Republican strategist Karl Rove believes Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) will lose his Senate bid if he refuses to debate Democratic opponent state Rep. James Talarico - a statement that would be more shocking if it weren't the most obvious political calculus since "candidate who won't show up might not win."

"If he doesn't debate, I think he loses," Rove said Wednesday at The Economic Club of Chicago, appearing alongside Democratic strategist David Axelrod. "If he debates, the question is, is he going to be able to go on the offense?"

Axelrod, never one to let a Republican strategist enjoy a moment of clarity unchallenged, offered his own diagnosis: "There's a reason he hasn't debated in 16 years. He's not adroit."

"You don't need to be adroit in this," Rove shot back, a sentence that could serve as the unofficial motto of modern American politics. "The question is, does he have the guts to do it?"

Rove then sketched out his imagined debate strategy for Paxton: "Because he goes into the debate and says, 'You can say all those negative things about me … but I was cleared by the state Senate but I understand why you want to talk about that cause you don't talk about [other issues].'"

The "negative things" in question refer to Paxton's 2023 impeachment, when state representatives voted to indict him on corruption charges before the Texas Senate acquitted him. Rove concluded, "I don't know if he's got the political moxie to say, 'My future depends on me getting into a debate and coming out the winner.'"

Talarico has repeatedly hammered Paxton for ducking debates, most recently challenging him to a Fox News debate during a CBS interview last week - a move that suggests the Democrat understands the assignment better than the Republican strategist does.

Despite President Trump carrying Texas in every presidential bid, a September Fox News poll showed Paxton trailing Talarico by 2 points, within the survey's 3-point margin of error. The favorability gap was even wider: Talarico earned an 8-point net positive rating, while Paxton sat at 18 points underwater. In political terms, that's not a dip - that's a submarine.

The president, who has endorsed Paxton, called him "a pain in the a - " during stops this week in Texas and Oklahoma, acknowledging the attorney general is "a little controversial." Trump did add that Paxton "was at my side more than anybody" when he "was being hit by the radical left very hard" - which is either loyalty or Stockholm syndrome, depending on your perspective.

Trump's Texas visit came shortly after The New York Times obtained an audio clip in which Paxton said the president's GOP midterm convention in Dallas "dropped our numbers." A senior Paxton adviser called the report "manipulated nonsense," which is the kind of denial that only makes the audio more convincing.

During that same convention, Trump said he doesn't "like the way Ken [Paxton] dresses," "talks" or "looks" but called the Senate hopeful "the greatest" attorney general in the country. So to recap: the president thinks Paxton looks bad, talks bad, dresses bad, is a pain in the a - , is controversial, and may have hurt his own numbers - but he's the greatest. Politics: it's a love language.