Ken Paxton’s message to voters in the home stretch of his closely-contested US Senate race with Democrat James Talarico is a mystery to me. I don’t mean that I don’t understand it—I mean I don’t know what it is, because before I could listen to his remarks at the launch of the “Come and Take It” bus tour in Rockwall, Texas, on Saturday morning, I was kicked out of the event and escorted to my car by a police officer.

The scandal-plagued Texas attorney general is hitting the road in the run-up to Election Day, as he works to avoid becoming the first member of his party to lose a statewide election here in 32 years. It has not been easy going. In addition to a 747’s worth of baggage—including an indictment he eventually resolved by agreeing to take a remedial legal education course; impeachment by members of his own party; a biblical divorce; and, most recently, a cell-phone video showing him spending New Year’s Eve in Dubai with two fugitives and a woman who’s not his wife—Paxton’s skill set as a politician seems uniquely unsuited to the current electoral environment. He has spent the last 12 years as a blunt object for whom the answer to every problem is a lawsuit or an investigation. How would the king of conservative lawfare adapt to an election defined by tariffs and the Iran war? What would it look like for Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr., of all people, to pivot to affordability?

“We’ve looked up your credentials,” he said. “We’re asking you to leave.”

These were the questions that had brought me to an airplane hangar in the small city of Rockwall, about 20 minutes east of Dallas. My problems began, I think, when I started filming the breakfast buffet. I’m supposed to be putting together a little video diary of my reporting trip to Texas, and have been dutifully gathering bits of B-roll from the events I attend. Campaign signs, T-shirts, various foodstuffs. It probably wasn’t necessary to film a coffee pot........

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