In a rather telling way, the Burrows-Democrat team pivoted yesterday from lying about how conservative Burrows is (they used Gov. Abbott's name and image to do so and the Governor countered that) to now leaving Burrows' phony bona fides behind and saying they will enact conservative legislation. Their new focus is no longer announcing Burrows to be the "Speaker-Elect," but rather these priorities:

  • Border security
  • Universal school choice
  • Property tax cuts
...which kind of lines up with the Republican propositions.

Always pay attention to the first marketing efforts. I mention in my book that successful campaigns focus on the voters' agenda and not the candidate. That proper order wasn't the first instinct of the Burrows drive to become Speaker. The first instinct was about Burrows the candidate.

Why was that the focus? Because they truly don't care about the agenda of the voters. But when pushing the candidate fails, they'll pivot to trying to connect with you. "I'm conservative, like you," their advertising will tell you. But their actions in office won't.

Good representatives know that it's not about them, but about what the voters want to achieve.

Burrows isn't instinctively invested in what you want because you're not the voter who will get him elected - the Democrats will. That's why he kept meeting with the Democrats in Austin. They're his voters, and he wants to enact their agenda to secure their vote. That strategy isn't working now, so he's now promoting a Republican agenda.

But that wasn't his first instinct. Nor will it remain his instinct.

There is a massive effort to get GOP County Chairs to back the choice of the Republican caucus. That's right and smart. But as I write this, less than half of the county chairs have done so - in spite of the Lieutenant Governor, the Attorney General, the Ag Commissioner, and a handful of Republican Congressmen signing off on the reform candidate.

You can't tell me that you want Republican victory over Democrats to win elections but you think it's good after elections to compromise with Democrats.

The entire purpose of an election is to advance the policies you want and to prevent the other side from advancing their policies. You elect those who will advance the policies you want. Letting the other side water down or cancel your propositions renders the entire election effort moot.

You need to do all it takes to advance the strongest possible policies. Compromise should be a last resort, and not a first instinct. No successful negotiation begins with compromise. That's a guaranteed way to never achieve what you want. It will always be less, and Democrats never start with compromise.

We can't elect a speaker who initiates the next legislative session with compromise and, on that front, Dustin Burrows is compromised.