Angela Paxton endorses the Republican ticket her estranged husband tops, without once saying his name.

…(cont) Eight days later, on the 16th, the Texas Farm Bureau endorsed Paxton, citing his record defending farmers and ranchers in court. I remember that one without looking — it came across the porch with the mail, next to a seed catalog I never ordered.

Then on October 3rd, Talarico's campaign took money from a group that backs gender care for minors, the same stretch he'd spent twice walking his own position toward a harder line on girls' sports. I went through that one already, a different week. I won't make you sit through it twice.

Which brings me to yesterday — and the thing I keep going back to, and I'm sorry, because I know I keep going back to it.

Randy White, Cowboys Hall of Fame, a name that still fills a room in this state, endorsed Paxton and said Talarico can't be trusted. I wrote the date down twice, October 4th, which I never do.

I'm sorry — I keep coming back to that word, and I'd like to look at it once more, from the cost side this time. No filing. No sworn statement. No agent across a desk taking notes. He said it in an interview, on a Sunday, with a cigar he probably didn't pay full price for either. What did it cost him to say it?

I'm sorry — one more side of it. The only man in this race who used that word in writing had to carry it himself, out of Paxton's own building and into a federal one, a month before Dallas needed to weigh in. That's the one I wrote down first, back on September 8th. Which of them paid more to use the word?

And I'm sorry, because this is the last one. The same day Mr. White was spending that word on Talarico, Ken Paxton's own wife — estranged, the filing is public record — went on record asking Texas to back "the GOP ticket." Not her husband. The ticket. I checked. His name isn't in it anywhere.

One more thing, if I can, before you go. I had a single question when I sat down with this — between the man who used the word for free on a Sunday, and the man who spent ten years inside that office before he used it on paper, to federal agents, under his own name — which one had actually earned it? I've got both dates written down, September 8th and October 4th. Which one, on the page I've got, still needs proving — can't be trusted?