Paxton’s political career<\/a> was an early test of Talarico’s general-election strategy: winning over suburban voters and Republicans uneasy with Paxton.<\/p>\n“Ken Paxton has escaped accountability, but accountability is coming on Nov. 3” in the state’s general election, Talarico said.<\/p>\n
The Paxton campaign has dismissed Talarico’s criticism and sought to portray the Democrat as a liberal out of step with Texas voters.<\/p>\n
During his speech, Talarico also mentioned Republican attacks on his masculinity, saying \u201cthere\u2019s been a lot of talk in this campaign about what it means to be a real man.\u201d<\/p>\n
He recalled how his adoptive father would mow a neighbor’s lawn without being asked, using the story to contrast serving others with exploiting them.<\/p>\n
Real men \u201cdon\u2019t lie and cheat their way through life. They don\u2019t enrich themselves by stealing from other people. They don\u2019t sell their soul to the highest bidder,\u201d \u00a0Talarico said. \u201cReal men serve others. Weak men serve themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Talarico also mocked attacks from Paxton and President Donald Trump, who have questioned his faith and accused him of being a vegan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m an eighth-generation Texan,\u201d Talarico said. \u201cI\u2019ve eaten barbecue since before Ken Paxton\u2019s first indictment.\u201d<\/p>\n
He acknowledged that\u00a0Paxton calls him \u201cTalafreakco.\u201d In a turnabout, the Democrat said his website is selling \u201cI\u2019m a Talifreako\u201d T-shirts.<\/p>\n
Talarico also outlined a series of reforms he said he would pursue in the Senate, including campaign finance changes, congressional term limits and an end to legislative gerrymandering.<\/p>\n
He was joined at the rally by Gina Hinojosa<\/a>, the Democratic nominee running against Gov. Greg Abbott.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PLANO \u2013 A few miles from the courthouse where Ken Paxton faced securities fraud charges a decade ago,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-318952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}