#TXLEGE: Phillip Huffines and Angela Paxton are BOTH solid conservatives (and their supporters need to stop acting like Children)

"Folly is set in great dignity,
While the rich sit in a lowly place."
Ecclesiastes 10:6

Sometimes, it pays to stay out of a race.

With the release of campaign finance reports, a juvenile slap fight has broken out between supporters of Phillip Huffines and supporters of Angela Paxton over obscure campaign contributions; neither of the contributions in question should remotely concern anyone.

First, Angela Paxton: On her most recent campaign finance report, Angela Paxton reported $17,500 in contributions from liberal Republican former state senator John Carona.  That seems bad, until you remember that DON Huffines beat Carona four years ago.  Clearly, Carona is still miffed over his loss to Don Huffines, and is using Angela Paxton as a mechanism to get back at the Huffines family.

[Note: It's also worth pointing out that Carona served in the Senate with KEN Paxton; Senate collegiality being what it is, it's also not surprising to see a former Senator donating to the wife of a former Senator with whom he served.]

As for Phillip Huffines: In 2006, he made two donations, totaling $1500, to Dallas Democrat Helen Giddings.  This against the backdrop of two decades as a political donor that have seen him give hundreds of thousands to explicitly conservative causes.  We assume Huffines had a business interest in Giddings' district and, well, it's a little hard to stomach watching people belatedly complain about Republican candidates making donations to Democrats to protect their business interests when nobody seemed to have a problem with this guy doing it.

For those who are interested, they can check out all of Philip Huffines' campaign contributions since 2000 below:

Phillip Huffines campaign contribution history by Cahnman on Scribd

Bottom Line: No matter what happens, Senate District 8 is going to be represented by someone with whom the average Conservative Texan agrees at least 98% of the time.  Neither of the respective political donations about which we've learned changes that fact. People need perspective.