https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2014-05-16/greg-abbott-trolls-wendy-davis/

Greg Abbott Trolls Wendy Davis

By Brandon Watson, May 16, 2014, 4:15pm, Newsdesk

Listen closely. Do you hear that faint thud? It's coming from Twitter, where Greg Abbott supporters are busy tweeting out "bon mots" in celebration of Wendy Davis' 51st birthday. It's like watching Don Rickles struggle through a community production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The zingers have all the bite of a four-day-old profiterole.

The fun started this morning with the Abbott campaign (via its www.defeatdavis.com) releasing four e-cards, lazily cobbled together from Someecards clip art templates. Each highlights a supposed scandal rocking the Davis' campaign. Are you mad that Davis believes in the separation of church and state? Say it in an e-card. Write it in icing on an exploding birthday cake. Send her a piñata. Fill it with bees! #WendyBirthday

The intention was to add some humor to the dry work of casting gubernatorial shade. After a hard day of making mountains out of molehills, one needs a little levity to dry off the sweat. All that is well and good. One hardly expects opposing sides to extend warm greetings. But if Abbott's campaign is going to try their hand at snark, the least they could do is make it funny. The ecards they designed are more like deflated whoopee cushions.

Of course, Abbott's wooden attempts at hilarity pale in comparison to those of his supporters. Right-leaning folks have seized the moment to send their own birthday funnies.

We'll wait for you stop belly laughing, but maybe today's exercise did do some good. Wendy Davis has something to wish for when she blows out the birthday candles. And who knows? Somewhere out in the conservative Twittersphere, we may find the next Paula Poundstone.