God, guns and Russia. Those were among the topics Gov Greg Abbott touched on Friday, when speaking to thousands of Republicans gathered for their every-other-year state convention, this time at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. "If Texas was its own country," Abbott said, when he was interrupted by large cheers. "Let me rephrase that. If Texas was its own country again, we'd have the 10th largest economy in the entire world. "The Texas economy alone is larger than Russia's," he said with a grin. "And that makes me more powerful than Putin."