The Texas Democratic Party seems to be in a state of suspended animation.
Nothing is happening in preparation for the 2014 elections until a certain Democratic state senator announces whether she’s running for Texas governor next year.
Well, Ms. Wendy Davis? What’s it gonna be?
That’s the crux of a Texas Tribune report that notes how other Texas Democrats — what’s left of them — are too “chicken” to declare their intentions until state Sen. Davis decides her next course of action.
http://www.texastribune.org/2013/08/27/texas-democrats-wait-davis-/
Davis, D-Fort Worth, has become the state’s newest Democratic superstar. I’m thinking she could be the next Ann Richards, the colorful and articulate former state treasurer who ran for governor in 1990, defeating Midland oil mogul Claytie Williams in one of the more rip-roarin’ campaigns in recent years.
Davis’s superstar credentials came as she led a filibuster in June that stopped temporarily a strict bill banning abortions in Texas after the 20th week of pregnancy. Davis talked for more than 13 hours before the clock ran out on the Texas Legislature, whose Republican majority wanted the bill to pass.
They brought it back in the second special session and it sailed through to Gov. Rick Perry desk.
Davis, however, now is acting very much as though she wants to run for governor. She’d be a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination. A fall campaign, though, remains highly problematic in this heavily Republican state. Attorney General Greg Abbott is the GOP favorite; he faces former GOP chairman Tom Pauken in the upcoming Republican primary. There can be zero doubt that either Abbott or Pauken would be difficult for any Democrat to beat in the fall.
Decision day is coming soon for Wendy Davis. Whatever she decides about a governor’s race is sure to spring open the gates for other Democrats to decide what they’ll do. The question for the Texas Democratic Party well might be whether they’ll be able to field a slate of candidates up and down the ballot.
Someone such as Sen. Davis at the top of the ballot could go a long way toward luring other strong Democrats into the arena.
Let’s all stay tuned.