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What Bell Should've Done
R. Alex Whitlock
In the
comment section of PubliusTX, I get in a brief back and forth with A Precinct Chair about what Democratic gubernatorial nominee Chris Bell should do to overcome the Republican tilt of the state. APC says that emulating a Republican won't work and I reply that being a Democrat through won't, either. I don't think either of us are wrong.
So was it always a hopeless battle? Maybe, but not necessarily. While mulling it over, I came up with I think a salespitch that might have worked if Bell had made the point early and often. Here's the pitch I would make:
Every statewide office, both houses of the legislature, and the court system in the state of Texas is lead by Republican Party. Yet with all of this power, they have squandered it on partisan initiatives, a school finance plan that nobody likes, and a legislature that has been called back to special session after special session to fail to resolve these issues to your satisfaction. Texas is a Republican state and, however much Democrats may wish it weren't so, is likely to remain that way in the future. But with one vote, you add a balance to all the power they hold. Chris Bell will work with the Republicans when they're right, but he is the candidate that will fight them vigorously when they're wrong. Texas Republican leadership has made the mistake of believing what's best for them is automatically what's best for Texas. Send Chris Bell to Austin to represent the rest of you.
I don't know, I think this avoids the major pitfalls of trying to be a Republican-lite while not trying to coast in on the sails of the minority party. Right now he's almost acting as an emissary of the Texas Democrats. The whole "Mainstream Mandate" or whateveryoucallit doesn't give anyone an idea of what he would really do or what kind of governor he would be. It may helpfully obscure his liberalish preferences from a conservative state, but without a strong impression people will assume that he is a standard Democrat, which won't work no matter how worthless the Republican is. This strikes me as one of those cases where saying that he will "fight the power" would actually be quite productive... but only after assuring Texans that he couldn't change Texas into California even if he wanted to.
Observations
1. Kinky! Kinkyyyyyy!!!!
2. Yes, I am using this as my "in" to say I voted for Kinky, and regret nothing. My hope is that he wins, we have 4 years of moaning and groaning (MN survived Ventura, as CA will survive Ahnold), and hopefully, the Dems will trot out a much better candidate for next time. And that work begins on November 8th. The question is, will they bother? (Then again, I figured they'd take their best shot at Perry post-Sanchez, and we got Bell.)
3. One factor that will be a tough nut to crack for any political party in TX is that if there is a thing as a "yellow dog" Democrat, I say there are "yellow mustard" Republicans. Meaning they'd vote for a ham sandwich so long as the mustard was applied in an "R" pattern. Over time, I am seeing people move away from straight-ticket thinking and start examining races on a case-by-case basis. Maggie Charleton for State BOE is one such example.
Anyway, onward to November 8. Kinkyyyyyy!!!!
-Ethan
http://www.ethmar.com
I firmly believe that the Democrats would have liked to have a better candidate, but I don't think there were any available.
The reason that Bell was the bullet they used this time is that they all but emptied out their chamber in 1998 and 2002. With Ron Kirk, John Sharp, Tony Sanchez, and Kirk Watson having lost, and the bench getting cleared in 1998, who's left? Jim Turner? Paul Hobby? Henry Cisneros? Bill White?
Given how stacked the deck is against Democrats, I think the problem would be compounded by a weak Bell showing -- particularly if he ends up in fourth place. The stronger candidates sat out in 2006 for a reason... 2010 is actually already looking bleaker!
From what I've seen, Bell has too many issues that (in a two-candidate race) would have shot him in the foot.
But as you say in that other thread, somewhere in Congress he became a mass-production-model Democrat.
Mass-production-model politicians are the sort I can never bring myself to vote for.
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