Tag Archives: Wendy Davis

Uncategorized

Wendy Davis struggles to reclaim authenticity

Authenticity.

Politicians of both major stripes, Democrat and Republican, rely on it to sell themselves to voters who have grown weary of shills and slick presentations. Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis, a candidate for Texas governor, had portrayed her own brand of authenticity as a divorced single mom.

Oops. Turns out she wasn’t quite as authentic as she has let on.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/20/report-wendy-davis-life-story-more-complicated-than-compelling-narrative/?hpt=hp_t3

She’s left out some details of her marriage and her divorce. She said was divorced at 19, when she really was 21 when her marriage officially ended. She also hasn’t told Texans that her former husband had custody of her children for a time.

Details to follow? They should.

Texas Democrats have been all a-flutter over Davis’s gubernatorial candidacy, believing she presents the Democratic Party with its first honest shot at winning back the governor’s office that’s been in Republican hands since George W. Bush beat Ann Richards in 1994.

Will she make good on her pledge to talk with more precision about her life? She needs to get in front of this story, although it’s looking like the story itself may lap her quickly.

Davis has built a successful law career while struggling with some domestic issues. She also has become a political superstar while telling that story. Now we hear she’s only told part of it. Voters will demand to know all the nitty-gritty of that life story, which they figure is their business, given that Davis wants to become governor of a large and prosperous state.

Sen. Davis needs to set the record completely straight. Election Day, Nov. 4, will be here before she knows it.

Uncategorized

Let’s just skip Texas governor’s primary

Can’t we just move right into the Texas general election campaign for governor?

How about just skipping these meaningless primaries? We know who’s going to be nominated: Republicans will pick Attorney General Greg Abbott; Democrats are going to nominate state Sen. Wendy Davis.

The Texas Tribune notes that the new year will see a significant spike in campaign activity from both candidates. Rest assured, they won’t talk about the primary. They’re going to talk — a lot — about each other.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/01/01/texas-governors-race-getting-more-heated/

I’m ready for a rumble.

Abbott has been the prohibitive favorite to become the next governor ever since he announced his candidacy. Davis is the underdog, given the state’s decidedly Republican tilt.

Some folks have wondered where Davis has been lurking in recent weeks. She hasn’t been as visible as some have said she should be. Never fear, says Jim Henson, a Texas Tribune pollster. She’ll get in the game quickly, as will Abbott.

He told the Tribune: “I’m looking for both of the campaigns to get very aggressive as soon as they find it strategically sound. I would expect that ethics and character are going to be big parts of both of those efforts.”

Henson told the Tribune that Abbott will focus on Davis’s private law practice and her connection with firms dealing with the Legislature; he adds that Davis will train her sights on Abbott’s role in a cancer research outfit’s involvement with someone indicted for allegedly lax tax procedures.

Who needs primaries when you have two candidates many voters know already and who are loading up for a donnybrook that won’t end until — gulp! — next November?

Uncategorized

Education becomes Texas campaign issue

I’m glad to see Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott arguing in public — more or less — about education.

One of them is going to be the next Texas governor and public education must remain at the forefront of the cluster of issues that need intense public discussion.

So far, though, only Davis — the presumptive Democratic nominee — seems willing and/or able to talk about it openly. Abbott, the Republican state attorney general who is defending the state’s school funding system in a court battle, has been mum.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2013/12/wendy-davis-prods-greg-abbott-on-education-cuts/

You need to speak to us, Mr. Attorney General.

Davis is attacking Abbott over the state’s $5.4 billion education cutbacks made three years ago. They were made allegedly on some faulty revenue forecasts. The state ended up being more flush that economists had predicted.

Davis is trying to smoke Abbott out on the cuts. Abbott, meanwhile, is representing the state in a lawsuit challenging the Texas public school funding system that a judge has ruled to be unconstitutional.

Abbott says he can’t talk about it because he’ll be in court soon to argue on behalf of the state. He’s scheduled to appear in court in another month. Perhaps after that he’ll be able to tell voters what he really thinks about the way Texas pays for public education.

Abbott is a smart lawyer. He’s experienced enough to parse his language carefully if he is truly concerned about whether he could jeopardize the standing of his client — the State of Texas.

Davis isn’t encumbered by job requirements. She’s free to speak her mind.

“Greg Abbott’s refusal to answer basic questions on the $5 billion in cuts to neighborhood schools he defends in court has revealed a ‘me first’ leadership style,” according Bo Delp, Davis’s communications director.

Both candidates say they place public education as a top priority for the next governor.

Fine. Then tell us, Mr. Attorney General, how you intend to maintain the health of our public education system.

Uncategorized

Red-light cameras become campaign issue

Republican Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who’s running for governor, had this — among other things — to say to a North Texas tea party group: “Both the advocates of red light cameras and their detractors have a point. One emphasizes safety, and the other emphasizes privacy.”

Let’s hold it right there.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/12/05/governors-race-draws-spotlight-red-light-cameras/

I am an advocate of red-light camera technology, which is being deployed in many cities across the state, including Amarillo. I see it as a safety issue. It is making it safer for people to drive without getting clobbered by idiots who ignore street lights instructing them to stop.

The other side, I am presuming from Abbott’s remark, suggests that the cameras are “invasive” and that they intrude on people’s “privacy.”

I’ve had this argument with more anti-red light camera residents in Amarillo than I care to count.

My point about the so-called privacy issue simply is this: Motorists driving vehicles on public streets, putting other people’s health and their very lives, by ignoring traffic laws have no inherent right of privacy. Period.

Some of those foes suggest that government is overreaching by allowing cities to implement these devices. They stand behind some bogus conservative political theory that says government has no right to intrude in this manner.

My answer? That is pure crap.

The state used to prohibit cities from deploying these cameras. Then the Legislature changed part of its collective mind by allowing the cameras, but then requiring cities to dedicate revenue raised from fines to traffic safety improvements. That’s all fine. The state also takes a significant cut of the revenue raised. That’s OK too.

The people elected to govern cities deserve the chance to determine what’s best for the communities. Amarillo’s elected commission (now city council) decided in 2008 that it was in the city’s best interest to deploy these cameras at selected intersections. Have the cameras stopped red-light runners? No. They have, however, deterred some folks from doing it and they have raised revenue to pay for improvements in traffic signalization around the city.

I am tiring rapidly, though, of the argument that the anti-camera crowd keeps harping on regarding privacy. These clowns aren’t protecting anything except their bogus “right” to break traffic laws.

Tom Pauken, another GOP candidate for governor, opposes the cameras. He says they’re intent is to raise money, not make streets safer. Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth — which has the cameras deployed — also is running for governor; she favors the cameras.

Let us have this debate. I want to hear candidates for governor explain rationally how privacy matters when it involves motorists traveling along publicly owned streets.

Uncategorized

Shocking! Sen. Wendy Davis’s income jumps

So now it is revealed that state Sen. Wendy Davis’s law practice is proving to be lucrative for the legislator.

That’s a surprise?

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/12/04/wendy-davis-sees-legal-income-rise/

Davis, who’s running for Texas governor and figures to be a shoo-in for the Democratic Party’s nomination, released her past three years’ tax returns. They reveal that her private law practice income has doubled. It’s a good thing for her, too, given that she earns $7,200 a year as a state senator, plus the per diem expense stipend she gets when the Legislature is in session.

It’s long been something of an open secret that many lawmakers parlay their public service exposure into money-making strategies for their day jobs. Davis’s law practice wasn’t doing badly for her in 2010, the first year of the returns she released. Her income went from $130,000 annually that year to $284,000 in 2012. Not bad, right?

Well, that’s the way it goes for public figures. Every aspect of their so-called “private life” becomes subject to public scrutiny.

Attorney General Greg Abbott, who’s running for the Republican nomination for governor, had released his tax returns earlier.

Davis’s income story, of course, doesn’t quite end with the amount of money she earned. The law firm she founded has had dealings with some high-dollar public-sector clients, which is where some folks have suggested has produced potential conflicts of interest. She’ll need to reveal those relationships — in detail.

That, too, is the price of being in the public eye.

Uncategorized

Women lead the way for Democrats

Juan Williams, writing for The Hill newspaper, says that women might be the saviors for the Democratic Party.

I scanned through the piece and noticed a critical omission: no mention of Texas.

Take a look:

http://thehill.com/opinion/juan-williams/191675-juan-williams-dems-are-now-party-of-women

Williams, a frequent contributor for the Fox News Channel (as one of the network’s handful of token liberals), looks at the rise across the nation of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and of course former first lady/Sen./Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

These all are legitimate powerhouses on the national political stage.

However, out here in Texas there is another possible surge in the making — courtesy of women.

State Sens. Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte are running for Texas governor and lieutenant governor, respectively. They both are being seen by the state Democratic establishment as being critical to their party’s possible resurgence.

Is it probable? Well, many experts around Texas don’t think so. Republicans have cemented their grip on the state’s political infrastructure. They occupy every statewide office and they keep winning with impressive margins. The state has gone through a fundamental political personality transformation since, oh, about 1978, when it elected its first GOP governor since Reconstruction. It’s been downhill ever since for the Texas Democratic Party.

Davis and Van de Putte, though, represent two key constituencies that Democrats will need. Women — of course — and Hispanics, given Van de Putte’s ethnic heritage. The Hispanic vote remains solidly Democratic in Texas, although Gov. Rick Perry has fared well among that group of voters in recent election cycles. Perry, though, is not running. That creates a significant opening for Hispanic activists to get out the vote.

The female vote centers on abortion rights. The Texas GOP has enacted strict rules prohibiting a woman’s right end a pregnancy. That battle in the Legislature propelled Davis to the national stage earlier this year. Davis certainly cannot run on that issue alone, but the passion she stirred among women across the state could serve as a key driver in her bid to become governor next year.

I am not predicting a victory for Democrats next year. I am hopeful, though, that renewed interest in the two Democratic candidates at the top of the state’s ballot can create buzz among voters and deliver a lively campaign that requires Republicans to explain themselves as they campaign across the state.

Uncategorized

Will the tide turn on Hispanic votes?

Paul Burka’s blog on the candidacy of state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte suggests a now-or-virtually-never scenario for Texas Democrats.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/leticia-van-de-putte-enters-race

Van de Putte is running for lieutenant governor. She is a Hispanic woman with a lot of appeal to the base of her party. The question she faces — as do Texas Democrats — is whether she can motivate Texas Hispanics to vote in next year’s race for lieutenant governor and governor.

Van de Putte joins state Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth at the top of the Democratic Party ticket next year. Davis’s chances of becoming the next governor are longer than long, according to Burka and many other analysts. I’m not so sure about that … but that’s just little ol’ me.

Burka is right about Hispanics’ turnout in previous elections. It hasn’t been good. He notes also that Texas Hispanics are descended from folks who came into Texas from Mexico, where the political culture hasn’t been kind to folks who depend on government. Burka writes, “Hispanics emigrated to America from a country whose government seldom did things FOR people, but rather did things TO people. In such circumstances, the degree of trust or belief in government and politicians was, and remains, negligible. All too easily, the culture of Mexican politics was transplanted to the Texas side of the border.”

A very high hurdle sits in front of Van de Putte and Davis as they seek to break the GOP’s hold on statewide offices.

They’ll need to “nationalize” this campaign by linking the Republican nominees for governor and lieutenant governor to the extreme policies of their party’s national brain trust: government shutdown, immigration reform reluctance and, of course, women’s reproductive rights.

If they can connect those dots, there might be a Texas transformation in the making.

Uncategorized

Two senators: same ideology, different styles

Ross Ramsey’s analysis of Texas’s two Republican U.S. senators reminded me of a political truism authored by none other than the late President Richard Nixon.

Nixon, who essentially wrote the modern political playbook, used to say that candidates run to their extremes during the primary and tack toward the center in the general election. The president’s theory applied to Democrats and Republicans.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/11/25/senate-matter-style/

That might work in most eras and in most states. Not in Texas. Not now.

Ramsey, the editor of the Texas Tribune, says Sen. John Cornyn has stepped right out of “central casting” to be a U.S. senator. White hair, former judge, former state attorney general, handsome features. “Soft face.” He says Sen. Ted Cruz presents a different image. Black hair. Fiery temperament. He’s a TV camera hustler.

Cornyn is running for re-election this year. He might face a serious challenge from his right, from the tea party — aka the wacko — wing of his party. Why? Mainly because he opposed Cruz’s tactic of tying Affordable Care Act funding with the government shutdown earlier this year.

Cornyn is a virtual shoo-in for re-election. To secure his party’s nomination in the spring, he’ll have to say all the right things. He might even have to harden that soft face of his while saying them. He’ll blast the ACA to smithereens. He’ll say mean things about Democrats in general. He might even accuse the president of being something other than a true-blue American.

In another time, though, Cornyn then would veer toward the middle, saying more reasonable things. He would talk about his desire to reach across the aisle to work his “friends on the other side.” He might even mention that he is pals with a few of those Democrats.

But these days, in Texas, the Nixon Axiom no longer seems to matter. Cornyn likely will stay focused on the far right. He might even get more inflammatory as the campaign progresses into the summer and fall of 2014. That’s because so many Texas votes seem comfortable with their senators tossing bombs.

Look at Cruz’s popularity among Texas Republican at this moment. If you’re a Texas politician, all that seems to matter is whether the GOP faithful will stand with you.

All of this could play out as described here, except for one possible factor: whether Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis’s campaign for governor gins up enough support among women angry at the GOP’s stance on abortion rights. I’m not predicting that will happen.

However, if it does, then President Nixon’s general election strategy is back in play.

Uncategorized

Women hold key to Democrats’ future?

Leticia Van de Putte has become the latest candidate for Texas lieutenant governor.

The biggest news of all simply might be that she isn’t a Republican. She’s a Democratic state senator from South Texas who now stands as the prohibitive favorite to win her party’s nomination in next spring’s primary.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/11/24/women-led-ticket-shows-where-democrats-pin-hopes/

Van de Putte will face a tough challenge if she hopes to break the GOP’s vise-grip on statewide offices. She joins another prominent Democrat, state Sen. Wendy Davis, at the top of the ballot; Davis is an equally prohibitive favorite to be the Democratic nominee for governor.

As the Texas Tribune points out in the link attached to this blog post, Democrats may be targeting suburban women as their essential voting demographic group. Women, Democrats hope, just might be upset enough at Republicans’ view of abortion that they’ll turn out in sufficient numbers next year to elect fellow women to high office.

It’s a big risk. Texas Republicans have good reason to be confident as election year approaches.

Their candidates — namely Attorney General Greg Abbott — are flush with money. Abbott is the clear favorite to win the GOP governor’s primary and he is in strong position to win the big prize next November. Davis presents Democrats with their strongest gubernatorial candidate in many election cycles. Van de Putte joined Davis this past spring in battling legislative Republicans over a restrictive GOP-sponsored abortion laws.

Will these two candidates be able to parlay that notoriety into votes this coming fall?

Democrats hope so. In a state that remains solidly in Republican hands, their hope might resemble a pipe dream.

I do know this: A most interesting lieutenant governor’s race just got even more so with Leticia Van de Putte’s entry.

Uncategorized

Sen. Cornyn touts GOP ‘family’

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has launched his re-election campaign with a pledge to seek unity within the Republican Party “family.”

Good luck with that one, senator.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/11/15/cornyn-touts-big-tent-gop-perry/

Cornyn’s bid for another term in the Senate is likely to succeed next fall. It well might occur with some bumps and bruises along the way.

He spoke at a campaign rally this week of his disagreement with fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz over Cruz’s effort to derail the Affordable Care Act; that effort, which included the fake filibuster on the Senate floor, helped produce the 16-day partial government shutdown.

“We had a minor disagreement in the family” over the government shutdown debate, Cornyn said. But, by golly, he intends to work to ensure that Texas doesn’t elect a “Nancy Pelosi clone” as governor, meaning Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis.

Cornyn and other Republicans, though, keep talking about the so-called “big tent” philosophy they say describes the Republican Party. The big tent, they say, has produced the disagreements within the party. The tea party wing of the GOP, however, hardly seems inclusive of folks Republicans will need to win national elections in the future. I refer, of course, to immigrants, racial minorities, gays, pro-choice women and those who rely on government assistance to help them put food on their tables and clothes on their children’s backs.

Having said all these negative things about Cornyn’s party, allow me to say that I happen to like the senator. I’ve met with him many times over many years, dating back to when he ran for the Texas Supreme Court, state attorney general and then during his time as U.S. senator. We always got along well.

I fear, though, that he’s going to tack too far to the right to protect his flank against those might attack him from the extreme fringes of his party. They’re out there, waiting for the chance to draw blood.

All this unity talk, therefore, is just that. Talk.