在德克萨斯州共和党美国参议员初选前的几个月里，该党分裂为几个派别。一方是现任参议员约翰·科宁，他得到了大多数共和党领袖及其关联超级政治行动委员会的热烈支持，普遍被视为安全选择，能够在大选中表现良好。
In the months leading up to Texas’ Republican U.S. Senate primary, the party was divided into a couple of camps. On one side was incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, who enjoyed the enthusiastic backing of most GOP leaders and their aligned super PAC, and who was generally seen as a safe choice who’d fare well in a general election.
另一方是该党内部挑战者、州司法部长肯·帕克斯顿，他得到了党内MAGA基础的支持，尽管他是他这一代中最陷入丑闻的候选人，普遍被视为巨大风险。
On the other side was the senator’s intraparty challenger, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who enjoyed support from the party’s MAGA base, despite being the most scandal-plagued candidate of his generation and who was generally seen as an enormous risk.
有报道称，唐纳德·特朗普曾倾向于保守行事，但在最终背书帕克斯顿后，后者轻松赢得了初选胜利。结果并未完全如总统所愿。
There were reports that Donald Trump was tempted to play it safe, before he ultimately endorsed Paxton, who cruised to an easy primary victory. The results haven’t exactly gone the way the president likely hoped.
在过去几周里，孤星州进行了多项高质量民意调查，且没有一项显示帕克斯顿领先于民主党州众议员詹姆斯·塔拉里科。这在共和党内部引发了一定程度的恐慌，因为在年初时，失去参议席的想法基本被认为是不可想象的。
Over the last several weeks, a variety of high-quality polls have been conducted in the Lone Star State, and not one of them has shown Paxton leading Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. This has generated a fair amount of panic in GOP circles, where the idea of losing a Senate seat had been largely unthinkable as the year got underway.
基于此，特朗普现在正采取一种可预见的步骤：他试图为可能的选举灾难推卸责任。事实上，总统在周四下午于其社交媒体平台上发表了一篇长篇 Tirade（ tirade 保留原词，因其为特定表达），试图提前指责他不喜欢的共和党人导致尚未发生的失败。网络 tirade 内容如下：悲哀且非常愚蠢的是，约翰·科宁和他的“小伙伴”、超级 RINO 卡尔·罗夫正在尽一切可能让肯·帕克斯顿——德克萨斯州历史上最伟大的司法部长，也是美国最优秀的司法部长之一——难以赢得即将到来的中期选举。……他们在伤害德克萨斯州，更重要的是，在伤害美利坚合众国！
With this in mind, Trump is now taking a predictable step: He’s trying to avoid blame for a possible electoral disaster. Indeed, the president published a lengthy tirade to his social media platform on Thursday afternoon in which he tried to pre-blame Republicans he doesn’t like for a defeat that hasn’t happened yet. From the online rant: Sadly, and very stupidly, John Cornyn, and his Liddle’ Buddy, Super RINO, Karl Rove, are doing everything possible to make it hard for Ken Paxton, the Greatest Attorney General in the History of Texas, and one of the Best in the United States, to win the upcoming Midterm Election. … They are hurting Texas and, more importantly, hurting the United States of America!
如果肯·帕克斯顿输掉选举，那将是因为像约翰·科宁和卡尔·罗夫这样软弱无能的政治操作者，他们一直在我的整个政治生涯中无效地反对我。
If Ken Paxton loses, it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove, who have ineffectively opposed me for my entire political career.
事实上，科宁在初选之后确实几乎没有做任何事情来帮助帕克斯顿，但认为这位参议员正在积极破坏其党的提名人的说法很难令人信服（更不用说把帕克斯顿的失败归咎于“无效”对手这一明显矛盾了）。州司法部长的麻烦是他自己造成的，而不是科宁的错。
As a factual matter, it’s true that Cornyn has done effectively nothing to help Paxton since their primary, but the suggestion that the senator is actively undermining his party’s nominee is difficult to take seriously (leaving aside the obvious contradiction of blaming a Paxton loss on “ineffective” opponents). The state attorney general’s troubles are his own fault, not Cornyn’s.
但这些细节不如以下暗示引人注目：如果特朗普真的相信帕克斯顿有望获胜，他就不会试图把这场竞选的失败责任推到自己身上。
But these details are less striking than the implication that, if Trump genuinely believed Paxton was well positioned to win, the president wouldn’t be looking to shift the blame for this race away from himself.
这并不是说塔拉利科肯定会赢——我们将在19天后见分晓——而且鉴于极右翼巨额捐款人正在向德克萨斯州倾注巨额资金，埃隆·马斯克及其团队仍有可能成功为帕克斯顿买下这个席位。但特朗普的愤怒备忘录并不利于帕克斯顿的胜算。
This is not to say that Talarico definitely win — we should find out in 19 days — and with far-right megadonors throwing an enormous amount of money at Texas, it’s still possible that Elon Musk & Co. will successfully buy the seat for Paxton. But Trump’s angry missive does not speak well of Paxton’s chances.
这篇帖子《担心肯·帕克斯顿在德克萨斯州落败，特朗普试图提前把责任推给约翰·科宁》 MS NOW
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