Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Stand with Texas Women road show today (and also about taking stands)

Because sustaining the momentum that outrage over abortion restriction legislation provides is important.


More at the Facebook event page and Stace's place. Speakers confirmed at post time include Wendy Davis and Cecile Richards. We might get to see Sens. Leticia Van de Putte, Kirk Watson, some of the Houston contingent such as Rodney Ellis and Sylvia Garcia, and a few Texas House members prominent in the fight on their side of the Capitol, like Senfronia Thompson and Jessica Farrar (that is, if they aren't busy debating/voting on the bill).

Here I'll digress into a conversation on Facebook that began yesterday among Democratic activists about a 2014 gubernatorial campaign between Davis and Greg Abbott, and whether a race that includes a slogan such as "standing with Wendy" might be insensitive to Abbott.

I have been ridiculing the attorney general's ribald hypocrisy since at least 2006, when I helped the David Van Os campaign challenge him in the AG race that year. This is one of my favorite posts of all time, and it was written on the inauguration of the clean Republican sweep in January, 2007. I have lots and lots to blog about Abbott, and much of the source material is going to come from the archives here.

Let me just say that if there are Democrats shirking from a fight this early, then Wendy Davis might as well stay in the Senate. And if anyone find themselves in a quandary over a campaign slogan that alludes to bipedal mobility or lack thereof, then let's "Roll with Wendy" instead.

Update: Am I the only person that remembers the vicious slander leveled at Max Cleland by Saxby Chambliss? How about Tammy Duckworth? Republicans simply do not suffer from these minor league moral dilemmas.

It's hard for me to imagine anybody -- even a group of Texans as profoundly ignorant as the Tea Party -- conjuring up an ounce of sympathy for a craven opportunist like Greg Abbott, but one thing I have learned in my activist years is that anything is possible. I don't see enough votes being lost over this that cannot -- should not -- be easily replaced with the canvassing efforts Democrats have to make to win anyway.

They stand to lose many more votes if they keep looking and acting like a bunch of cringing milksops.

2 comments:

  1. Enjoy the rally.

    But remember that polling shows that over 60% of Texans support the legislation and that over half of all Americans support the 20-week limit.

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  2. Cite your source.

    A bipartisan poll taken in June says that you are wrong as wrong can be.

    "Texans disapprove of the legislature taking up abortion bills during the special session by 80%, according to a bipartisan poll conducted from June 17-19, 2013. In addition, 63% of Texas voters think the state has enough abortion restrictions, and 71% say the legislature should be focusing on the economy and jobs. ...

    74% of registered voters say that personal, private medical decisions about whether to have an abortion should be made by a woman, her family, and her doctor - not by politicians. And the support is wide across the spectrum: 76% of independents and 61% of Republicans agreed."

    http://progresstexas.org/press/bipartisan-poll-texas-voters-oppose-abortion-legislation#sthash.FCnz3PgB.dpuf

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What do you think?