Why This Article Falls Just Short

Overall, Daniel Hung’s article “Republican leadership is responsible for many improvements in Texas” completes its goal. It comes from The Daily Texan, a source that has been alive for a century, is given to the correct audience of Texan voters, and it makes points on why Hung believes Republicans are responsible for Texas’ prosperity. However, the author misfires at the intended audience, omits an important factor of his argument, and the argument doesn’t reach the overall point of the article. 

In the article, Hung uses California to make points on how successful of a state government Texas has. His points are probably valid and reasonable, but his intended audience is Texas voters. Unless the reader is from California, studies Californian politics, or is informed by Hung with facts on California, this argument is a swing and miss at helping his argument. If the audience doesn’t know where California ranks in the country, Texas being better than California doesn’t mean anything. For all the audience knows, California could be the 50th ranked state and Texas the 49th. The only points successfully made by this comparison were oil wealth and business climate, but all other arguments fall through due to this. 

Secondly, Hung’s argument on oil production intends to show how Republican rule is best for Texas, saying “It is this pro-growth, pro-jobs Republican policy that makes Texas one of the fastest growing states in America.” When looking deeper into this argument, the evidence does not match the claim Hung is attempting to make. This graph shows the productivity of the Texas oil market. There is a steady decrease from 1985 to 2004, leveled out from 2004 to 2010, and a sharp increase from 2010 to 2013. When looking at the governors of Texas for these years and their political affiliations, the steady decrease had party control flipping back and forth between Republicans and Democrats from Mark While (D) in 1985 to George Bush (R) in 2000. From 2000 to 2013, one governor alone, Rick Perry (R) stopped the decrease, steadied out, and sharply increased the oil production in Texas. Yes he was a Republican, but under other Republicans oil production continued to decrease. So it was not Republican rule we should necessarily be thanking, just Rick Perry. 

 Lastly, this article’s intention is to show Republican rule makes for a better overall state government, but it seems the only arguments to be made are showing Republican rule makes for a better state economy. If the argument was shooting for a better state economy than any other in the nation, you’ve got me. But that doesn’t appear to be what Hung is going for here, and it invalidates his argument. I honestly liked this article and understand how a Republican reading this will agree with all these points, but reading from a critique standpoint, Hung leaves too many holes for me to agree with him here.