Vice President Greg Abbott? Stranger Things Have Happened, Although I Can’t Think of Any
Trump wins. Abbott is his Veep. Dan Patrick is a member of the Cabinet. No, it’s not the elevator pitch for a dystopian story that makes the “Terminator” movies look like Matthew McConaughey rom-coms.
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But first, your moment of Zen … the Buc-ee’s art installation 20 miles east of Marathon on Highway 90, photographed under a crystalline Texas sky on February 12, 2024.
Tuesday, February 13, 2024, 11:00 a.m.
In 1989, fresh out of law school and fascinated by state government and politics, I jumped into the deep end of the legislative advocacy pool. I was working for a San Antonio law firm that did a lot of workers’ compensation law, and the Lege was bound and determined to “reform” those laws. In one corner, business and insurance companies; in the other, labor unions and trial lawyers. Through one regular and three special sessions that year, the parties battled for legislators’ attention and votes.
I was the ultimate newbie. It’s one thing to testify before a Senate committee or meet with House members, as I had; it’s a whole ‘nother thing to be at the Capitol, day in and day out, watching the process work up close and personal.
Fortunately, I had terrific people to guide me and explain what was going on. Amongst these mentors was Harvey Kronberg, the co-founder and editor of the Quorum Report. He was accessible, friendly, and willing to explain what was happening behind the scenes of what we were seeing. Over time, we developed a friendship that endures to this day. [i]
Thirty-five years later, the Quorum Report is still the ultimate insiders’ newsletter on what’s going on around the Capitol. Harvey leaves some of the day-to-day reporting to his colleagues and focuses on occasional think pieces that gauge the speed and direction of Texas’s political winds. He still has the best sources and can get anyone in the industry to return his calls pronto And yesterday he published an essay that’s starting a lot of conversations around the Pink Building. [ii]
Most of the greybeards in Texas politics on both sides of the aisle have started the drumbeat that the Governor is hot-boxing the presumptive GOP Presidential nominee into naming him Vice-President. While Trump cannot tolerate being upstaged, Abbott is now the face of the DC “resistance” movement and has engineered the kinds of confrontations with the Biden Administration that are celebrated by the base.
No Republican other than the top dog currently comes close to Abbott. If the border is your lead issue, you know Greg Abbott. …
While other Republican VP wannabes are stumbling over each other to see who can be most adulatory of the former President, the GOP base sees only one actor who has gone to war – nearly literally – on their priority issue.
Now, I have always been skeptical of Greg Abbott’s presidential prospects. And just a couple weeks ago I opined that he had no chance of being Vice President. Out of respect for Harvey’s reporting, let me review my reasons for believing Abbott will not be on the 2024 ticket.
The first reason is as petty and mean-spirited as you can imagine – but we’re talking about Donald Trump here. I believe that people with any disabilities give Donald Trump the heebie-jeebies. Exhibit A: Trump mocks a disabled reporter. Exhibit B: Trump excoriates General Mark Milley for having a disabled veteran sing “God Bless America” at a ceremony: “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded," said Trump. “No one,” in this case, means Trump.
Neither incident was a rehearsed, strategic response to a situation. Instead, they were spontaneous, even uncontrolled, reactions to the presence of people with disabilities. And there were other incidents.
Trump’s revulsion is instinctive, but there are other, more practical reasons why Trump would not select Abbott. What does he add to the ticket? Texas is a sure-fire Trump state in 2024. Abbott has accomplished more to shoo migrants away than Trump, but, as Harvey points out, since when does Trump want that kind of competition? “I alone can fix it,” remember? The advantage of a Stefanik or a Scott or a Noem is that, other than a servile fealty to Trump, they have little in the way of a standalone “brand” familiar to voters. They will always be in Trump’s shadow, right where he wants them.
I do think it’s possible a victorious Trump could put Abbott in a Cabinet role, perhaps as Secretary of Homeland Security, a perfect venue for Abbott’s grandiose cruelty and far enough away that Trump will not have to deal personally with him all the time.
Of course, Trump must win in November for any of this to happen. Undoubtedly, the race will be close. As The Bulwark’s Jonathan V Last notes, Biden must beat Trump by 3-5 percentage points in the popular vote before he can secure the Electoral College, which is slanted to the Rs. This certainly could happen; whether it will is, perhaps literally, the Question for Our Age.
I understand that the risks are great, but I continue to believe that the American people, ultimately faced with a Trump vs. Biden rematch, will do the right thing and save American (and possibly Western) democracy for another generation. This assumes, of course, that no intervening health event further undermines Biden’s claim as a successful and consequential president.
But wait! – Harvey is just getting started.
He goes on to theorize that, if the Trump/Abbott team makes it to the White House, Dan Patrick joins them:
It was widely believed that Dan Patrick wanted to follow Trump to DC in 2016, but was considered unconfirmable by that Senate for the kind of job Patrick would want.
No one has been more loyal to Trump than Patrick and it is believed they have a genuine relationship.
So, it is entirely possible that a President Trump would want both Abbott and Patrick in his Administration, confident that their successors would not impact his political fortunes.
I pause here to note that the departure of both Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick would materially improve the future prospects and quality of life of a great number of Texans. So, we’ve got that going for us. It may also improve the comity and functioning of the Texas Legislature. More on that later.
But is it likely? If Abbott were V.P., Patrick might be able to secure a high-powered position in D.C. – maybe even Secretary of Homeland Security. But as I have said, I think it more likely that Abbott will not be the V.P. candidate, and the best he could hope for would be Secretary of Homeland Security. Assuming he got that, whither Patrick? What would he do in D.C. if he was not in or very near the White House?
And why would he bother? He is arguably the most important Republican in Texas, sitting atop a network of donors, lobbyists and legislators who are more terrified of him than of Abbott. Patrick as mastered legislative baseball in a way Abbott can only envy.
And whether Dan Patrick wants to be Governor or not, that prospect has haunted the dreams of Greg Abbott since both took office in 2015.
All in all, it’s hard to imagine Dan Patrick as the Deputy Assistant Undersecretary for Imposing Vouchers on the States in the Department of Education.
But wait!! – there’s more! Harvey’s essay does not disappoint!
Assume that Abbott departs, either as a member of the ticket or as a Cabinet officer next spring. Dan Patrick becomes Governor, and the members of the Senate will choose a replacement from among themselves.
If Abbott heads off to DC, Lt. Gov. Patrick becomes governor and the Senate chooses a presiding officer from among its members. In the normal scheme of things, Patrick would simply tell the Senate Republican Caucus who they would pick. But as soon as it is clear Abbott is leaving, Patrick’s dominance of the Senate plummets, sacrificed on the altar of Senatorial ambition and the Ds and Rs could come to some kind of consensus.
If Patrick then departs for Washington, the senator-chosen Lite Guv becomes Governor and the senators again choose an interim Lieutenant Governor from their number.
Whoever gets those roles in late 2024/early 2025 will have the advantage of incumbency in the 2026 statewide elections. So, lots of senators in this unlikely scenario will have a clear interest in grabbing the brass ring.
By my count, there are 31 senators who think they’d be a great Lieutenant Governor. Practically speaking Patrick’s replacement will come from among the 19 GOP senators, but that does not mean the GOP senators will select him or her. The only previous time this happened, in 2000, Bill Ratliff was chosen as Lieutenant Governor with a mix of Republican and Democratic votes. (The ballots were secret, but the pattern was clear.)
Harvey suggests another theory for how Patrick’s replacement would be chosen: “Alternatively, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks will simply tell the now well-trained Republicans who to pick.”
That Harvey even mentions such a theory is a sign of how much Texas politics has changed in the last 24 years. In 2000, there was no mega-donor whose commitment to right-wing extremism (“MAGA-donor?”) included punishing even apostate Republicans.
Concluding Thoughts
Donald Trump becomes President. Greg Abbott becomes Vice President. Dan Patrick becomes Governor, and then Secretary of Homeland Security. Two Republican senators with the necessary ideological convictions and moral flexibility end up as Governor and Lieutenant Governor heading into the 2026 statewide elections. Congratulations, Harvey – you’ve written the elevator pitch for a dystopian tale that would keep H.P. Lovecraft or Stephen King sleepless and haunted by nightmares.
Let’s hope, for the sake of Texas and the nation, that it does not come true.
[i] Through his attorneys, Harvey Kronberg denies any responsibility for the irrelevant facts, facile analyses, ludicrous opinions and surly attitudes that characterize Life Its Ownself.
[ii] Thanks to Harvey for letting me quote his essay at such length.
I remain disinclined to believe Trump would let a handicapped person be a part of his team. Just won't happen, under almost any circumstance. Head of DHS, maybe, because he'd be mostly out of Trump's sight. And if Abbott went, I think Patrick's lust for being governor would remove him from any DC job. I hope, however, none of our conjecture has any applications in the post election life of Americans and we will have a Democratic president, house, and senate, the country can make some progress away from our burdensome divisiveness.
This is all … nauseating. Just one question on the poll embedded in your piece: Where’s the vomit emoji response option? That’s the one I pick.