42
Kate Rumsey
We've got Ken Paxton on the ballot.
00:08:42
Alexander Clark
From the ballot? Yeah. Okay.
00:08:44
Kate Rumsey
So i'm going to, and before we rank them, we got Ken Paxton, who's obviously our nominee for U.S. Senate. We have Greg Abbott as governor. Dan Patrick as lieutenant governor. Under him, attorney general is Megha Mays Middleton. And then you have Don Huffines running for comptroller, which hopefully you have already listened to our Sarah Eckhart episode. So we talk a lot about him.
00:09:06
Kate Rumsey
Then we have Beau French, our railroad commissioner. And then we have Don Buckingham, land commissioner, the only female on this slate, by the way. And Nate Sheets, our agriculture commissioner, which we will get into. we We talked to Clayton Tucker a while back about that race. So curious his thoughts. Okay, so right out of the gate, we have two areas in which to rate these people. So we have corruption, so from a one to 10 point score, and radicalism, also 10 points for a total of 20. So I think each of these people, we can rank them very differently on corruption and radicalism. And I'm wondering your thoughts. I used Claude to help me come up with this just to see its thoughts.
00:09:48
Kate Rumsey
And so I'm wondering, Alex, who do you think on this list is the least corrupt and least radical?
00:09:56
Alexander Clark
So I think basically because of how little I know about him, I have to agree with Claude's analysis that coming in at the bottom overall score, and honestly, on probably in each individual category, least corrupt, least radical of the statewide candidates is probably Nate Sheets. But I'd be really curious about whether Clayton Tucker agrees with that.
00:10:27
Alexander Clark
I think we're the biggest problem with this analysis is just he's so unknown, right?
00:10:33
Kate Rumsey
yeah.
00:10:33
Alexander Clark
He's he's a first time candidate. He's got no political record. He's the CEO of a big company. and so, you know, how much of this race genuinely was about the old guard caring about substance and avoiding scandals?
00:10:52
Alexander Clark
because Sid Miller, the outgoing attorney, uh, agriculture commissioner was full of that. Just should not have been there in the first place. Full of scandals was constantly doing things he shouldn't.
00:11:03
Alexander Clark
It's so rare that, I mean, Greg Abbott, the, uh, also very serious person, or at least used to be kind of guy got involved and endorsed someone challenging the incumbent. He endorsed Nate Sheets and put a lot of money behind him.
00:11:17
Alexander Clark
So.
00:11:18
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:11:19
Alexander Clark
I think there may actually be a little bit of that going on.
00:11:23
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:11:23
Alexander Clark
And similar to John Cornyn, someone who very very oddly had a similar kind of trajectory was the attorney general and was on the Texas Supreme Court before that.
00:11:35
Kate Rumsey
Right. Well, yeah, i think what you're saying is right. So Claude and I rated neat sheets as corrupt on out of one out of 10 points, radical four out 10. And really the radicalism comes from just a conservative orthodoxy that he is part of the old guard. He's kind of an establishment pick and maybe he's less corrupt than his predecessor, Sid Miller, who we talked about with Clayton Tucker a lot about how he had a lot of internal conflicts, so much so that Abbott said, please don't vote for him. And we'd rather have somebody else.
00:12:09
Kate Rumsey
But I think it's interesting compare Nate Sheets to a Clayton Tucker Nate Sheets, apparently former CEO of a national company. he is probably a lot wealthier than Clayton, who Clayton is running on more of a populism, like going after data centers, protecting water, monopoly of our crops and all those sort of things.
00:12:35
Kate Rumsey
So it's interesting to juxtapose those two people. it does appear like
00:12:39
Alexander Clark
It's more of like a familiar frame from like the olden days, like big business versus the working man.
00:12:44
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That's number eight, Nate Sheets. Okay. Agriculture commissioner again, Clayton Tucker, you tell us if we're wrong. Number seven, we ranked again as someone who doesn't, we don't know a ton about, and the only female on this race or slate is Dawn Buckingham running for land commissioner. She is the incumbent for land commissioner, ran unopposed in the primary. So she has no other primary opponent that ran to her right.
00:13:13
Kate Rumsey
So we don't know much about her other than she is already currently in that office and she was a physician on the scale of one to 10. She got a two out of 10 out of corrupt because we don't really have, she has a pretty clean profile from what we can gather, but y'all tell us if she's wrong, but she radicalism, she got one more point because she carries a bit more of a conservative ranking in a history of votes, voting pretty.
00:13:35
Alexander Clark
Yeah, because she was in the state Senate and she has this yeah this this lifetime rating of like what, 96%.
00:13:39
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:13:40
Alexander Clark
Yeah,
00:13:41
Kate Rumsey
With conservatives, yeah. And, you know, Claude said, the most boring Republican on the ballot. Not a compliment, but not an indictment either. So she got...
00:13:50
Alexander Clark
yeah I think that's right. I mean, it's like you're number seven mostly because of the six people are going to come after you. I mean,
00:13:57
Kate Rumsey
Yes! I mean, look at the other six. Holy smokes.
00:14:02
Alexander Clark
it's pretty dramatic.
00:14:02
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:03
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:14:03
Kate Rumsey
And I just want to reflect that these are all Caucasian males, and this is the only woman on the ballot, or at least statewide. And so if there was a category for questionable experience for office, I would put her on this because I'm not, other than being the incumbent, I'm not sure what her experience in land commissioning is. But I guess we're trying to talk to Benjamin Flores, who's the Democratic nominee on the other side about this race. So stay tuned.
00:14:32
Alexander Clark
know' get here
00:14:32
Kate Rumsey
All right, number six.
00:14:33
Kate Rumsey
Okay,
Mays Middleton's Rise and MAGA Alignment
00:14:34
Kate Rumsey
number six. So I'm just going to recap the people that are left. I mean, we've got Dan Patrick, Ken Paxton, Greg Abbott, Dunn Huffines, Beau French, and Maga Mays Middleton. Who do you think should be next on this list, regardless of what Claude said?
00:14:52
Alexander Clark
See, I think I might disagree with this next placement. I think that Mays Middleton is, I mean, I guess they are they are ranked as equally radical.
00:15:07
Alexander Clark
But I actually think he might be more radical than Greg Abbott.
00:15:13
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:15:13
Alexander Clark
And the reason why I think that is because for me, Mays Milton is a true believer.
00:15:21
Alexander Clark
Like for me, when I think of Greg Abbott, I think deep down in his heart of hearts, this isn't who he is. He's just putting on an act. He might actually be as corrupt as he's marked on our sheet, but.
00:15:21
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:15:36
Kate Rumsey
yeah
00:15:36
Alexander Clark
I think his radicalism is is mostly performance. like He knows that that's what the today's modern Republican Party requires of him, and he doesn't want to end up in the same situation John Cornyn just found himself in.
00:15:50
Alexander Clark
And so he's never been willing to buck party, buck orthodoxy, but out of like obligation. Mays Middleton does it because that's that what is in his head. That's what is in his heart of hearts. So I would give him an edge, even if we're just going to give him like a 0.5 a bump up a point or something like that.
00:16:09
Alexander Clark
i would I would let Mays take it on the radical front.
00:16:13
Kate Rumsey
Hmm. So I think we're alluding to the fact that Claude has ranked Mays Middleton next as number six on corruption, five out of 10 radicalism, seven out 10. And you're thinking that he should switch with Greg Abbott.
00:16:25
Kate Rumsey
And i I don't know. this is the the reason that Claude has given and how I researched it. So Mays Middleton, he calls himself MAGA Mays Middleton. He's a self-funded Galveston oil and gas heir who spent $14 million dollars of his own fortune to what we like to say purchase the AG nomination, having used his wealth for years to fund his State House Freedom Caucus so he's currently in the state Senate correct and he built political alliances across the state so we went from the House to the Senate right and so he campaigned on being Maga Mays branding and so the argument is that he's more closely aligned with President Trump and as more radical as you're saying but he went up against Chip Roy and the AG's race which I think is interesting because you'd think of Chip Roy is also somebody who's pretty radical But Chip Roy at least went up against Ken Paxton when he was in the AG's office and has had a long-term, like, not great relationship with Ken Paxton. So I think that's why he got a pretty great endorsement or support from that.
00:17:24
Alexander Clark
Well, and Trip Roy would also piss off the Trump administration from time to time.
00:17:24
Kate Rumsey
So,
00:17:28
Kate Rumsey
right, he would go up against them, yeah.
00:17:29
Alexander Clark
You know, for having the audacity for having an opinion that wasn't tied to who who said it.
00:17:36
Kate Rumsey
Right.
00:17:37
Alexander Clark
What I think is interesting about this primary is not the runoff so much as what happened before, which whittled it down to Mays and Chip Roy, is that Aaron writes, and I think the other candidate too, were both Paxton deputies. I mean,
00:17:52
Alexander Clark
Aaron Wrights was like his right hand man for PACs and then went on to be Ted Cruz's chief of staff and then was in the the Trump DOJ. And like he had all like the right Trump bona fides.
00:18:04
Alexander Clark
So I think that is kind of an interesting kind of wrinkle in the, you know, whoever is closest to Trump wins.
00:18:15
Alexander Clark
It's not that simple. Especially when you've like a significant turnout. But again, when you move from the primary to the runoff and you have such a drop off in the number of people show off that's when it really matters.
00:18:21
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:18:29
Kate Rumsey
Right. Well, I think we can't forget that Maga Mays Middleton also co-authored the bathroom bill. So the trans bill ran ads bragging about being protested at the Capitol as the bathroom bigot.
Texas Attorney General's Role and Abbott's Strategies
00:18:41
Kate Rumsey
And i think as the attorney general, he's got the least amount of attorney experience is what I'm hearing. So Nathan Johnson's really running on that already saying like, I'm, we need, we deserve a good lawyer as the attorney general, who's very much independent from attorneys the the governor and any other office within our state government. It takes me back to my fifth grade Texas government history days where we are reminded why the office of governor is much weaker than others and and especially is weaker than the executive of our federal government. And we, the governor has no power over really the attorney general or any, some of these other offices. And so you're very independent and you've seen what Ken Paxton has done. so
00:19:26
Kate Rumsey
But you're right, like he beat his other opponents in the primary, including Ken Paxton deputies. so you wonder, is he more radical than them? And should he be outweighing Greg Abbott on the scale?
00:19:37
Kate Rumsey
I don't know. So, OK, then that gets us to time will tell.
00:19:38
Alexander Clark
time Time will tell.
00:19:41
Kate Rumsey
We'll see how bad he hopefully he will not win the AG's office and it will be Nathan Johnson instead.
00:19:46
Alexander Clark
Let me just put it this way, at least like rhetorically, like Nathan Johnson's already pointed this out too. Like he has said that the number one job of the attorney general, if he's elected is to defeat the left, whatever whatever that means.
00:19:58
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Own the libs. Yeah.
00:20:00
Alexander Clark
own yeah Own the libs is not like a strategy for running the the state's largest law firm, right?
00:20:01
Kate Rumsey
let's
00:20:08
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Yeah. You have to help protect the border. You have to work with other law enforcement agencies. You're also running the child support division. So you're running a lot. You've one of the largest employees, consumer protection, yeah fraud, waste, and abuse.
00:20:18
Alexander Clark
consumer protection, like there's very real just like public service. Yeah.
00:20:24
Kate Rumsey
I worked with them on Medicaid fraud. So you deal with that. And that's one of the biggest fraud sources in our country. So they have a big job to do. and the fact that he's wanting to use it not to help with saving money or protecting children or a border, but just to own the libs.
00:20:41
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:20:42
Kate Rumsey
Okay, so number five, we've got Greg Abbott, which we all alerted to. So you tell us at missiontexaspodcasts at gmail.com. Do you agree with this? So the next in this line of rankings is Greg Abbott, our current governor seeking his fourth term. He got a seven out of 10 corrupt, seven out of 10 radical with a total of 14 points.
00:21:03
Alexander Clark
for the For the casual political like observer, and the idea that there are four people ahead of Greg Abbott seems like a lot, but it I think it's absolutely right in this case, and we'll talk more about it in a little bit, but let's talk about why Greg Abbott did not make it up any further.
00:21:10
Kate Rumsey
Yeah, insane. Yeah.
00:21:20
Kate Rumsey
Yeah, I think it's to your point that he is not maybe the he does seem like a Trump lackey, but it also doesn't seem like he is doing this the overtly corrupt things that Paxton and Patrick have done.
00:21:35
Kate Rumsey
he entered and he also will just say going up against Gina Hinojosa, has one hundred and six million dollars in campaign cash. which apparently he uses to reward allies and run attack ads against Republican rivals he dislikes. You have to be reminded that in the anniversary of Uvalde, he praised law enforcement at a press conference before later admitting that he was misled.
00:21:55
Kate Rumsey
This was all while he was at fundraiser the night before the shooting. And then the Texas Supreme Court ruled he does not have to release the years of Uvalde in January 6th emails, which was of the shooting.
00:22:04
Alexander Clark
not not Not before the shooting, the very night of the shooting. like The shooting happened, and then he was at a fundraiser that same day.
00:22:07
Kate Rumsey
Apologies. Yeah. Yeah, my apologies. I got that wrong. And so he, with Watt Dogs, calling his claim of no NRA communications after Uvalde not credible.
00:22:12
Alexander Clark
No problem.
00:22:18
Kate Rumsey
So there has to have been communications, especially when we're talking about gun safety. And we should be reminded that in the legislature that we had session afterwards, they were trying to raise the age of the assault rifle purchases, and that did not get passed.
00:22:34
Kate Rumsey
If you look at his radicalism, i mean, this is where I think that he might not score as high as the others, but he did declare CARE as a terrorist organization, mandated the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom, and called for a state takeover of school boards and the Harris County elections.
00:22:51
Kate Rumsey
So I think as to your point, he's more of an opportunist than a true believer.
00:22:55
Alexander Clark
Yeah, but I mean, even with that said, I mean, in any other state, he's in the top slot or he's in the top three. But like the fact that there are four people above him just speaks to how nutty we're about to get.
00:23:07
Alexander Clark
But I would i would also just add, elaborate on like instead of just like
00:23:08
Kate Rumsey
Right.
00:23:13
Alexander Clark
Rewarding allies and attacking people he doesn't like which is true like there are like real serious consequences to whether you get on Board with the governor's agenda like one of the the key examples of that I think is the school voucher bill like Rural Republicans and Democrats for decades have joined forces to stop the school voucher bill until
00:23:38
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:23:39
Alexander Clark
multi-term governor started using his massive war chest to punish specific legislators who wouldn't go his way.
00:23:49
Alexander Clark
And so he's like, you're either going to vote with me or I'll get someone who will.
00:23:54
Kate Rumsey
Right. Which is what happened. And I think you saw that with the Speaker of the House race. And then also now Dustin Burroughs. Some people are saying that he shouldn't win the Speaker again. So we'll see what happens in the next ledge.
00:24:08
Kate Rumsey
And also, yeah, and just redistricting the voucher being funded by the West Texas billionaires. so I think that schools, there's going to be a big play here with Gina versus him.
00:24:19
Kate Rumsey
And though she may not have the biggest war chest, if any, please go donate to her Please support her at on all costs. But i think that's going to be a big piece of all of this. I don't think think he's underestimated how big of a deal that is.
Top Radical and Corrupt Candidates Explored
00:24:31
Kate Rumsey
All right.
00:24:31
Alexander Clark
Didn't Gina's political career start on like the the school board, her local school board?
00:24:36
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:24:37
Alexander Clark
It's incredible.
00:24:37
Kate Rumsey
I mean, I think that's why in one of our episodes we talked about how she was one of the biggest champions of public schools. She's very anti charter schools, which we see as a kind of a drain in our school system.
00:24:52
Kate Rumsey
All right, top four out of eight. Let's remind ourselves we've got Ken Paxton, Dan Patrick, Don Huffines, and Beau French. So what what say you, Alex?
00:25:02
Kate Rumsey
Who...
00:25:02
Alexander Clark
this this one is interesting to me as well i think i could go the other way on the radical score but i understand kind of like the maga maze and greg abbott like really what's getting their ranking switched is the corruption score.
00:25:21
Alexander Clark
i I, could see Beau French as being the most radical out of all of them. So a 10 out of 10 or an 11 out of 10.
00:25:31
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:33
Alexander Clark
And I think people really don't understand like how, I mean, we're tired of hearing the word unprecedented, like how just,
00:25:42
Kate Rumsey
yeah
00:25:43
Alexander Clark
incredibly out of the mainstream Beau French is as an individual, even for other people who are ranked higher than him on this list. Dan Patrick asked him to step aside from his role as the chair of the Tarrant County Republican Party because he was so extreme.
00:26:02
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:26:02
Alexander Clark
Dan Patrick, who is himself very extreme,
00:26:06
Kate Rumsey
Very extreme. Yeah.
00:26:09
Alexander Clark
well I mean, should we we rally off the the greatest hits there?
00:26:10
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:26:12
Alexander Clark
Like people need to know this man might be a statewide elected official.
00:26:15
Kate Rumsey
Yeah, let's go. yeah go for it.
00:26:19
Alexander Clark
I mean, the biggest one that jumps out to me is is just like so.
00:26:20
Kate Rumsey
I think you're alluding that Beau French is now like next on our list.
00:26:24
Alexander Clark
Yeah, just so stark is, it yeah, Beau French. Let's talk about Beau. Say no to Beau, everybody. That's why we as a podcast held a fundraiser for our our nominee, John Rosenthal. I mean, we saw the writing on the wall. We knew it was going to be Beau French.
00:26:38
Alexander Clark
Because again, that's just the direction the Republican Party has moved. But I mean, the the most stark example, the one that got Dan Patrick to ask him to step aside was him going on social media and having a public poll asking whether Jews or Muslims were the greater threat to America.
00:26:57
Kate Rumsey
Insane. Yeah.
00:26:58
Alexander Clark
with In all seriousness, he just, that's the poll.
00:27:03
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. I mean, he's been very anti-Sharia law. He, what else did he say? like Let's deport a hundred million people. Okay. Uh, how do you do that?
00:27:12
Alexander Clark
including Native Americans.
00:27:13
Kate Rumsey
Uh, I know where are you going to send native Americans?
00:27:14
Alexander Clark
Walk me through how the word deportation and Native Americans fits in the same sentence.
00:27:16
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:27:20
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:27:22
Alexander Clark
How does that work?
00:27:23
Kate Rumsey
Yeah, he's fighting. So he's Beau French running for railroad commissioner. He got, I think this is, he's now on this list according to this research because he has leased corruption of the the remaining four, which says a lot, but he has a nine out of 10, maybe 10 out of 10 on radicalism. I mean, I went back and forth with Claude on this one and he's fighting DEI, Sharia law.
00:27:45
Kate Rumsey
When this is a, the railroad commissioner's job is to regulate the Texas oil and gas infrastructure. I think he gets more points for corruption, and maybe he should have more on this list because he's backed by PAC that is funded by billionaire Tim Dunn, whose company was simultaneously suing the Railroad Commission over environmental rulemaking, meaning...
00:28:06
Kate Rumsey
Beau French, his biggest donor, had a direct financial interest and who ran the agency. French is about to join, though he hasn't done anything with the office yet. So maybe he will have a bigger corruption score if he wins, which hopefully he will not.
00:28:17
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:28:20
Alexander Clark
He hasn't had the opportunity to earn more corruption points because he's not to no no offense anybody who is a chair of a state or county party, but he's only been the chair of a county party so far.
00:28:26
Kate Rumsey
Hasn't been in office.
00:28:32
Alexander Clark
He hasn't helped well wielded any elected office yet.
00:28:32
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:28:37
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Yeah. He was the chair of the Tarrant County GOP, which is a office in itself that has got a lot of pretty bad people, including, remember, the the current Tarrant County judge who we've talked a lot about, O'Hare came from that chair position as well.
00:28:51
Alexander Clark
Tim O'Hare, yeah.
00:28:55
Kate Rumsey
So...
00:28:56
Alexander Clark
There's a pipeline there.
00:28:56
Kate Rumsey
So I don't know. He a pipeline of radicals and corruption coming from that area. more reason to support Allison Campolo in as the Tarrant County Democratic chair and all the efforts that they're doing in that area.
00:29:10
Kate Rumsey
So I don't know. this is This is hard because people were, I think you hear a lot of the mainstream Republicans coming out against him. And I wonder if it's because he it was they were able to do so. And he doesn't wield as much power as the other people on this list because they either were Ken Paxton or some of the other folks, you know, maybe richer, have more backed people with money. but I don't know.
00:29:37
Kate Rumsey
So now we got the top three. This this is getting hard. OK. On who's more corrupt, who's more radical. Dan Patrick, Ken Paxton or Don Huffines.
00:29:48
Kate Rumsey
Don Huffines running for comptroller, who I think a lot of us in the North Texas area are familiar with. And so, Alex, make the case. What should we know about him and why is he next on our list?
00:30:00
Alexander Clark
Well, yeah, well, I would just start by saying the reason why those of us in the North Texas area are familiar with Donahoff Vines or have heard the name is because he was a state senator up here until 2018, which is a very happy and joyous year for those of us on the Mission Texas podcast.
00:30:10
Kate Rumsey
Right.
00:30:17
Alexander Clark
Our very own nominee for Attorney General Nathan Johnson was the one to unseat him, flipped that district. And so Donahoff Vines, what can you say about this guy?
00:30:28
Alexander Clark
Well, Let's first just get it out of the way. I mean, isn't it kind of weird that he has one of Epstein's ranches?
00:30:38
Kate Rumsey
Yes, I think that's the biggest one.
00:30:40
Alexander Clark
and So weird.
00:30:41
Kate Rumsey
he owns the ranch in New Mexico, the site of alleged child sex crimes. He bought it through an LLC. He created the LLC a month before the purchase to probably hide the fact that he owns it. So that in itself shows you some level of corruption. his wife is listed as the trustee. His son is the manager of that LLC. We, there's investigations into whether there's, and I don't want to talk about it on the podcast, but just there's evidence of the criminal acts on that property.
00:31:15
Kate Rumsey
And so you wonder why does somebody buy that ranch? I mean, this is a multimillionaire real estate developer who challenged Abbott from the right in 2022. on immigration, property taxes. so I think he gets higher of a score on radicalism than Abbott because of that.
00:31:30
Kate Rumsey
And he won the comptroller race with Trump's endorsement over Abbott's chosen candidate. And so you have somebody who might control our state budget running to the right of Abbott, owns the Epstein, one of the Amstead ranches.
00:31:47
Kate Rumsey
I think we can safely say that he's in the Epstein class of people.
00:31:50
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:31:51
Kate Rumsey
And what was his response to talk about the Epstein w ranch?
00:31:53
Alexander Clark
What? Yeah. So I think that's, this is my favorite part is, and it's a callback to one of our former episodes with, uh, Olivia, uh, and, her, her history with Matt Gates, right? So, uh, Don Huffines goes on OAN, one American news.
00:32:10
Alexander Clark
Uh, Matt Gates is one of these talking heads there at this point, because he's not attorney general, like Trump hoped he would be.
00:32:13
Kate Rumsey
He has no other job.
00:32:17
Alexander Clark
the two of them, They announced plans for a Christian retreat at the Epstein Ranch.
00:32:22
Kate Rumsey
Mm
00:32:24
Alexander Clark
He said, this is obviously a dark place, but we're going to put light in a dark place.
00:32:27
Kate Rumsey
hmm.
00:32:30
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:32:32
Alexander Clark
Okay.
00:32:33
Kate Rumsey
That's where I want to go pray. It's where Epstein committed to his sex crimes. That's yeah, that's really.
00:32:37
Alexander Clark
Yeah, I mean.
00:32:40
Alexander Clark
Next time you're in Waco, we'll all go pray at the, the what's that cult that the house burned down or whatever.
00:32:47
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:32:48
Alexander Clark
you
00:32:48
Kate Rumsey
Davidian, the branch Davidians. Yeah.
00:32:50
Alexander Clark
Yeah,
00:32:50
Kate Rumsey
Let's go do that. i I really feel close to God in those places. So
00:32:54
Alexander Clark
We'll have a worship service at the 9-11 ground that.
00:32:58
Kate Rumsey
yeah, I don't know. it's I mean, so you have a man who runs to the right of Abbott. He owns the Epstein ranch. He's wealthy. Yeah. There's a lot to unpack there. So he's running for comptroller. He would try to be in charge of our state's budget, which to be,
00:33:15
Kate Rumsey
To remind us, if you've listened to the Sarah Eckhart episode is largely we talked about our state's education funding and how little of it we have at the moment. And he's saying things like he wants to doge. The entire state government, he wants to, in the first place he said he wanted to doge was our education funding. I mean, can you believe that? Like, we already are one of the least funded.
00:33:40
Kate Rumsey
have the voucher program, and you want to take more money out of this place. That's insane. I don't know.
00:33:46
Alexander Clark
Yeah, I mean, the the Texas state budget is already very lean.
Dan Patrick's Influence and Radical Agenda
00:33:50
Alexander Clark
And like you mentioned, especially when it comes to education funding, we're so far behind, you know, comparable states or really any state. We're in the, I think we're in the bottom 10.
00:34:01
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:34:01
Alexander Clark
So, yeah, we just got to cut more. Everyone needs to be as conservative as me.
00:34:04
Kate Rumsey
Cut more.
00:34:05
Alexander Clark
We just got to cut it to the bone, you know.
00:34:08
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. A question also whether Doge in our federal government was so good and led by another very wealthy person who is out of touch with reality. So and then also just not reading the room of how important our school boards are and how we need people who aren't going to just close schools and because of funding and low enrollment and the voucher scheme.
00:34:30
Kate Rumsey
So. right, Alex, what do we think of our list so far? I mean.
00:34:35
Alexander Clark
God, exhausting just to climb up this tower of radicalism and corruption.
00:34:41
Kate Rumsey
yeah
00:34:42
Alexander Clark
And we're not even to the top yet.
00:34:42
Kate Rumsey
So, yeah.
00:34:43
Alexander Clark
we got two more.
00:34:45
Kate Rumsey
Well, so Don Huffine's got eight out of 10 on corrupt, nine out of 10 out of radical. i think that's largely different by the Epstein ranch and all the things that he's trying to do with the government.
00:34:55
Kate Rumsey
So now we got Dan Patrick and then we've got Ken Paxton. So Claude, just to I think we all know who's number one. i mean, it's Ken Paxton. Right. So we'll talk about Dan Patrick first. But I think it's interesting that we ranked Dan Patrick nine out of 10 on corrupt nine out of 10 on radical and Ken Paxton got a perfect score. He got 10 out of 10 on both. We'll talk about that. But what are your thoughts on Dan Patrick and some of his greatest hits? Yeah.
00:35:23
Alexander Clark
Well, first I would just say, like Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton are birds of the same feather. And the reason why, and we've talked about this on our former episodes is that, you know, when Ken Paxton was impeached by his own party and Dan Patrick was responsible for presiding over the Senate during that trial, you know,
00:35:47
Alexander Clark
I don't think it's all that coincidental that when Dan Patrick gets a $3 million dollars check from the Paxton people, suddenly the trial starts looking a lot better for Ken Paxton.
00:35:59
Alexander Clark
And so if you think Ken Paxton's corrupt, I mean, Dan Patrick is his number one enabler at this point because he could have been removed from office.
00:35:59
Kate Rumsey
Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:36:08
Alexander Clark
But yeah, I mean, Dan Patrick has got a rap sheet of his own. He's got a very interesting background. And Patrick has been running the Texas Senate with an iron fist, right? Like as as the lieutenant governor, if you don't know, you are basically the president of the Senate.
00:36:27
Alexander Clark
You get to set the agenda. So if you don't want there to even be a vote on something, if you don't put it on the agenda, it's not happening. And that is a very powerful power. He knows how to wield it.
00:36:41
Alexander Clark
So, I mean, i already mentioned the the trial, $3 million. dollars it was a million dollar contribution and a $2 million dollars loan from the Defend Texas Liberty PAC. And again, that was a Paxton group.
00:36:54
Alexander Clark
It was the group that was campaigning against Paxton's removal. And again, you know, money talks.
00:37:02
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Well, it seems like you had all that evidence that everyone saw. He's sitting there watching it himself. And instead of saying, yeah, vote your conscience and get this person out of this office, he said, ya sure, I'll take three million dollars and then we'll make this impeachment go away, which is all over the news. Everyone saw it. The House. I mean, he had such an outright like House Republicans voted in favor of impeachment and he did it to what?
00:37:27
Kate Rumsey
Save himself and to continue to have power. as lieutenant governor. and I think that speaks volumes. But I think it's interesting to rank Dan Patrick versus Don Huffines. And I think it's whether you it's and also if you're looking back on Beau French, it's like he's actually used his office.
00:37:42
Kate Rumsey
I mean, he is in the position and used it while he's sitting there with the gavel in the Senate chamber to better himself and also the attorney current attorney general.
00:37:43
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:37:52
Kate Rumsey
So I think that that is what weighs and tips the scales here.
00:37:53
Alexander Clark
Yeah. And it's an interesting one too, right? Because he's not just corrupt. He is genuinely radical as well because some of the stuff, it doesn't even make a clear case for why it benefits him other than he just deeply believes. He has these really hardcore, inflexible beliefs that he is going to mandate and push down on everybody else.
00:38:17
Alexander Clark
Like, for example, medical marijuana of any kind. I mean, I know in the veteran community, having access to different treatments is is a very popular thing. And and and in in fact, if you look at polling in the state in general, both Republicans and Democrats are ready to move on stuff like that. I think every state that borders us has some sort of policy that's more...
00:38:40
Alexander Clark
open than ours you know oklahoma is not a liberal state neither is louisiana right like but they both have some form of marijuana that can be accessible to people meanwhile patrick's trying to like you know lock down snacks and and uh drinks that have thc in them and stuff
00:38:48
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:38:58
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:02
Alexander Clark
stuff like that casino style gambling he's got like this moral opposition to it that's like I guess from this deeply religious place and he's not gonna he doesn't really care whether there's a majority of support within the the Texas Senate or not he's like if I don't want it it's not happening
00:39:19
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Yeah, I think his legacy of radicalism predates him with running the Senate, as you said, because he he is known that if you go up against him, he will punish you. That is his his style of leadership. And maybe by us even saying this, he'll try to punish us one day. But this is that's his style of leadership. And I think that shows how radical he is, especially if you compare it to the person who Dustin Burroughs, who was running the House as the speaker and somebody who ran trying to have support from Democrats and Republicans. So it's a very interesting person on this list. And i think if you think of who's got more relative power in the government versus Greg Abbott, you know, he might be wielding that power in a way to benefit people within the party as well as himself and to push his agenda. So, and you also see some disagreement between him and Greg Abbott. You see that with real estate, like our property taxes and other issues. So they seem to be not in line with,
00:40:18
Kate Rumsey
And who's winning the day? It seems to be Dan Patrick. So, all right. Number one, the guy with the most corruption and radicalism. Was this a surprise, Alex? No, I think to me, this was not a surprise.
Ken Paxton's Corruption and Legal Issues
00:40:31
Kate Rumsey
It is Ken Paxton. He has won the number one spot.
00:40:34
Alexander Clark
the undisputed champion of the world.
00:40:37
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Well, it's interesting. I went back and forth with Claude on this because Claude gave him a 9 out of 10 radical and i add and a 10 out of 10 corrupt. And I said, why? and Because I thought, why hasn't he got a perfect score? He seems to be high on both. And Claude said, you know, I thought that I'd give a hedge that maybe there's someone somewhere out there who would be more radical. But no, there is no floor. This is it.
00:41:01
Kate Rumsey
He takes the cake. He gets a perfect 20. And...
00:41:04
Alexander Clark
Yeah, that's a good question.
00:41:04
Kate Rumsey
and
00:41:05
Alexander Clark
Who in Texas politics is to the to the right of Ken Paxton?
00:41:10
Kate Rumsey
I don't think there is one.
00:41:11
Alexander Clark
Maybe like a Briscoe Kane or someone who's just just desperate for attention.
00:41:20
Kate Rumsey
Yeah, but I think that's different. Like somebody who's desperate for attention to say something radical is different than actually using the AG's office to sue.
00:41:27
Alexander Clark
Who can accomplish radical results.
00:41:28
Kate Rumsey
and yeah, like even here in Coppell, he sued our state, our school board, still going on, about some alleged DEI program that we secretly had.
00:41:30
Alexander Clark
Yeah, that's fair.
00:41:40
Kate Rumsey
So he's obviously wielding the office. But let's go down just the rap sheet of corruption.
00:41:45
Alexander Clark
Yeah. Rap sheet is apt.
00:41:46
Kate Rumsey
i'm going to Yeah, he's got a lot of it. So he was impeached, as we already mentioned, a Republican.
00:41:51
Alexander Clark
Take a deep breath.
00:41:52
Kate Rumsey
Yeah, he's got a lot.
00:41:53
Alexander Clark
Got to go get a lot to go through it.
00:41:55
Kate Rumsey
I'm going to breathe once. 20 articles alleging bribery, abuse of power and obstruction of justice. Only the third impeachment in Texas history.
00:42:06
Kate Rumsey
he had previously been indicted on securities fraud, which was dropped after he and this was state charges, three hundred thousand dollars in restitution and a hundred hours of community service. I forgot about that.
00:42:15
Alexander Clark
And he he he he got that trial pushed and pushed and pushed for years, like multiple election cycles.
00:42:19
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:42:23
Kate Rumsey
yeah
00:42:23
Alexander Clark
If that doesn't tell you a little bit about the corruption alone.
00:42:26
Kate Rumsey
Right. And he i mean, I look, I'm a criminal defense attorney. And so I appreciate that sometimes when you make these plea deals, you're not necessarily admitting guilt. But look, he's paying restitution and 100 hours of community service on these securities fraud issues. Come on. OK.
00:42:43
Kate Rumsey
He refused to disclose multiple out of state properties, including a one point six million dollar luxury hideaway. I think there's reports that he's made a lot of money while in office. And this is it's not an office that you're making millions of dollars on.
00:42:56
Kate Rumsey
We heard about his many mistresses, which I think most people have put behind them as something that has disqualified people from office. But he used a fake Uber account under an alias to visit his mistress with his former chief of staff testifying to the affair.
00:43:14
Kate Rumsey
Travis County judge awarded $6.6 million dollars to a former aides he fired for blowing the whistle. I mean, his internal people are not even loyal to him. They've blown the whistle on this guy and he dropped his.
00:43:26
Alexander Clark
Yeah, and it it has nothing to do with like how conservative or not these former staffers are. Honestly, these staffers, I remember watching the trial, they're like, these are bona fide federalist society, like hardcore, like deeply believe in conservative ideals, conservative principles.
00:43:33
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:43:37
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Conservatives.
00:43:43
Alexander Clark
So it wasn't like these libs coming after him for not being sufficiently conservative. just they wouldn't They weren't loyal to him as a person because they believe in things.
00:43:54
Kate Rumsey
Yeah, well, going back to Chip roy he was asked to leave or did leave because I think there was some allegation of not being loyal to Paxton, so. Here he also, the state bar sued Ken Paxton for professional misconduct over the 2020 election lawsuit dismissed by the all Republican Texas Supreme Court on separation of power grounds. Going back to our episode with the ladies running to be on the Supreme Court about how a lot of them on the Supreme Court are appointed and not elected. So they are loyal to this man and to Abbott.
00:44:27
Kate Rumsey
So no wonder they're dismissing these cases. The DOJ did decline to prosecute Ken Paxton. think if you look at, so that's a lot of corruption. He's got 10 out of 10. He used his office for personal gain on like real estate transactions.
00:44:42
Kate Rumsey
He's got people blowing the whistle on him. But then you switch to radicalism. how What do we think there? Because I think that's mostly driven by what he's used the AG's office to do, right?
00:44:55
Alexander Clark
Yeah, and I mean, look, we kind of glaze over it, but filing a lawsuit to try to overturn a free and fair presidential election is about as radical as you can get.
00:45:07
Alexander Clark
Basically, try to claim standing for someone else's electoral votes.
00:45:07
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:14
Alexander Clark
Like, it's so bananas. I mean, that's that's why the state bar took the extraordinary step to sue him to be like, you shouldn't have a law license. You're not acting like a real lawyer.
00:45:28
Kate Rumsey
Well, then, yeah, he he's also sued. I think he said that his job is to sue Obama at one point. That's what he wanted to do. He's sued abortion providers. He's tried to have people hand over records on families seeking gender affirming care. They're trying to block it He's subpoenaed.
00:45:48
Kate Rumsey
Hospitals for Records on Texas Patients Being Treated Out of State. He forced a hospital to create a detransition clinic. So I think it is in line with his messaging that you already are hearing about Tallarico, right? Like he's still in the culture war lane.
00:46:04
Kate Rumsey
He still wants to drive that. He's trying to call what, Tallafrico and he's a vegan. And like, what do you make of that as a long supporter of James Tallarico?
00:46:16
Alexander Clark
Well, you know, I take Talafrico over plea deal Paxton any day. I mean, people are now learning about the google the Google searches are off the charts.
00:46:21
Kate Rumsey
Right.
00:46:26
Alexander Clark
People looking up what's what's this plea deal he he gave to Adam Hoffman so that they wanted him to spend a day, a day, 24 hours in jail
00:46:31
Kate Rumsey
Yes. Talk about that.
00:46:39
Alexander Clark
for molest for yeah molesting
00:46:40
Kate Rumsey
pedophile.
00:46:43
Alexander Clark
this child, his son's, I think, best friend for like years.
00:46:48
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:46:49
Kate Rumsey
A plea deal for someone who's molesting a boy.
00:46:49
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:46:51
Kate Rumsey
I mean, that's insane. And then you have at the same time, a Republican Party that doesn't want to do anything about the Epstein files. And here, yeah.
00:46:58
Alexander Clark
Right, right. it's It's the juxtaposition that is just so crazy, right? Because like on the one hand, he's Mr. Righteous Radical. I'm shutting down Pornhub in the state of Texas.
00:47:10
Alexander Clark
But on the other hand, You know, Elon Musk's AI, Grok, is doing all sorts of crazy AI deepfake pornography on these, you know, anybody who you wanted to.
00:47:24
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:25
Alexander Clark
And where where is the enforcement action there? He's very selective. he's He's out to punish his enemies or perceived enemies of the right. And, you know, he's going to look the other way when it comes to Epstein, when it comes to Elon Musk. He's going to look the other way when it comes to Donald Trump and anybody else.
00:47:46
Kate Rumsey
I mean, and that's you saw this with the redistricting fight and people breaking quorum and them getting fines. And then now he's suing Beto O'Rourke's organization that we talked about with Powered by People. And he's tried to sue ActBlue and all these other groups. And so I think that's why he deserves most radical.
00:48:03
Kate Rumsey
most corrupt Texas Republican in 2026. Maybe there will be someone else who will be topping this list in the future, but hopefully we will vote them out of office. James Tallarico calling him He was recently in Plano, the most corrupt politician in America.
00:48:19
Kate Rumsey
whose mugshot was recently taken in the in the area because he's from North Texas, right? So he, we got to vote him out of office. And I think if there's any year, Alex, that we can do that.
00:48:31
Kate Rumsey
But I'm wondering, what are your thoughts? Because I know we're leading, obviously, with corruption and radicalism. Is that the messaging that's going to win in a 2026 election?
Electoral Strategies and Upcoming Elections
00:48:39
Kate Rumsey
Because I was talking about that with Sarah Eckhart. we We're gearing up for an anti-corruption election cycle.
00:48:45
Kate Rumsey
And you saw this in the other runoffs with Democrats because they're trading stocks and some of the other things that they did were used against them. And so do you think that we are gearing up for that kind of election cycle where we can say proudly, look, we're not corrupt, we're not as radical, vote for us, but also we can provide you a better way of life? I mean, how do you think that's going to play out?
00:49:07
Alexander Clark
I think what you said is right, but it just needs a little bit of reorganization. i think the way I've heard James Alarico say it recently is is the right way to do it. i mean, we'll see.
00:49:21
Alexander Clark
but What he said is the reason why we have an affordability crisis, and I think we have to lead with affordability. Can't get distracted into doing these things that might feel more intuitive or satisfying to us as Democrats, but we have to remember like, what do voters care about? Because that's the name the game, we got to win.
00:49:40
Alexander Clark
And affordability is still everyone's top concern. And so I think the reason why we have an affordability crisis, as he says, is because we have a corruption crisis.
00:49:51
Alexander Clark
And and we have to we have to do the work of connecting those dots. like The reason why things are getting more expensive, the reason why you can't get ahead, the reason why the average age for the first time home buyer keeps going up.
00:49:57
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:50:06
Alexander Clark
All this stuff is happening because the rich and the powerful and the well-connected are rigging the system.
00:50:16
Kate Rumsey
I know it's not it's not a government for everyone. It's a government for the people who can purchase their way or buy a pardon or somehow get a no big contract from the government like Sarah Eckhart was talking about. And this that's what the comptroller might be part of.
00:50:32
Kate Rumsey
They might be helping award these no-bid contracts, meaning they don't have any any other competition. They just get awarded some big contract by our government and they make a lot of money. And it's usually going to people who are loyal or are aligned with these Republicans.
00:50:46
Kate Rumsey
So It's not for the little guy. It's not for the working class. And i i agree with you. We have to somehow tie the dots because it did not work in 2016. It did not work in 2024 against Donald Trump.
00:50:57
Kate Rumsey
And however much we can say, look at how corrupt they are Don't vote for them. it's just not winning the day. And somehow we have to turn out our base, turn out our voters and also convince people not to vote for them because it's in their interests not to.
00:51:10
Alexander Clark
Yeah. as
00:51:11
Kate Rumsey
It's going to affect them every day.
00:51:13
Alexander Clark
We have to have there be a certain level of awareness and understanding that Democrats are going to make the material conditions of your life better.
00:51:24
Alexander Clark
It's not some esoteric democracy, which is important.
00:51:24
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:51:29
Alexander Clark
It's not some esoteric morality versus corruption. It's because you want to get ahead. that you want things to be more affordable, that you want to have more opportunity, economic prospects, like for you and your family at your home to actually get
00:51:49
Alexander Clark
Improved conditions, right? it's It's not a game people in 2024 Right they were looking around and across the world They were voting out the party in power because all they saw was after COVID all this inflation was happening and people were pissed and We didn't have we didn't have a good enough message on that. We didn't. And Trump was the undeserving beneficiary of this idea that we got to try something new.
00:52:25
Kate Rumsey
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:52:26
Alexander Clark
And i think I think that's the main reason why Trump won in 2024 is because people thought that things could be less expensive. And now he doesn't even care. he was just, he'll say, like, I'm not concerned about people's
00:52:40
Kate Rumsey
No, i know. i Can you believe he said that?
00:52:42
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:52:42
Kate Rumsey
He says, yeah what is his time being fixated on? I think it was the Senator Ossoff out of Georgia was saying he spent six hours on Truth Social just railing against people. Meanwhile, we've got a crisis here.
00:52:54
Kate Rumsey
Iran and is causing our gas prices to increase. We have you fixated on the ballroom and the reflecting pond and all these things that aren't really improving people's lives, right?
00:53:06
Kate Rumsey
So...
00:53:06
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:53:07
Kate Rumsey
But I think if there's any hope to be had here before we end our our episode, it's that this is the year, right? Like this is the slate, the seat we have an incredible group of people running on the left and we have a really big opportunity.
00:53:21
Kate Rumsey
As we stated at the beginning, this is a state that is now only leaning Republican. And so if we can do the work to get these people elected, then we might win and actually flip the state.
00:53:32
Kate Rumsey
So with that, Alex, since you were out last week, I wanted to ask you, what is some
Personal Updates and Democratic Unity Emphasis
00:53:36
Kate Rumsey
good news? What's something so good that's happening in your life that you have to share. You're the one normally asking us, so I wanted to ask you.
00:53:43
Alexander Clark
Well, today i was invited to come and speak to the Dallas Bar Association's Tort and Insurance Practice Section on Insurance 101. It's very exciting to go and and talk to a room full of, there was a lot of summer clerks there and people who were genuinely learning about the very basics of insurance law.
00:53:55
Kate Rumsey
Nice.
00:54:01
Alexander Clark
It was it was fun to talk to them and let them ask their questions. And tomorrow morning, I get to drive all the way to San Antonio to more or less do the same thing. the The full day tomorrow is is billed as Insurance Law 101.
00:54:10
Kate Rumsey
Wow.
00:54:14
Alexander Clark
And it's like things every new insurance lawyer needs to know is the name of my panel tomorrow.
00:54:21
Kate Rumsey
Cool.
00:54:22
Alexander Clark
That's very exciting.
00:54:23
Kate Rumsey
Nice. Yeah. Last time I shared that my daughter is starting pre-K in our public school. So we went to like a fair and now today, actually of as of yesterday, my stepson is joining us for the summer So we have a lot of stuff planned with him.
00:54:39
Kate Rumsey
He normally lives in El Paso where we have a house and we split our time, but he's with us in Dallas and North Texas. So we're really excited about having him and we're leaving for the beach in a few days to go spend some time with family.
00:54:49
Kate Rumsey
So I'm really excited about that. So hope hope our listeners are having a great summer so far and having some family time and going out there and doing some fun stuff.
00:54:51
Alexander Clark
Very nice.
00:54:58
Alexander Clark
we We also hope to be lounging by the water. The the San Antonio conference is at the Hyatt Hill Country.
00:55:05
Kate Rumsey
Oh, yeah.
00:55:05
Alexander Clark
Which you've ever been there, it's got it's very family friendly.
00:55:05
Kate Rumsey
Is that the one with the?
00:55:07
Alexander Clark
It's got like a lazy river and like these little kiddie poles that they can kind of walk into.
00:55:09
Kate Rumsey
Yes. Right.
00:55:12
Alexander Clark
and Yeah, I'm excited.
00:55:13
Kate Rumsey
I've been wanting to try that out. Yeah. OK, well, Alex, any last word from you on this? Anything else you want to leave our listeners as we gear up for the general election?
00:55:25
Alexander Clark
Yeah, here's my last word. I'll keep it brief. Now is not the time to be high and mighty. Now is not the time to be petty keeper of a score.
00:55:38
Alexander Clark
Now's the time to come together and because it it takes all of us.
00:55:40
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:55:42
Alexander Clark
And even with this parade of horribles we just went through, these really terrible candidates, you know, It's our job to to take them out and we haven't done it yet.
00:55:54
Alexander Clark
I think we can. and think we will, but it's going to take all of us.
00:55:57
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:55:58
Alexander Clark
So one team, one fight and, you know, let everybody into this tent who wants to be in it. Let's be welcoming. Let's be warm.
00:56:06
Kate Rumsey
Yes.
00:56:06
Alexander Clark
Let's be inviting.
00:56:08
Kate Rumsey
Yeah, I know. I'm definitely guilty of being combative sometimes, and I need to be reminded that sometimes, Alex. So thank you for that reminder. i want to put a plug for our Patreon. If you want to support us for and independent media, you can go there. Or if you cannot afford that, you can go to our leave us a five star review or share our social media. We'll put clips out so you can follow us at Mission Texas podcast or email us at Mission Texas podcast at gmail.com.
00:56:34
Kate Rumsey
right, we will see our listeners next week, and we'll sign off by saying God bless Texas.