Promising news, from the NYTimes:
Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator who captured the national spotlight with an 11-hour filibuster against restricting abortion rights, turned up in Washington on Monday with the news that she was considering a run for governor.
“I can say with absolute certainty that I will run for one of two offices: either my State Senate seat or the governor,” Ms. Davis said after a luncheon and speech at the National Press Club.
It was Ms. Davis’s second trip to Washington in as many weeks — a period when she has met with staff members at the Democratic Governors Association, raised money at sold-out fund-raisers, turned up at parties around town and huddled with Emily’s List…
Mr. Frost estimated Monday that Democrats would need to raise about $35 million to $40 million. During the last two weeks of June, Ms. Davis raised more than $930,000, much of it in small contributions after her filibuster, The Texas Tribune reported last month.
As her star rises, Ms. Davis has also been a boon to Texas Democrats, drawing national attention to a party desperate for the momentum to break out in a solidly red state. On Monday, she offered nods to her fellow Democrats, calling Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio and Representative Joaquin Castro “extraordinary” and acknowledging the “masterful” help of her fellow Texas Democrats during her filibuster….
Organizers expected 150 people to attend a fund-raiser in Washington for Ms. Davis on July 25, one month after her headline-catching filibuster, with $25 student tickets and $50 individual tickets selling out days in advance. But 400 people showed up, said Matt Angle, a longtime adviser to Ms. Davis and director of the Lone Star Project, a Democratic policy group.
Too, also, cheers for The Intimidator:
Seven months into Senator Barbara A. Mikulski’s new assignment as chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, there is already a saying among members: “We loved Byrd, we respected Inouye, we fear Barbara.”
It is not hard to see why. Ms. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, intimidates people in a way that the two most recent committee chairmen, the late Senators Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, did not. During a March floor debate, Ms. Mikulski ordered Senator John McCain of Arizona to go back to his office and read a bill so he could properly vote on it — and Mr. McCain, chastened but cheerful, agreed…
Ms. Mikulski, who legislates with two parts accommodation and one part coercion, now finds herself at the center of a spending brawl on Capitol Hill. At 77, she is the longest serving woman in Congress, the first female leader of its most august committee and the fulcrum in a fiscal fight that will dominate Washington this fall.
With Ms. Mikulski at the helm, the Senate Appropriations Committee — for decades a quiet outpost of bipartisan check-writing financing every corner of the government — is charged with heading off what could be the first shutdown of Washington after three years of near misses. She has already begun by reviving the committee from an earlier somnolence, when staff members directed much of the action and partisan peace was kept by awarding senators money for the pet spending projects universally denounced as earmarks.
“You take your persona from the generation you come in with,” Ms. Mikulski said in an interview. “And mine is a very activist generation.” …
This (via Ed Kilgore), on the other hand…
… Nancy Mace, the first woman to graduate from The Citadel, announced Saturday in Goose Creek that she will challenge [Lindsey] Graham in the 2014 Republican primary, declaring, “I believe our state desperately needs new leadership, someone who truly understands the challenges before us and what’s at stake and is willing to fight for the principles that make America great.”
Mace, who runs a public relations firm, has criticized Graham as not conservative enough. She also dropped the name of the nation’s 40th president…
NotMax
Perhaps just me, but fail to see the kinship of the pieces quoted to the third tag cited.
Linda Featheringill
@NotMax:
Women are challenging established male politicians, Democratic and Republican. .
I would like to add: What Rhymes with Allison Lundergan Grimes?
Patricia Kayden
@NotMax: Probably just contrasting Republican women with Democratic women. There is a big difference as it seems as if Republican women are okay with restricting access to reproductive rights.
I wish Ms. Davis all the best, although Governor of such a red state like Texas sounds like an unattainable goal. I gather Republicans in Texas are moving to get rid of her seat as I write this.
And go on, Rep Mikulski. Proud of my fellow Marylander.
geg6
@Linda Featheringill:
Heh. I’m loving me some of Ms. Grimes. She pissed Yertle off at that picnic this past weekend but good. I suppose, being from Kentucky and all, that she’s a bit of a Blue Dog but she seems to be a Blue Dog with a hell of a bite.
mai naem
@Linda Featheringill: I gave dimes to the white faced mimes in bad times.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Patricia Kayden: They tried something like that with Elizabeth Warren by not confirming her nomination the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, what ever happened to her?
mai naem
Mornin’ Ho is bitching about GOP presidents not having movies made with Nicole Wallace chiming in. Nicole Wallace, who was involved in “Game Change.” Also too, Mika, the supposed Democrat Cohost, made no comment about all the Nixon movies made.
Linda Featheringill
@mai naem:
:-)
WereBear
@mai naem: The beauty of the Republican brain is that it’s ALL short-term memory.
Ben Cisco
OT, but sad news on the music front: George Duke passed away last night, one year after losing his wife to cancer.
George Duke – Missing You
TriassicSands
@Linda Featheringill:
Malice and underpants crimes?
@Patricia Kayden:
Could that be because the typical Republican female politician realizes that you can’t restrict a rich person’s reproductive rights?
TriassicSands
From the mouth of Lindsey Graham:
“I am going to Egypt because my country needs me and Sen. McCain in a bipartisan fashion to speak to the Egyptian people about their future and our relationship,” Graham said. (emphasis mine — TS)
Bipartisan? Did Obama ask Graham and McCain to go, or is the “bipartisan” trip at the request of Harry Reid? I mean, Graham has been so supportive of Obama and especially Obama’s foreign policy, it’s a wonder he didn’t get a cabinet post in the second Obama administration.
Baud
@TriassicSands:
FTFY
Elizabelle
Hello to Mary G and Higg’s Bosun Mate.
(((Waves))))
Tipping a coffee cup to you both. Hope all is well.
TriassicSands
@Baud:
If only that were true. What a great idea.
Elizabelle
@Ben Cisco:
Was just reading he had a new album out, in tribute to his late wife. RIP.
Citizen_X
Inconceivable! Is this parallel-universe John McCain?
JasonF
It wasn’t that long ago that phrases like “female graduate of the Citadel” were making conservatives’ blood boil. So say what you will about the troglodytes in the Tea Party and the Republican Party, the idea that a female Citadel graduate would be embraced by the right in South Carolina is something to behold — something that was unimaginable even 20 years ago.
Ben Cisco
@Elizabelle: I got it, and it is excellent.
youtube.com/watch?v=0hpmkFmzd9s
RP
Ugh. Mikulski is awful.
feebog
@ TriassicSands:
What, another Anthony Wiener joke?
Yatsuno
@BillinGlendaleCA: Minor correction: she was never nominated to head the CFPB. She was instrumental in getting it established, however, and the Repubs blocked her at every turn. They just didn’t seem to like Liz…
sparrow
@RP: Care to elaborate? I just moved to MD not too long ago.
Nina
I adore Mikulski. She has long been the holder of the ‘Worst Temper in Washington” title from Washingtonian magazine. She’s about 2 feet tall, looks like the Campbell Soup Kid, and will tear you a new one if you get your facts wrong or try to equivocate to cover the fact that you don’ t know something.
Fear the Babs, hon.
Nina
She’s abrasive, vindictive, and she never forgets.
She has not been as up front about LGBT issues as she could have been, especially given the rumors about her private life. She is rock solid on worker’s rights, women’s rights, and civil rights aside from LGBT issues.
And on the LGBT she did get out of the way once she realized she was on the wrong side of history.
Trollhattan
@Ben Cisco:
:-( I know him mostly as a Mother of Invention but enjoyed his solo and other collaborations, too. He was one of the bright spots in the fusion scares of the ’70s and ’80s.
RIP, George.
karen
@Patricia Kayden:
As another Marylander, I too have pride and love my Senator Mikulski.
karen
@mai naem:
I guess they forgot about the movies about the Reagans.
schrodinger's cat
I read the NYT story, why does the reporter writing it have to make references to Mikulski’s weight and height? I never see male senators anatomies or their hairpieces being commented upon much in NYT.
mds
@TriassicSands:
HOT.
@schrodinger’s cat:
To be fair, many subscribers read the NYT at the breakfast table.
mds
@sparrow:
It’s possible that RP’s disgust comes from Senator Mikulski’s extreme deference to Fort Meade, which is a shame in light of how progressive she is on many other issues, including military action against Iraq.