Ahead of the Texas Democratic Party convention in Dallas this July, a series of billboard ads strung along Interstate 35 depicted the elderly face of President Joe Biden morphing—sign by sign—into gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke. Each stage of the highway metamorphosis blared a different phrase. “Open Border,” “$5 for a Gallon of Gas,” “Dangerous Criminals Walk Free,” “CRT over ABCs.” The transition from 79- to 49-year-old completed with the final sign: “#TeamBido.”
Before O’Rourke even announced his bid for the state’s top executive position late last year, Republican Governor Greg Abbott had begun attacking Texas’ most well-known Democrat as a stalking horse for his national party’s radical agenda, dead set on destroying the state from the governor’s mansion. Ironically, the man responsible for conjuring these threats from outside political agitators, and on behalf of a governor whose brand is rooted in Texas jingoism, is a consultant based not in some office suite in downtown Austin, but in faraway New Hampshire.
For 20 years, Texas’ Republican governors have taken their campaign cues from Dave Carney, a towering and oftdisheveled Granite Stater who made his name working for President George H.W. Bush, the comparatively patrician grandfather of the Texas Grand Old Party. Despite his outsider status, Carney long ago proved his Lone Star bona fides by crafting winning statewide campaigns better than any native—making his two biggest clients, Rick Perry and Abbott, the state’s two longest-serving governors.
Now 63, Carney helped build Perry from an unelected governor into a singular force in Texas politics with a national profile as the premier anti-Obama Republican state leader, setting him up for a heralded presidential bid. Carney has managed to do much the same with Abbott—who lacks the natural political talent of his predecessor—by helping him navigate the turbulent Trump years and positioning the governor to match or even surpass Perry’s imprint.
“I think [Carney]’s a. “He has been able to parse out vulnerabilities of opponents, take advantage of them, and brand them ruthlessly, whether Republicans or Democrats.”
