Before getting too deep into how each individual candidate will govern I think it's important to first look at how each party will campaign, what their issues will be, and how, from a general point of view, we can expect this to all play out.
Leading up to November I expect three overlying themes to develop. I'm going to attempt to break them down here by party and (additionally) by ideology since I think there has to be a separation of Republican and conservative campaign talking points for any of it to make any sense.
All that said, let's start with:
Democrats: The talking points from the Blue team are already taking shape on several different fronts. It is very clear that Texas Democrats are going to form a massive offensive around the idea that today's Texas Republican Party = the Tea Party and are "unfit to lead". I would expect Texas Dems to double down on this point finding what they consider to be onerous examples of Tea Party members behaving badly and doing their level best to associate various Republicans who drape themselves in the Tea Party banner to these closely. Make no doubt about it, the State party is going to go hard negative early and often. You're also going to hear a lot of talk about education and education funding from Democrats who are going to repeatedly reference the $5 Billion dollars in education cuts that they have vowed to restore, and then surpass. Again their casting of Republicans is going to be as spend-thrift old white mean who don't want poor, predominantly minority children to succeed. Democrats will also focus on abortion rights, continuing to push the War on women message as well as the movement to legalize and provide equal benefits to LGBT couples.
On fiscal issues expect to see increasing calls for common sense tax reform that, I'm guessing here, will not include a State income tax but will include eliminating exemptions for most oil and gas production severance taxes. Democrats will also push for more green energy subsidies, as well as increased environmental standards for both existing and new oil refining facilities, gas processing plants and energy plants. Also, Democrats have long been asking for the gasoline tax to be indexed to inflation and the extra monies diverted to mass transit projects in lieu of new road construction.
Keeping in sync with National issues, Texas Democrats will continue their long-term pushes for Medicare expansion, an increase in the minimum wage to counter income inequality and rolling back Republican lawsuit reform that they say has deprived citizens of their right to redress corporate wrongs.
Expect the Democrats to hammer the Republicans hard on these issues, issues where they believe the Texas GOP has exposure to the voting public, what Democrats have traditionally termed "lunch pail" issues and have used in an attempt to portray the GOP as elitist and out of touch with mainstream society. That this dovetails nicely with their overall casting of Republicans as mean, far right-wing hate-mongers at war with women and minorities is a bonus in this cycle they feel.
I will say this. While these points are overarching themes I do expect the Governor's race to be campaigned in a slightly different manner. I'm unsure that Wendy Davis is going to try and paint Greg Abbott as a Tea-Party pocketed sycophant, but will instead hit him heavily regarding his legislative tendencies as Attorney General and then tie those proclivities to the items above. The most progressive campaigner is almost sure to be Leticia Van de Putte, who is one of the more progressive candidates on this year's ballot.
Tomorrow we'll take a look at what is sure to be the Republican campaign strategy and how they'll attack/counter-attack the Democrats. I'll also, at that time, talk about whether or not the Democrats will actively defend against Republican charges.
