Yesterday morning, Democratic Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis called into K104 FM, a morning radio show in Dallas, to talk about her campaign. About halfway through the interview, one of the hosts asked Davis point blank: “I need a yes or no: is Greg Abbott exploiting his handicap in these commercials?”

Wendy Davis’s initial response to the question must be heard to be believed. Here’s a clip of the audio:

What was Wendy Davis’s initial answer to the yes-or-no question of whether Greg Abbott was “exploiting his handicap”? She said, “He certainly has made sure people are aware.”

K104 Radio: Alright, Wendy. You guys are amazing ’cause you answer a question, and you guys as politicians can go all over the place.



I need a yes or no: is Greg Abbott exploiting his handicap in these commercials?



Wendy Davis: He certainly has made sure that people are aware.



That he suffered a tragedy and that he’s overcome it. And that’s to be admired. But the real point here is that while he rightly got his day in court, and he sued a homeowner and he sued a tree company, and he got millions of dollars, he has been fighting and his public service career, ever since, to close that door behind him. And that’s the real issue in this race.

A wiser politician with even the smallest hint of common sense would have answered that question by saying, “No, of course not. But here’s why he’s the wrong choice for Texas” or something like that. Wendy Davis, as we’ve learned, is not that politician.

The question and her answer are even more absurd in light of her recent ads and Twitter attacks against Abbott. Keep in mind that this is the same woman whose campaign ran an ad that began with a picture of an empty wheelchair with the following voiceover: “A tree fell on Greg Abbott.” After pundits almost universally panned the ad as being beyond the pale, Davis responded to the criticism and said, “The important thing about this ad is that voters now see Greg Abbott for who he is[.]”

And she has the audacity to suggest that Greg Abbott is going out of his way to make people aware of his wheelchair? Come on.

After her initial answer during the K104 interview, Davis then when into her standard campaign spiel, echoing her campaign’s widely mocked wheelchair commercial, that the real problem with Greg Abbott is that he just doesn’t care about other people with disabilities like she does. According to Davis’s telling, it’s not enough that Abbott doesn’t care about them. It’s that he’s spent his whole career slamming the door on people with disabilities.

The first rule of holes is to stop digging. On the Wendy Davis campaign, the first rule is apparently to buy some more shovels.

You can listen to the full radio interview here. The “exploiting his handicap” conversation begins at about 4:15 in that clip.

A new poll released yesterday by the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune showed Davis trailing Abbott by 16 points.