One of the set pieces when introducing students to Texas government and politics is conveying how the visibility of the office and the governor's public image as head of state gives its occupant the power of the "bully pulpit," an informal dimension of the "message power": the capacity to direct public attention to a governor's agenda and actions, and to set the tone for government, policy and political debates. This aspect of the office has the potential to at least partially offset significant institutional limitations of the office in Texas' constitutional design (e.g. sharing power with a strong office of lieutenant governor and a plural executive rather than a cabinet model of executive government). Exploiting this power is not a given. The effectiveness of the message power depends on each particular governor's ability to effectively exploit it – generally a function of individual attributes and the context surrounding a particular governor.  

The favorability ratings in the February 2015 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll for Governor Greg Abbott compared to the other two key players in the unfolding legislative session – Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and Speaker of the House Joe Straus – nicely illustrate how the informal dimensions of the Governor's message power are expressed in public awareness of the office and its occupant. Abbott has the highest favorable rating and the best net favorable/unfavorable score; but more to the immediate point, the share of Texans who are sufficiently aware of Abbott to form an opinion about him – a very proximate but still useful indication of name recognition – is much higher than the shares of his counterparts, as is evident in the charts below.

Abbott's rating reveals that a total of 26 percent of Texans don't hold an opinion of him:

For all the attention rightly paid Lt. Governor Patrick as he has aggressively moved to shape the legislative agenda and, shall we say, re-launch the Lt. Governor's franchise as a star player in the process, his combined "neither favorable nor unfavorable" and "don't know/no opinion" ratings are nearly twice as high as the governor's at 49 percent.

As discussed in another recent piece, complete with graphics, the Speaker of the House shows up even less frequently on voters' radars.  Joe Straus' combined no opinion-neither favorable nor unfavorable expressions on the fav/unfav item totaled 74 percent.

Abbott also enjoys an advantage in claiming a large share of attention (and approval) from Republican partisans. One reasonably might hypothesize an alternative situation in which the overall numbers mask a partisan pattern, in which Democratic attitudes are masking more parity among Republicans in the war of attention, especially between Abbott and Patrick. Patrick, after all, has been very much in the public eye after a sustained primary campaign (which included a high-visibility run-off with a well funded incumbent) followed by a comparable eagerness to be in the public eye once elected. (After something of a low key general election campaign, it should be noted.) That hypothesis isn't borne out in an examination of partisan breakdown of these approval numbers.

Looking at these ratings by one of our partisan items that allows respondents to identify with the Tea Party as well as the Republican and Democratic parties reveals that Abbott is both well liked and widely recognized by Tea Party identifiers and non-Tea Party Republicans alike.

Despite his Tea Party conservative branding, Lt. Governor Patrick is far behind the governor in his share of Republicans, Tea Party and non-Tea Party alike, who have formed an opinion of him. More than half of non-Tea Party Republicans (55 percent) didn't express an opinion about him. Not surprisingly, he does much better with Tea Party identifiers, with only 31 percent not expressing any view – though that is still more than twice as many Tea Party folks as declined to express an opinion of Abbott.  

Straus, again as previously discussed, is far behind both Abbott and Patrick in the share of Republicans of all stripes who have formed opinions of him: 72 percent of non-Tea Party Republicans and 64 percent of Tea Party Texans expressed no view of him on the same item.

It's too early in Greg Abbott's term to make any kind of informed judgment about his ability to use the bully pulpit offered by the Governor's office. Preliminary indications suggest he and his advisors know that the power is there, especially his recent declaration of his policy priorities as emergency items – a clear play to gain media attention to reinforce his use one of his institutional powers vis-à-vis​ the legislature. We haven't yet seen enough response from the public or other actors in the legislature – or had the time to see how Abbott sustains this initial effort – to assess the effectiveness of his use of the message power. Polling results, however, illustrate that at least at the outset of his governorship, Abbott is the most widely recognized elected official in state government – the basic ingredient, if not the only one, that goes into the effective use of the message power.