Wendy Davis's Personal Attacks on Greg Abbott Continue

[PN-G bamatex]

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/10/189934-dem-candidate-claims-texas-republican-racist-theres-personal-problem-argument/

 

Forgive the use of an overtly partisan source for this information. I think it's perfectly acceptable given that the tweets and quotes cited in the article come directly from Wendy Davis's campaign, itself.

 

This is getting very old very quickly. I'll give Davis credit for sticking to the facts in the debates, even though it was obvious Abbott didn't care much about the debates because of their relative insignificance in the greater scope of an election he's been winning by double digits the entire time it's been underway. But all these attacks regarding Abbott's paraplegia, and now an accusation that he may oppose interracial marriage when he's married to an Hispanic?

 

Like I said earlier, there are very few cases where I enjoy watching a Democrat lose more than I enjoy watching a Republican win. This is one of those cases. This woman needs to be booted out of Texas politics.

[stevenash]

I think she may have single handedly accomplished what you wished for in your final sentence.

[tvc184]

Desperate times call for desperate measures. 

[mat]

I think they're both going toe to toe with mudslinging campaigns which I totally despise. I think Abbot is coming out on top with this type of campaign though.

[5GallonBucket]

WHats sad is that people like this are holding governing positions by those who vote for them.  What does that say for society?

 

its on both sides....

 

Why would anyone vote for someone who acts and thinks this way no matter the party?

[tvc184]

WHats sad is that people like this are holding governing positions by those who vote for them.  What does that say for society?

 

its on both sides....

 

Why would anyone vote for someone who acts and thinks this way no matter the party?

 

Because one of them "will" be the winner (whether the general election or primary) and you can sit on your hands and accept your fate or vote for the side you believe the most, mudslinging or not. 

[5GallonBucket]

Oh I agree TVC....  And that post was mainly meant on the dumbfoundedness of Wendy Davis's remarks towards the inter racial marriage and the paraplegia.

 

Oh believe me Im voting for the winner!!!!ABBOTT. 

[PN-G bamatex]

Perhaps it's because I now spend nine months a year outside of Texas, but I have yet to see Abbott's campaign do anything that approaches the mudslinging Davis's campaign has engaged in. Maybe some PACs have, but keep in mind that everything I've listed here came directly from Davis's campaign, not from an associated PAC.

[tvc184]

Perhaps it's because I now spend nine months a year outside of Texas, but I have yet to see Abbott's campaign do anything that approaches the mudslinging Davis's campaign has engaged in. Maybe some PACs have, but keep in mind that everything I've listed here came directly from Davis's campaign, not from an associated PAC.

 

We have often said in politics that "both sides do it" (mudslinging, propaganda, false claims, swaying polls, etc.) and for the most part it is correct.

 

I have yet to see any mudslinging in this case from Abbott. 

[PhatMack19]

http://thefederalist.com/2014/10/20/wendy-davis-greg-abbott-might-ban-interracial-marriage/

[LumRaiderFan]

Davis is running a very effective campaign for Abbott.   :)

[tvc184]

Wendy Davis kind of reminds me of a community organizer running for office. 

 

You look at her credentials and ask, what has she done? Oh, she was a city council member and a two term member of the TX legislature. Her big claim to fame in politics? She filibustered new rules on abortions that eventually passed. She is a political opportunist that sways with the wind.

 

In that same thinking, anyone that doesn't believe that her filibuster was nothing more than her opening campaign for governor is playing ostrich and putting their head in the sand and ignoring the obvious. It was a smart move as she was a nobody and got national attention for that stunt. But when you get down to it, what else is she other than a good looking woman that wanted to make a big splash? Her accomplishments are.... what? A filibuster?

 

Oh yeah, and she is a victim. When she lost her first run at the city council of Fort Worth, she sued three media entities including a newspaper because she didn't like their First Amendment right to say that they didn't endorse her. She didn't think it was fair that they sided with the other candidate. It was naturally thrown out of court but I am sure she loves the "victim" game. 

 

Yep, sounds like a community organizer. 

[PN-G bamatex]

It was a smart move as she was a nobody and got national attention for that stunt.

 

Exactly how smart it was is up for debate.

 

The polls I saw at that time said that the specific bill Wendy Davis filibustered had a 60% approval rating among Texas voters. Polls I've seen since then say 59% of Texas voters are some form of pro-life.

 

If Davis's goal in that filibuster was to announce her campaign for governor, she couldn't have picked a worse bill to filibuster. You can't run an effective campaign for governor when your lone claim to fame is a filibuster of a bill 60% of the people in your state agreed with. If she had filibustered a bill on a separate issue where there's less agreement with the Republicans among Texas voters - a bill cutting funding for public education, for instance - she could have caught similar attention at least within the state, and she would have been in a far better position to run her campaign for governor.

 

If, on the other hand, the goal here isn't the governorship like I suspect, then Davis's ploy worked perfectly. Davis's term in the Senate was due to be up this year. In both of her elections to the Senate prior to this cycle, Davis barely won her district - she won 49.9% of the vote during a race in which there were three candidates running in her district in 2008, and she won just 51.1% of the vote in 2012. By virtue of her drawing the dreaded two-year Texas Senate term out of a hat, she would have been up for reelection to the Senate this year.

 

Any political strategist worth his salt knows that mid-term election cycles, which happen to coincide with gubernatorial election cycles in the State of Texas, are typically bad years for Democrats. The core Democrat constituencies don't turn out to vote in the same numbers for mid-terms like they do presidential elections. Davis, having barely won her district in presidential election years with record high turnout for the Democrat voting base, had to have known that it wasn't in the cards for her to win her Senate seat again this year. I think she decided to go out with a bang, and that was the impetus behind her infamous filibuster over the abortion bill. I think that filibuster caught her more attention than she expected, and she saw an opportunity to win the Democrat nomination for Texas Governor, which would allow her to go out with an even bigger bang than she had previously expected (she knows, and has known the entire race, that she doesn't have a shot of winning without a serious mistake from Abbott, which he has yet to give her). I think the endgame for Davis has never been the governorship, I think it's a pricey book deal and a possible federal appointment. And right now, she's on track to get exactly that.

[tvc184]

Exactly how smart it was is up for debate.

 

 

It was smart politically because she went from a nobody to a national media darling. 

 

Had you asked a year ago who Wendy Davis was, I doubt you would get 3% of the people having a clue who she was and that is inside of TX. Let there be no doubt that her run for governor is based directly off the publicity from that stunt. 

 

Merely saying that 60% of the public was for the bill doesn't matter as almost any Democratic candidate would have to toe the same party line. The only difference is which face to plaster on the election posters and that move made it her face. 

[PN-G bamatex]

Merely saying that 60% of the public was for the bill doesn't matter as almost any Democratic candidate would have to toe the same party line. The only difference is which face to plaster on the election posters and that move made it her face. 

 

Any Democrat gubernatorial candidate would have had to tow the party line on the abortion bill, yes. But not every candidate would have had their entire political career explicitly tied to it.

 

Davis is not politically stupid. If the governorship was really what she wanted, there are other things she could have done to galvanize the Democrat base in Texas without antagonizing the average Texas voter she would need to win over. She wanted attention for no other reason than to have attention, because she knew she wasn't going to win her Senate seat again. The gubernatorial aspirations had to have come after the filibuster - it doesn't make good political sense otherwise - and I suspect they arose for the same reason the filibuster did: attention, plain and simple.

 

I guarantee you she's angling for something else here. She had to have known the whole time she couldn't have won the governorship. She wants some kind of consolation prize.