Tag Archives: Wendy Davis

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Sen. Davis good to go … for governor?

I’m wrong about these things more often than I’m right, but it’s looking to me as though Wendy Davis is going to run for Texas governor next year.

The Fort Worth Democratic state senator will make her plans known on Oct. 3.

What’s interesting to me is the suspense she is building into the announcement. See the link here:

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2013/09/wendy-davis-to-announce-plans-on-oct-3/

If she were to announce that she is going to seek re-election to her Senate seat, my hunch is that she’d just say so: “I’ve decided, after careful consideration and prayer, that I will not be a candidate for governor and will seek re-election to Senate District 10 and will seek to continue to serve my Fort Worth constituents.”

There. That would be it. Over and done.

But she’s asking her supporters to spread the word to others who they think would like to be the “first to know” her plans.

That feels to me as though a run for governor is in the wind.

All the excitement in this contest so far has been on the Republican side. Attorney General Greg Abbott is the odds-on favorite to be nominated by the GOP over former state Republican Party chairman Tom Pauken of Dallas. (Full disclosure: I’ve known Pauken personally for more than 25 years and I am pulling for him to at least make a contest of his party’s primary fight.)

It could be that the excitement quotient is going to shift dramatically toward the Democratic primary if Wendy Davis answers the bell. Davis burst onto the national scene with her dramatic filibuster of an anti-abortion bill in the waning hours of the Legislature’s first special session.

Will she win next fall?

That remains the multimillion-dollar question, given that’s how much it’s going to cost the next person who will become governor to succeed Rick Perry.

Texas remains a deeply ruby-red state, in the vise grip of Republican officeholders. Texans have shown a propensity in recent election cycles to elect Republicans over more qualified Democrats just because of their party affiliation. But, hey, Texans did the same thing in reverse back when Democrats were the top dog.

Sen. Davis would surely energize a moribund political party that’s been whipped so often it’s lost much of its will to win.

Please, though, don’t hold me to any of this. We’ll just wait for Wendy to give us the word.

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Waiting on Texas Democrats

As I watch the 2014 Texas political campaign take shape, I keep waiting for some news — any news — about Democrats.

So far, I’m hearing none.

There likely will be a change in one race, the one for governor, if state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, jumps into that contest.

But to date, all the interest, excitement and anticipation are on the Republican side of the ballot.

This tells me at least two things:

The Texas Democratic Party is as near-dead as ever before and the Texas Republican Party is feeling its oats while the opposition continues to flounder.

I wish the Democrats could somehow spring to life, if only to challenge the Republicans and to hold them accountable for the policies they keep enacting into law.

The Republican side is so exciting, actually, that there’s some talk simmering about whether some “mainstream” GOP officeholders will be challenged by tea party candidates. U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, a Republican member of Congress, is facing such a challenge. There’s been talk of the tea party zealots challenging U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. Good luck with that one.

Democrats? They’re virtually nowhere to be found.

The Dems keep talking bravely about staging a comeback. Hollow talk, though, won’t get the job done.

As for the Republicans, they might have their hands full trying to maintain some semblance of control within their own ranks. Hold on. It’s likely to be a bumpy ride through GOP Land.

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Democrats waiting on Wendy

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.

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Battle of the Barbies heats up

A couple of Dallas Morning News writers — Mike Hashimoto and Nicole Stockdale — are tussling over the reaction to the “Barbie” moniker hung on state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth.

Hashimoto apparently sees media reaction as being a bit hypocritical, given that former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was called “Caribou Barbie” when she was all the rage. Stockdale doesn’t see it that way.

I agree with Stockdale.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/08/abortion-barbie-vs-caribou-barbie.html/

Davis was called “retard Barbie” by someone supporting Republican Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot’s campaign for Texas governor. Davis is dropping hints all over Texas that she’s thinking about running for the Democratic Party nomination for governor. We’ll all know soon whether she’s in or out.

My sense is that the reaction to the “retard Barbie” slur has been based mostly on Abbott’s rather timid reaction to it. Instead of condemning such language with indignation and disgust, he has offered some timid disclaimers about being unable to control what people say on social media.

“Caribou Barbie” was meant, as I understand it, to call attention to (1) Palin’s attractiveness and (2) her devotion to the Alaska lifestyle.

Nicole Stockdale asks: What’s wrong with that?

I see nothing wrong with such a reference in that context.

The Davis reference — which was posted with hatred — is quite another matter.

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Tweeting can be hazardous to campaigns

Tweeting, twittering, twirling … whatever you want to call it, has become the new normal in modern American political campaigning.

Isn’t that right, Greg Abbott?

The Texas Tribune reports that Twitter has become a bane as well as a boon to campaigns, as Abbott is finding out.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/08/19/abbott-incident-highlights-risks-tweeting-candidat/

A fan of Abbott tweeted something quite derogatory the other day about state Sen. Wendy Davis, the Fort Worth Democrat who might enter the Texas governor’s race that already features Abbott, the state’s Republican attorney general. The Abbott fan called Davis “a retard Barbie.” Abbott thanked the individual for his support, was blasted by Texas Democratic officials, and then said in a follow-up tweet that he cannot control the language that supporters use on his behalf.

But the fans of every candidate of every stripe are out there en masse — by the tens of millions — tossing thoughts into cyberspace. They might be reasonable and rational, or they might be idiotic and moronic.

These candidates are having to take the good with the bad in this Social Media Age.

Meanwhile, political strategists are having to come up with ways to defend their candidates against the nonsense spewed out and the reaction to it from their opponents.

Good luck with that.

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Wait until governor’s race really heats up

Well, it hasn’t taken long at all for a potential campaign for Texas governor to get, um, real nasty.

A backer of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has referred to state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Forth Worth, as “retard Barbie,” which Abbott responded with a word of “thanks for your support” in a tweet.

Abbott’s lack of disgust over the description of a potential opponent for the governorship — that would be Davis — has drawn intense fire already from another Democratic leader.

Abbott backer calls Wendy Davis ‘Retard Barbie,’ Abbott thanks him for support

Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilbert Hinojosa said this in a statement:

“That Greg Abbott would thank a supporter for calling Senator Wendy Davis a ‘Retard Barbie’ is absolutely disgusting and disturbing. This is what Republicans think about women — that a Harvard law school graduate, State Senator, and a long time fighter for Texas families deserves such inappropriate slander. Greg Abbott endorses such disrespect. The people of Texas deserves so much better than this from their public officials. And the women of Texas deserve leaders who respect them as human beings.”

Davis hasn’t yet said whether she’ll run for governor next year, although some observers think the signs suggest she’s getting ready to go for it.

Run, Wendy, run.

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Davis a go for Texas governor?

The Texas political media are full of smart folks who know the ins and outs of the state’s raucous political world.

One of the smarter guys, Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News, thinks state Sen. Wendy Davis is likely to run for Texas governor in 2014.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2013/08/wendy-davis-all-signals-point-to-a-go-for-governor-of-texas.html/

I hope he’s right, if only because the Republicans Party establishment needs a serious challenge from the “other” major party.

Davis, the Fort Worth Democrat, who made such a splash with her spectacular legislative special session filibuster against an anti-abortion bill — which eventually became law during the second special session — is trying to decide whether to run for the state’s top job next year. The winds are hitting her square in the face, as Texas remains a heavily Republican state.

But man, she is charismatic and would enliven the contest like no other Democrat.

Republicans have their own gubernatorial fight brewing between state Attorney General Greg Abbott and Dallas lawyer/businessman and former state GOP chairman Tom Pauken. Abbott has to be considered the odds-on favorite in that primary — and in next fall’s general election.

Davis, though, would be an attention-getter were she to be nominated by Texas Democrats (duh!).

The state needs a white-hot campaign at the top of its political ballot. Wendy Davis would ignite it, no matter who she would face.