Wendy Davis has officially announced and this sounds promising:
However, she may have some room for optimism in the most recent polling. According to a Texas Lyceum poll, taken Sept. 6-20, she only trails Abbott in a head-to-head race 21% to 29%. That means 50% of Texas voters are classified as “don’t know,” and that’s a powerful and flexible number. Significantly, Davis leads Abbott in Hispanic voters polled 22% to 18%, meaning that 60% of the state’s biggest untapped electoral demographic is still up for grabs, and she already has a minor lead.
Of course, this hasn’t stopped the talk of Abbott as the presumptive next tenant of the governor’s mansion (controversially, Texas Monthly recently ran a cover story calling him “The Gov.”) But then again, Davis was supposed to be a dead duck in the 2012 elections after her education filibuster, and that never happened.
An interesting race that will push Democratic turnout is never a bad thing, especially during a non-Presidential year. This will be a good one, especially since she’s running against a party full of white old men who are bound to say stupid things that will fire up Democrats.
MattF
Ooopsie, that last bit has already happened:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/09/12/2610271/texas-greg-abbott-tweets-wendy-davis-stupid/
Of course, there’s also the general ridiculousness of deeming anybody too stupid to be Texas Gov, considering recent history– but I’ve found that Texans are a bit touchy about that.
SiubhanDuinne
I live many states away, but I plan to do everything I can to help her get elected.
In unrelated news, except for the ever-present stupidity factor, a high school student who broke her leg was barred from entering the school building because her crutches might be used as weapons.
OzarkHillbilly
I’m just not seeing it.
Scott S.
Greg Abbott is the crookedest elected official in Texas — which is saying a hell of a lot, ’cause we specialize in electing crooks.
balconesfault
Abbott’s job over the last few terms … which he’s basically defined as “suing the Federal Government” … will certainly get him the GOP nomination, which since Anne Richards lost to Bush has been all it took to become Governor.
What will be interesting will be if Texas Republican women are as gung ho over Abbot’s “fuck the Feds” platform as their male counterparts … and whether a strong woman candidate might change their behavior in the ballot box next November.
Mudge
If Davis gets close, the Repugs will double down on voter suppression. Polling places will be consolidated and made less convenient to “those people”. There could be open carry intimidation.
If nothing else I hope Davis can stimulate having Texas under the microscope for the next year. Meanwhile I shall hope for the reincarnation of Molly Ivins.
fka AWS
@Scott S.:
Wow! That is a high bar.
Belafon
I hope she gets elected, I will donate and tell everyone to vote for her, but this is Texas. I won’t wake up on the day after the election crying if she’s not elected.
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne:
She should have been using AK-47’s for crutches. That probably would have been OK>
Redshirt
Good for Davis. Even if she loses, hopefully she’ll make it interesting, and not just for her race, but for any Congressional elections. Texas must be a focus for Democratic efforts to destroy the Republican Party. It can be done, and will be done, eventually.
sparrow
As a former inmate of Texas, I have to say my usual optimism is a bit dampened. I was naive enough to think Bill White would SURELY beat governor good-hair, considering he was an extremely *competent*, fairly centrist mayor of Houston. I did not understand the extent of teabagger/isolationist/glibertarian tribalist fervor, apparently. Since then I’ve been pretty down about Texas. Of course, if you got decent numbers of hispanics, poors, and women to vote, the votes are there to elect Dems. Just can’t seem to get them to the polls.
Edited to add: I will definitely contribute some of my meager funds to her campaign however. Remnants of Stockholm syndrome I guess.
Eric U.
I had a friend who lived in Texas for a while. He said that his strategy was always to vote for the most obvious crook since he was most likely to get caught. Electoral version of rooting for injuries I suppose
Seanly
Davis has a big uphill climb, but it can be the start of turning Texas blue. Good luck to her! Turnout among core Democratic groups has been low in TX and even just getting more of our folks to the polls could be a big help.
Democrats need to compete at all levels. The biggest thing we can do is win back some of the states & use the 2020 census to get rid of some of the Republican gerrymandering.
Of course, I am assuming that the United States makes it to 2020 as a viable political entity.
Seanly
Davis has a big uphill climb, but it can be the start of turning Texas blue. Good luck to her! Turnout among core Democratic groups has been low in TX and even just getting more of our folks to the polls could be a big help.
Democrats need to compete at all levels. The biggest thing we can do is win back some of the states & use the 2020 census to get rid of some of the Republican gerrymandering.
Of course, I am assuming that the United States makes it to 2020 as a viable political entity.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Holy Fuck, is this guy really on our side?
What a douchebag. All the work we’re doing trying to help Obama and this asshat just tears it all down, putting us in the worse possible light. No idea who he is but if he was on Balloon Juice, I’d rip him a new asshole and make sure he understood there are certain rules of decorum YOU DO NOT VIOLATE.
Fucker.
Scott S.
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
there are certain rules of decorum YOU DO NOT VIOLATE.
Unless you’re a Republican, in which case almost no one will complain and you’ll never pay a penalty.
Cassidy
She will lose. The fascists will suppress voting. Nothing short of this cold war going hot will rid us of the vermin.
Comrade Jake
I thought this post was going to be about this WH insider quote the WSJ posted:
I’m thinking that’s gotta be The Biden.
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: Many years ago I lived in Texas (Lubbock). Then later in life went to grad school @ LSU and spent a ton of time tooling around the state of Texas with the Allman Brothers playing. I freaking love the state of Texas. Love it. Oh how I miss San Marcos. I will send almost no politician money, I will send Wendy money if she runs. The great state of Texas deserves somebody like her running it.
? Martin
Davis has a national profile. That’s a big help. This is a race that Dems outside of Texas want to see won. I don’t get the sense anyone outside of Texas gives a shit about Abbot, except as a roadblock to Davis. Davis is the kind of candidate you can build a GOTV campaign on – and thats what she’s going to need to win. Dem turnout in Texas is horrible.
Roger Moore
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s not a really likely outcome, but it is possible. Texas has several large cities that tend to vote Democratic the way most large cities do, and it has a large Latino population that tends not to vote at anything like the rate their white counterparts do. If the Democrats can get their core of urban voters out and can motivate the Latino population to vote at the same rate whites do, they could win the election. It will take a lot of things breaking their way, but it’s an outcome worth working for because it would make a huge difference nationally.
Citizen_X
THIS, goddammit! Even if she loses she will help defeat Rethugs all around Texas.
balconesfault
@Roger Moore: I think a huge key right now would be for the Democratic Party here in the state to go find a prominent Hispanic or two to challenge for prominent statewide office (ideally, Lt. Gov).
weaselone
@Comrade Jake:
I’ve seen lots of things attributed to this “Senior Administration Official.” This “Senior Administration Official” always seems to be wrong.
I strongly suspect Senior Administration Official = Imaginary
Tommy
@Roger Moore: I can’t find this video anymore but Obama spoke in Austin in like 2007. 50,000 folks showed up in the rain. Somebody went down the line of folks waiting to get in and a women yelled “we are an island of blue in a sea of red.”
I understand this so well. I live in IL but only a few miles from MO. All my media comes from MO. There are some crazy people elected in that state, but the governor is a Democrat cause well St. Louis, Kansas City, and Columbia (where the University of MO is located) turn out and vote.
balconesfault
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Is it undiplomatic to point out that this moron cut his political teeth as an activist in the LGBT movement? Not to trivialize the battles they’ve had to fight over the last decades, and are still fighting, but it seems that movement has always been a hotbed of some very extremist rhetoric, with the caveat that those inclined to be really offended by extremist rhetoric on sexual issues were probably never going to be on their side anyway.
Doesn’t work that way on healthcare. God almighty. No wonder this guy works as an “independent consultant” if that’s all the self-control he has.
Mnemosyne
@weaselone:
Either that, or it’s someone who was a “Senior Administration Official” in the previous administration. I remember some shenanigans during the Bush years when some journalist wanted to disguise that a quote came from Scooter Libby, so he called Libby a “former House staffer” or something like that.
Roger Moore
@weaselone:
Senior Administration Official = disgruntled mail room worker
Phil Perspective
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: That’s a few weeks old now. He was one of the biggest O-bots on Twitter, with all that means.
Comrade Jake
@weaselone:
From the WSJ? Unlikely. Their op-ed writers are wingnuts, but the journalists there have more than their fair share of respectability.
Regardless, it was a pretty stupid thing to say.
Phil Perspective
@balconesfault: He might have been. See my other comment.
OzarkHillbilly
@Roger Moore:
Well, it’s possible that the earth could get hit by a giant asteroid just before the election thereby stopping the inevitable election of Abbot. ;-)
Look, here’s the deal, and as an ex-Texan who still has relatives being held hostage down there, I can assure you this is true: The problem with Texas is that it’s full of Texans. And Wendy Davis can’t change that between now and election day. So I honestly think she’s setting the table for something else with this Quiotic run. What it could be I haven’t a clue.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Phil Perspective:
Respectfully, that can’t be true. Look at the tone and substance of what he wrote. He has to be an emoprog or firebagger.
Phil Perspective
@Comrade Jake: The journalism there has gone to the dogs ever since Murdoch bought it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: And he’s Sac County’s Communifuckingcations Director? My gob is truly smacked.
Phil Perspective
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Sorry to disappoint you. He was/is good Twitter friends with a former(is she still?) FP’er here. He actually had a lot of unkind words to say about those “Emo-progs” or “Firebaggers” as you call them.
balconesfault
@Phil Perspective: Not “he might have been”. If you look at his Dem Party profile on the link, it specifically says he came up through the LBGT movement.
Unfortunately, throwing bombs over the sexual revolution doesn’t translate well to healthcare discussions. Saying “I hope your son turns out gay” isn’t quite like “I hope your daughter dies of cancer”.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne: I meant Sacramento County Dems, not the county itself.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@balconesfault: Look, I can understand someone shooting off like that pseudonymously in the comments section of a B or C-list blog – that would just be dinner hour at a blog like Balloon Juice, for instance. Who fucking cares what some internet shut-in drunkenly slurs at 3 in the morning in a comment thread of a post about a fucking cat??
But to put that out there on the Twitter machine with your name and position, that’s just the dumbest shit imaginable. I’m fairly tempted to write the Democratic Party of Sacramento County a strongly-worded letter detailing what I think should be required and enforced rules of decorum for their volunteers, contractors and employees. Someone like this fellow should be banned from the party for that shit.
jonas
Oh man, the soundbites the media will collect from old, white conservative men during this campaign are going to be epic. By the end of the election, I guarantee a lot of Texas men are going to be spending the night on the couch. I don’t know if Davis has much of a chance to actually win, but she really could end up energizing a lot of young, female, and minority voters who will begin to tip the scales in Texas — if not toward blue, then at least towards some shade of purple.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Phil Perspective:
lolwut
That doesn’t even make any sense.
balconesfault
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: I’m completely with you.
There’s a reason why college football and basketball coaches have been instituting twitter bans for their 21 year old man-child players … but this guy should be severely raked over the coals and hung out to dry, in a very prominent place, both as an example to other potential idiots who might take a dump in the living room and think it’s cute, but also to be able to give a retort to the next wingtard who brings him up (not to mention the “both sides do it” contingent).
I feel bad that the reports are the Sacramento Democratic Party has withheld comment. The first public response should have been “he tweeted WHAT? He’s an idiot.”
aimai
@balconesfault: This is several weeks old, isn’t it?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@aimai: So? Are you saying its okay to wish death on someone’s children as long as they don’t die within two weeks of your wish?
Goods
I’ll be working for Wendy’s campaign here in the glibertarian paradise of TX. I doubt she can win, but she can definitely help energize and mobilize D’s here to register and vote. It will help with down ticket races and continue our progress in spreading the blue from the cities out.
Booda
I’ll be working for Wendy’s campaign here in the glibertarian paradise of TX. I doubt she can win, but she can definitely help energize and mobilize D’s here to register and vote. It will help with down ticket races and continue our progress in spreading the blue from the cities out
Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey
To reiterate the point I made in the other thread; what matters is flipping the Lege. To extent that Davis can motivate Democrats to vote, this is good, but we need to find, fund, and vote for Democratic candidates for the House and Senate. Until we flip the Lege, nothing in this state will change.
nominus
She may not win, but this is still a critical race, and it’s important to run regardless. We can’t flip Texas overnight, but this will be a strong start. If our state Democratic party works on mobilizing the minority vote and we bring more attention to the legislature, then we’re in a better position for 2016 where the national races will matter so much more. I plan to help out any way I can
Meepers
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/06/02/clarence-thomas-the-original-weinergate-via-allan-brauer/
Didn’t he change his nym to Self Important Little Man or something?
Cervantes
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Re “May your children all die from debilitating, painful and incurable diseases” … A bit much, you’re right, and it’s good Brauer apologized.
But look at Carpenter’s prior glee: “GOP beat gun control.” Friends of mine lost their kid in Newtown. To them, her bragging is evil itself. And think about “We can defund Obamacare, too!” To uninsured people, and their kids, this is not different from what Brauer said. If anything it is worse because it is a call to (evil) action. How long will we have to wait for her apology?