# Wendy Davis for Governor of Texas? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 5, 2013, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685 "2013-07-05T02:59:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/161 "2014-02-12T21:04:46Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > On his worst days, Gov. Perry outshines Moonbat Wendy in that capacity. Really? You believe this? _checks which forum this is in_ Never mind. Not the proper venue to actually air my opinion on your opinion. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/162 "2014-02-12T21:40:07Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > On his worst days, Gov. Perry outshines Moonbat Wendy in that capacity. Not going by [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Rick_Perry), he don’t. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/163 "2014-02-12T21:40:45Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > On his worst days, Gov. Perry outshines Moonbat Wendy in that capacity. LOL. Rick Perry doesn’t believe in evolution. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/164 "2014-02-12T22:02:37Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > … (ask her former friend Billy Porterfield)… You mean the guy who wrote this? > [@](#): > > …Molly was a wonderful and generous friend… > **[A Tribute to Molly Ivins](https://www.texasobserver.org/2399-a-tribute-to-molly-ivins/)** > > Molly and I had been friends for years. I was up in Dallas, writing a column for the Times-Herald, when into the city room strode longtime, no-see Molly, back in Texas after years of slaving for The New York Times in the Big Apple and as a roving... Former friend? Changed his mind sometime after he wrote this, October 25, 2012? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/165 "2014-02-13T00:59:35Z")
[Molly Ivins?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Ivins#Quotations) > [@](#): > > **Quotations** > > On the subject of Pat Buchanan’s famously combative Culture War Speech at the 1992 Republican Convention, which attracted controversy over Buchanan’s aggressive rhetoric against Bill Clinton, liberals, supporters of reproductive and gay rights, and for his comparison of American politics to religious warfare, Ivins famously quipped that the speech had “probably sounded better in the original German,” noting the similarity between the concept of “culture war” and the Kulturkampf of Otto von Bismarck’s Germany.[26] > > “We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war…We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, ‘Stop it, now!’” (from her last column)[27] > > “Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that.”[28] > > “So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”—quoted by John Nichols for T_he Nation_[29] Original source: “The Fun’s in the Fight” column for _Mother Jones,_ 1993.[30] > > On Bill Clinton: “If left to my own devices, I’d spend all my time pointing out that he’s weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied. Besides, no one but a fool or a Republican ever took him for a liberal.” (Introduction to _You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You_)[31] > > On James M. Collins, U.S. Representative, R-Dallas: “If his IQ slips any lower we’ll have to water him twice a day.” Collins had said that the current energy crisis could be averted if “…we didn’t use all that gas on school busing…”[32] Ivins’ quote engendered substantial controversy, with calls and letters pouring into her newspaper, _The Dallas Times Herald._ The newspaper turned the controversy into a publicity campaign, with billboards all over the city asking, “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?”—which she later employed as the title for her first book.[33] > > On George W. Bush, she likened him to a post turtle.[34] > > “Of Bush’s credentials as an economic conservative, there is no question at all—he owes his political life to big corporate money; he’s a CEO’s wet dream. He carries their water, he’s stumpbroke—however you put it, George W. Bush is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America. … We can find no evidence that it has ever occurred to him to question whether it is wise to do what big business wants.”[35] > > “As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you can’t drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against 'em anyway, you don’t belong in office.”[36] Seems irreplaceable to me. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/166 "2014-02-13T01:39:32Z")
Kurt Vonnegut isn’t as groovy as I think he is. No doubt, being the Famous Writer had some negative effects, usually does. But he have us the helpless glamour of Billy Pilgrim and the sarcastic reverence of Bokonon. Mark Twain hungered for the acceptance of Eastern snobs even as he scorned it, squandered a fortune stubbornly investing in a machine that could not work, turned his back instantly on some friends and defended others against all comers. But he gave us Huck who weighed the theology of his day and decided he’d rather go to Hell than betray a friend. Molly was just funny, but in a good cause. I submit that just being funny is still better than nothing, and funny in a just cause is a bit better still. Probably won’t get you into Heaven, all on its own. It might, though. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/167 "2014-02-13T09:58:20Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Molly was a lush, and a mean one (ask her former friend Billy Porterfield). She was also a grade A fraud (good ol’ girl? Please- she was a multimillionaire who went to elite prep schools her whole life). Multimillionaire who went to elite schools but affected a down-home-Texas persona…that sounds so familiar. A fraud, you say? Hmmm… And I’m not sure that being a “wonderful and generous friend” and a “mean lush” are necessarily mutually exclusive. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/168 "2014-02-13T13:25:51Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Molly was a lush, and a mean one (ask her former friend Billy Porterfield). She was also a grade A fraud (good ol’ girl? Please- she was a multimillionaire who went to elite prep schools her whole life). Molly’s father was quite well off & she went to some fine schools. But she wasn’t in prep school “her whole life.” (Unlike Shrub.) Once she grew up (again, unlike Shrub) she mostly lived off what she earned. Molly did turn up the Texas accent a bit for the sake of humor. Because raw anger isn’t pretty. Yes, she was an alcoholic–she fought it all her life. I wouldn’t be surprised if she occasionally turned that wit to sarcasm. How unflattering for a woman! Many Texans still miss her. ---
**Author:** ![LonghornDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@LonghornDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonghornDave)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/169 "2014-02-17T16:06:13Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Molly’s father was quite well off & she went to some fine schools. But she wasn’t in prep school “her whole life.” (Unlike Shrub.) I was just re-reading this thread and was curious about this point. I honestly am not that familiar with Molly Ivins. I’m also not a big fan of GW Bush. Having said that, here are the educational blurbs from wikipedia for both. [QUOTE=Bush Wikipedia] Bush attended public schools in Midland, Texas, until the family moved to Houston after he completed seventh grade. He then went to The Kinkaid School, a prep school in Houston, for two years. Bush finished high school at Phillips Academy, a boarding school (then all-male) in Andover, Massachusetts, … Bush attended Yale University from 1964 to 1968, graduating with an B.A. in history.[31] … Beginning in the fall of 1973, Bush attended the Harvard Business School, where he earned a Master of Business Administration. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Ivins Wikipedia] Ivins … lived in Houston’s affluent River Oaks neighborhood. Ivins graduated from St. John’s School in 1962. Ivins enrolled in Scripps College in 1962 but was not happy there, and transferred to Smith College in 1963. … She spent her junior year at the Institute of Political Science in Paris and received her B.A. in history in 1966. She earned a master’s degree at Columbia University’s school of journalism in 1967. [/QUOTE] Sort of a silly debate, but I’m not really seeing how you think Bush’s educational background was more "prep-school"ish than Ivins’s. He was in Midland public schools; there is nothing less like a prep school than Midland. They both were at affluent Houston high schools with Bush finishing elsewhere. Regardless, my favorite educational factoid about Bush was that he was rejected by University of Texas law school and then accepted to Harvard business school. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/170 "2014-02-17T16:13:19Z")
> [@LonghornDave](#): > > Regardless, my favorite educational factoid about Bush was that he was rejected by University of Texas law school and then accepted to Harvard business school. Huh. I wouldn’t normally have credited a Texas school with that level of discernment… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/171 "2014-02-17T17:21:53Z")
When’s the primary? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/172 "2014-02-17T17:35:39Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > When’s the primary? March 4th, with a runoff, if necessary, May 27th. It doesn’t look like one will be necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/173 "2014-02-17T17:40:04Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Huh. I wouldn’t normally have credited a Texas school with that level of discernment… I know it can be fun to insult Texas, but UT is a really good school, and UT’s law school is ranked 15th in the country. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/174 "2014-02-17T17:45:04Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Molly’s father was quite well off & she went to some fine schools. But she wasn’t in prep school “her whole life.” (Unlike Shrub.) Once she grew up (again, unlike Shrub) she mostly lived off what she earned. Molly did turn up the Texas accent a bit for the sake of humor. Because raw anger isn’t pretty. > > Yes, she was an alcoholic–she fought it all her life. I wouldn’t be surprised if she occasionally turned that wit to sarcasm. How unflattering for a woman! > > Many Texans still miss her. Molly Ivins didn’t get “sarcastic” when drunk (as she invaraibly was), she got violent. When she got drunk, she didn’t just make catty remarks, she punched people- even knocking out two of Billy Porterfield’s teeth. [http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0205-06.htm](http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0205-06.htm) She HAD to have been fun to be with at least SOME of the time, because even Porterfield now tries to make Ivins’ violence seem like a charming quirk. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/175 "2014-02-17T18:25:10Z")
Here’s what Porterfield said, from the link supplied… > [@](#): > > Billy Porterfield, a former columnist for the _American-Statesman_ and other publications, shared a memory of when he and Ivins encountered the Harlem Globetrotters outside a bar when they both worked at the _Dallas Times-Herald_. > > “She was a good-looking woman, and one of them walked up behind her and pinched her bottom,” Porterfield said. “But she thought I did it, so she turned around and punched me.” > > Added Porterfield: “She knocked out two of my teeth. I never had them replaced, because it was such a good story.” In her early years on the job, she worked with hard-bitten, hard drinking newspaper men. So she learned to drink along with them. She did have sober times–but would usually fall off the wagon again. I called Bush Jr a “prep school boy” because he seemed like a half-bright rich kid when he was Governor; Molly was self-supporting & had more adult demons. She didn’t get her advanced education as a “legacy”–she got into those schools on her own. [More information](http://www.texasobserver.org/2603-a-tribute-to-molly-ivins/) on why we still miss her: > [@](#): > > What worries me is that when people remember Molly they might only remember the sharp wit and the professional Texan’s turn of phrase. Or some might see her as merely a reactionary liberal who had been warped by her privilege: expensive private school, Smith College, conservative daddy. That would be a mistake. > > Just look at her work and you can see the good human being behind it, someone who wanted what was right for the country and ordinary people. She believed in our country’s ideals. That’s why she couldn’t let lying politicians and foolish legislation alone. She wasn’t the kind of reporter who dug up dark secrets. She held up the mirror of ridicule to bad things that were going on in plain sight. I wonder how we’re going to make it without her. Back to Wendy Davis. Her probable opponent’s campaign has reached [a new low](http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/14842/greg-abbott-will-take-ted-nugent-on-campaign-trail-tomorrow): > [@](#): > > On Tuesday, Greg Abbott will proudly appear with a man who defecated in his pants for a week to avoid serving in the army and who recently called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel”. Nugent will be a centerpiece of Abbott’s early vote push… > > Though Abbott’s early vote push is purely symbolic (he’s got the Republican nomination locked up), the choice to associate himself with Ted Nugent has a lot of meaning. > > There are many types of Republicans, but there are also two types of Republicans: those who embrace full-blown, loathing lunacy like Ted Nugent’s and those who don’t. Unfortunately, there are far more of the former category – and Greg Abbott is a happy member. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/176 "2014-02-17T18:29:10Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I know it can be fun to insult Texas, but UT is a really good school, and UT’s law school is ranked 15th in the country. That is a seriously good school. I have known Thai students looking for a good graduate school in the US, and if they or their families are having to pay for it themselves, I’ve always told them that UT-Austin is a Harvard education at a fraction of the cost. Posters here know how I feel about Texas in general and so will recognize this as high praise indeed coming from me. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/177 "2014-02-17T19:09:20Z")
Although they both went to high schools and colleges with mostly well-off students, you could argue that George W. Bush came from a longer line of preppie types than Molly Ivins. Ivins’s father was the president of an oil company, but he grew up in a family that was middle class. Bush’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all rich. Bush was the third generation to go to prep school and the third generation to go to an Ivy League college. In fact, his father, grandfather, and great-great-grandfather all went to Yale (a generation was skipped there). And while being president of an oil company is pretty impressive, do I need to remind you that Bush’s father was President and his grandfather was a Senator? > **[Molly Ivins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Ivins)** > > Mary Tyler "Molly" Ivins (August 30, 1944 – January 31, 2007) was an American newspaper columnist, author, political commentator, and humorist. > Born in California and raised in Texas, Ivins attended Smith College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She began her journalism career at the Minneapolis Tribune where she became the first female police reporter at the paper. Ivins joined The Texas Observer in the early 1970s and later moved to The New York Times. She became a... [http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19980427&id=ic4dAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1KcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6817,5606547](http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19980427&id=ic4dAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1KcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6817,5606547) > **[George W. Bush](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush)** > > George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. > The eldest son of the 41st president, George H. W. Bush, he flew warplanes in the Texas Air National Guard in his twenties. After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1975, he worked in the oil industry. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers of Major Leag... ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/178 "2014-02-17T19:21:42Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Back to Wendy Davis. Her probable opponent’s campaign has reached [a new low](http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/14842/greg-abbott-will-take-ted-nugent-on-campaign-trail-tomorrow): **Og,** I hope he loses. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/179 "2014-02-17T19:48:03Z")
Geez, it was a throwaway joke, people… ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685/180 "2014-02-17T22:08:46Z")
Hell, I love Texas. If all the bassackwards, knuckle walking Trogs would just move back to Oklahoma, things be a damn sight better! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-davis-for-governor-of-texas/662685.md?page=10)