When Wendy Davis Was a Republican

[DonViejo]

Michelle Cottle

The Democratic hopeful for Texas governor proved she had chops as a local Republican pol. The GOP would do well to remember when she was one of theirs.

So what do we know about Wendy Davis, Texas state senator turned gubernatorial candidate and Democratic “It” Girl? With her up-from-nothing backstory and Harvard Law degree, the woman is clearly smart, savvy, ambitious, and determined. (There’s no question that she grasps the value of a moving personal narrative.) In her five years in Austin, she has amassed one of the senate’s most liberal voting records. She does not shy from a fight, and she has a flair for political theater to make Ted Cruz envious. (Her filibuster of anti-abortion legislation was, it bears recalling, not her first such rodeo.) People have gone ga-ga over the legislator’s sporty pink kicks.

Unsurprisingly, the hard-charging, mediagenic Davis has become a hero to women’s group (Emily’s List, nursing a major crush, cheers her as “an inspiring national heroine.”) Anxious Republicans, meanwhile, are sharpening their claws. One particularly troglodytic right-winger—laboring to cement conservatives’ image as sexist jackasses—refers to Davis as “Abortion Barbie.” Get it? She supports women’s reproductive rights and is a comely blonde. What more do voters need to know?

Except… Before she emerged as “a feminist folk hero” and culture warrior extraordinaire, Davis served nine years as a member of the Fort Worth city council. There, in the unglamorous trenches of pothole politics, she earned a reputation as passionate and aggressive—“She’ll bite you if you’re not careful,” chuckles former council colleague Jim Lane—but also as a pragmatic, pro-business moderate with bipartisan appeal. Far from some lefty bomb-thrower, Davis was, in fact, a registered Republican before she ran for state senate, at which point many local Dems complained that she was not liberal enough. “That’s proven to be kind of funny over time,” observes long-time Fort Worth political columnist Bud Kennedy.

Davis’s party switch wasn’t some grand political drama a la former senator Zell Miller’s cantankerous shift from Democrat to Republican or Charlie Crist’s move from Republican to Independent to Democrat. (Or, for that matter, Gov. Rick Perry’s long-ago flip from D to R.) Practically speaking, it wasn’t much of a shift at all. Texas’s municipal politics are, by law, officially nonpartisan: Candidates do not run under party banners, and party IDs do not appear on ballots. In some races (such as, say, Houston mayoral battles), partisan drama bubbles beneath the surface. But on the Fort Worth council, members’ affiliations are rarely an issue. “You know who the Republicans and Democrats are, but we’re very fortunate that you don’t have a partisan overlay in play at the council table,” says Kenneth Barr, who was bumped up from council member to mayor in 1996. (Davis’s first campaign was a failed effort to fill Barr’s vacant council seat; three years later, she ran again and won.)

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/24/when-wendy-davis-was-a-republican.html

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. There are stories circulating the web

that she dumped her....2nd???...husband the day after he paid her law school loan from his borrowed 401-k.

dunno how much of that has any truth, may be RW slurs..was playing the headlines this week.
folks in texas will have to live with her, so it is their look out, in the end.

[TBF]

6. That came from a blog in the Houston Chron -

http://blog.chron.com/texassparkle/2014/01/wendy-davis-tells-a-life-story-that-doesnt-exactly-match-reality/

No idea whether it's true or not as people can say whatever they wish - and this blog advocates voting for Greg Abbott. I hope you wouldn't do the same.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. It sure got spread around

I saw it in several online places.
Thanks for finding the source.

[DavidDvorkin]

11. He's on good terms with her

which makes me doubt that the breakup happened that way.

[hamsterjill]

12. I'll be happy to "live with her".

After at least ten decades (it seems that way, any way) of Gubner Goodhair...Wendy is a breath of fresh air.

This lifelong Texas will be at the polls voting FOR her at my first opportunity.

[MADem]

2. So....she's more of an Elizabeth Warren than a Saint Paul on the Road To Damascus....! nt

[DonViejo]

3. At the request of DU'er seabeyond...

who is having trouble posting, I am entering this comment for her:

texas politics for women. they have to run as republican. in amarillo, we had a two term mayor. debra mccart. i knew her well. her first husband was partners in business with my husband for 15 yrs or more. i spent time with her, and she was well a democrat. i said such to her then husband and he assured me she was a true repug. not even. she was the best mayor we have had in amarillo and did a lot fo good stuff for this area. she reminds me a lot of the davis and richards texas women. running as a repug, does not make a republican.

[legcramp]

5. I've always found the "Have to run as a Republican in Texas" or

"Have to run as a DFL'er in Minnesota" to be dishonest and disingenuous.

Be who you are, why start your career with a deception?

One needs only to look at Ronald Reagan who began in politics as a Democrat until it became more convenient to be a Republican.

And we all know what type of person Saint Ronnie turned out to be.

[former9thward]

7. Reagan was a Democrat when CA was Republican.

It was not convenient to to be a Democrat at that time. He was a union president so it was natural that he was a Democrat. His politics shifted in the 1950s when he was a spokesman for GE.

[1StrongBlackMan]

4. OMG ...

Must dump her cuz she has a past!

[TBF]

9. The republicans in Texas have tuned in

to the fact that Wendy is raising A LOT of $$$. They're worried and hence the attacks.

[1StrongBlackMan]

10. But notice ...

this attack isn't geared to republicans; but rather, it's directed to a certain segment of the Democratic party associates.

[davidpdx]

13. Between this and the "editoral" that the party should spend more on the lt. governor's race

and abandon Davis it seems to me like sabotage.