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The Embarrassment of Trump’s Midterms Convention

Many GOP candidates in competitive House and Senate races are steering clear of the Dallas event.

President Donald Trump speaks during the first day of the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas.

“Why not Ken Paxton?” MSNOW’s Chris Jansing asked former Black Republican Dorthy Burton on Wednesday afternoon, a few hours before Donald Trump launched his ridiculous midterm extravaganza in Dallas, planned for Wednesday and Thursday.

“Because he’s trash,” she shot back. “He is a disgrace.”

Burton planned to cast her ballot in November’s hot Senate race for Democratic state Rep. James Talarico over the impeached (but not removed) GOP attorney general Paxton. And she promised she would stay far, far away from the spectacle of narcissism that’s become known as Trumpapalooza. 

Apparently a lot of Republican congressmembers and GOP leaders feel the same way. An NPR analysis found that fewer than half of GOP candidates in competitive House and Senate races this year are on the list of speakers for the Dallas event celebrating the uniquely unpopular Trump. (CNN reports that his approval among independents is 62 points lower on the economy than it was in the fall of 2018, just before a disastrous midterm for Republicans.) In an arena regularly packed by fans of the Dallas Mavericks, there were often visible swaths of empty seats.

Of course Ken Paxton had to show up, since he only won his primary, and beat sitting Sen. John Cornyn, because Trump endorsed him. The same was true for Georgia Rep. Mike Collins, endorsed by Trump in Georgia’s crowded GOP Senate primary to run against Sen. Jon Ossoff. I happen to consider Ossoff and Talarico excellent office holders and good people, but they also happen to be lucky this year, facing Trump’s hand-picked, scandal-plagued Republicans. I’m sure there were a lot of places in Georgia where Collins could have spent more productive time fighting to flip a Democratic Senate seat that is considered one of the most vulnerable in the nation. (Or was, before Collins won the GOP nod, and Ossoff showed himself to be particularly skilled at linking Trump and Collins’s scandals to Georgians’ declining prosperity.)

Meanwhile, Talarico held a statewide “Love Thy Neighbor” food drive as his counterprogramming to the Trump show.  “While we’re here serving our neighbors, billionaire mega-donors and their puppet politicians are clinking their champagne glasses,” Talarico told a Dallas crowd. The Texas lawmaker was also supposed to be on “The Jimmy Kimmel Show” Thursday night, but ABC reportedly relegated the segment to YouTube, fearing the show would fall afoul of the Trump FCC’s bizarre insistence that partisan equal time rules apply to TV variety shows, as happened when Stephen Colbert interviewed Talarico earlier this year (Talarico’s support surged after that). The Texas Democrat is telling reporters he still thinks there’s a chance it will run on Kimmel’s show tonight. Stay tuned!

Paxton looked worn and tired as he tried to fire up the crowd. “Welcome to Texas,........

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