Elephant surprise at Texas GOP convention

Excerpts from the reporting on the Chron website:

All day, visitors to the Texas Republican Party’s 2026 convention in Houston were teased of a big surprise. But it wasn’t a guest appearance from, say, President Donald Trump or another Republican luminary. It was bigger and messier than that, somehow.

At the Texas Republican Party’s 2026 convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, Gov. Greg Abbott spoke to a room full of the party faithful. After urging that the state Republican Party come together to defeat the Democrats in this fall’s midterm elections, Abbott did a little bit of Trumpian showmanship by bringing out a live elephant named Page.

The elephant, one of God’s biggest and most majestic creations, is ripe for metaphor; the phrase “elephant in the room” felt apt after party chair Abraham George was ousted Friday by D’rinda Randall, his former running mate, over intra-party squabbles. But Page, perhaps incredibly aware of where she was, decided to take it another step further by, well, you know what? There’s not a family-friendly way to say it. Page the elephant took a big ole’ piss all over that convention center floor as soon as she walked past the press area.

No matter what political persuasion you belong to, this is incredible content. If you’re a Republican who thinks every member of the press is the devil incarnate, well isn’t that just great timing that Page peed by the journalists’ area? If you’re a Democrat looking at President Donald Trump and the national Republican Party’s bleak midterm prospects, what’s funnier than the literal, in-the-flesh symbol of the Grand Ole Party relieving itself on public infrastructure out of fear of being around hundreds of old white people? God truly does work in mysterious ways.