To her credit, she has a reasonably well thought out and nuanced stance on abortion rights and restrictions. Unfortunately for her, well thought out and nuanced positions are incompatible with the Republican and Democratic parties.
I’m encouraged that Wendy has some momentum behind her, but I’m not impressed with her as a candidate. She comes across as a generic politician following the standard script. “My opponent did something awful, so support me.” “Take back Texas”. “Only I care about your issues”, etc. However, I’ll vote for any non-Republican at this point. I’m just glad this time it’s not a totally forgettable candidate I’ll be throwing away my vote on.
Dear Og there are some truly cringeworthy ads airing right now. “Vote for me! I’m going to mention God six times in 30 seconds, I think abortions should be illegal, let’s draw and quarter the illegals, OBAMACARE, hey look at my gun collection! AND my five cute little kids eating dinner with little crucifixes around their necks! And… I drive a pickup! How can you NOT vote for me?”
Where are they finding these guys?
From what I’ve heard of Texas, you could find them in any bar.
Sounds kinda Catholic to me! Let me hear how you pronounce “Jesus”.
The Austin newspaper’s take on it is pretty much that the primary was bad news for Wendy Davis and Democrats in general and good news for the Tea Party in Texas. As BG’s linked article noted, there was only one other Democratic candidate in the primary running against Davis. And in the Democratic stronghold of south Texas, he beat her.
Hm. Well, she could take a lesson and pick a Latino running mate for Lt. Gov. – or does she get to pick? How does it work in Texas?
Any Democrat running for statewide office in Texas faces a daunting challenge. Odds are not good, but that isn’t the point. Davis’ stunt made her name, and that may be good enough for now, start building the machinery, the infrastructure. Texas Dems have been the underdogs for so long, its gonna take some doing to build up, and the Republicans have entrenched themselves into the wood work. They will use every trick in the book, because they must not only beat her, they must totally clobber her, they must stifle that hope that is a-borning.
Probably, they will win. Even next time. But change is coming to Texas, and you can’t sweep back the tide forever. This is a good step forward. There are good Hispanic candidates to be groomed, maybe better in the long run not to win and bring one of them along for next time.
Still going to take a lot of hard work and there will be disappointments galore. If the election comes off totally free of polling place and vote count shenanigans, I’ll eat a cow pie burrito. So, most likely not this time, the Republican machine in Texas is awesome.
But the tide is rising. Vencerfuckin’remos!
Things don’t* work* in Texas, things happen in Texas. Baja Oklahoma.
The Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor is Leticia Van de Putte, who is Hispanic, but the two elections are distinct. Van de Putte ran unopposed in her contest. The Republican primary for the position has been a real freak show, with a runoff in May between the guy who currently holds the position and state Senator Dan Patrick.
Van de Putte would probably rather campaign against Patrick, but I for one would rather have Dewhurst keep his job if it came down to it, so it’s one of those “careful what you wish for” things.
I believe that in Texas the lieutenant governor is elected entirely separately from the governor. There have been recent examples of the government and the lieutenant governor being from different parties. Also, it is said that the lieutenant governor is actually more powerful than the governor.
Correct on all counts, although Rick Perry was sort of an exception because he’s been Governor so long. The Lieutenant Governor is so powerful because of the traditional powers delegated to the position by the Texas Senate. If Dan Patrick is elected to the position, there has been some talk that the Senate might not give him all the traditional Lt. Gov powers, but talk is cheap.
Compared to many other states where the Lt. Gov. is much like the vice president and not much good for anything other than taking over if the Governor dies, or is injured severely or just up and leaves the country or whatever. That being said, the Governor of Texas still has a lot of power. It’s fair to say that the Lt. Gov of Texas is very powerful, but it’s debatable to say he’s “more” powerful than the Gov. They just have different powers, really.
Well, the people whom I’ve heard say that the lieutenant governor is more powerful than the governor also say that Texas’s governor’s powers are relatively weaker than other state governors (“weakest state governor among the 50 states,” or some such description). I have done no study of the question myself. I’m not even sure how they are measuring “power.”
Here’s more on the job: Governor of Texas - Wikipedia
I agree that it’s hard to quantify “power” in general. But in Texas, many of the things that other states’ governors can do are split from the office into the province of various other boards and committees. Take pardons, for instance. The Texas Governor can’t just pardon someone like some other executives can. Instead it requires a written recommendation from the Board of Pardons and Paroles before the Governor can do that. However, one of the powers of the Governor is that he or she gets to appoint people to serve on these boards. By virtue of serving so long, Perry has had the opportunity to fill them up entirely with loyalists, so he can generally get what he wants even if he doesn’t unilaterally have the ability to do it. His direct control over the Legislature is pretty shaky, though, and his vetoes of bills can be overridden.
The Lieutenant Governor has more or less complete control over the Texas Senate, including the ability to appoint committee chairs, assign bills to committees, and interpret the parliamentary rules. The Lt Gov can also cast votes and even act as a regular member of the Senate in some circumstances. So the position is considered so powerful since it has the ability to outright stop any bill if the Lt Governor doesn’t like it.
The Houston Chronicle (from Dan Patrick’s home town) had this to say before the primary:
Mind you, those are Texas Republicans who don’t want him as Lite Gov. From the usual suspects at the Texas Observer…
At the very least, I’m looking forward to more vomit-inducing TV spots from Patrick. All this could easily be posted in the thread about “Demonizing Conservatives.” He’s the chief poster boy for Conservatism in Texas now…
I don’t expect many tears from the typical SDMB poster, but I can’t help feeling a LITTLE sorry for David Dewhurst, who can’t seem to catch a break lately. In most states, he’d be regarded as a solid, mainstream conservatve Republican, but in the 2012 Senate race and now the 2014 Lieutenant Governor’s race, he (and pretty much ONLY he) has been beaten by Tea Party faves painting him as a liberal.
Incidentally, I can’t help wondering if SOME voters heard that “sportcaster Dan Patrick” was wunning and thought it was Keith Olbermann’s old ESPN co-host.
Yeah, not really. After the quasi-legal shenanigans during the Davis filibuster, I have little sympathy for him.