When Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a paraplegic, announced his candidacy for governor we editors here at New Mobility had a spirited debate about him.

He’s a great man, I asserted. That’s hard for me to admit, since my politics lean toward tree-hugging.

And it’s not every decade that a wheelchair user is considered the most likely candidate to win a gubernatorial race. That’s big, we said.

But! But … well, Abbott’s not exactly a friend to the disability community. He’s not shown up at any disability-related events, according to our Texan sources, outside of Wounded Warriors. And he even asserted in federal court that Texas ought to be exempt from the ADA, since he believes Texas has sovereign immunity. Ideologically, he is proud of how staunchly conservative he is. The phrase “staunch conservative” actually seems to have been created special just for him. Heck, he’s right of Rick Perry!

Sure, sure … that’s … unexpected. But then, who says all wheelchair users have to be advocates? Or even have to agree with what most of us think of as our common agenda?

And round and round we went.

That’s when we realized we had to put Abbott on the cover, in all his complicated greatness.

Look for it in your mailbox around Nov. 1.