"If this were a man in TX who had made this same ascent,everyone would say OMG,look at these sacrifices he's made" -Jim Moore on Wendy Davis
— All In w/Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) January 22, 2014
In an article that was published on Real Clear Politics Thursday morning, Ann Coulter claimed that Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis is nothing more than “a gold-digger who found a sugar daddy” who took advantage of her ex-husband Jeff Davis to get her way in life. Essentially, in her article, Coulter frames Davis as someone who never had a tough time in her life and who has always taken advantage of others to get what she wanted.
It was only a matter of time before the White Conservative power structure in Texas figured out that Wendy Davis represents a legitimate threat to its hegemony. That time has clearly arrived, and the (not so very) understated but clearly coordinated attempts to smear Davis have begun. It’s easy to recognize, because the attacks are personal and rarely have anything to do with her policy positions. Whether it’s a truly cheap shot (Ann Coulter calling Davis a “gold digger”) or twisting her path from poverty to prosperity into something dark and evil, it appears the Right-wing intends to attack early, often, and below the belt.
Feeling as if you’ve seen this movie before?? It’s what the Right does when they fear they can’t win based on their ideas- if you can’t beat e’em, destroy ‘em.
Welcome to the “Swiftboating” of Wendy Davis, where facts don’t matter. The only things that do are whisper campaigns, lies, and outright fabrications…and where even the truth can and will be twisted into something completely unrecognizable.
The good news is that it’s clear Davis has the Powers That Be running scared. They clearly recognize the threat she poses; otherwise they’d simply ignore her as just another token Democrat in a deeply, reliably Red state. No, they recognize that her opponent, Republican Greg Abbott, may be an empty suit…but he’s their empty suit. And, since they know most Texans would vote for a ham sandwich if it had an “R” behind its name, they can’t risk having anyone rock that boat.
And so Wendy Davis must be destroyed…burned to the ground so thoroughly that even the ashes will be rendered en fuego. Nine-plus more months of the lies, slander, and rumor-mongering remain until Election Day. I certainly hope Davis jumped into the Governor’s race with her eyes open, because this campaign may well make the politics of personal destruction look like a CYO ice cream social.
One of most disturbing tactics employed by those who’d “Swiftboat” Davis is planting just enough of their narrative to create interest in the media. They might get lucky and get a writer or reporter to take them seriously and investigate their insinuations and accusations. This is what appears to have happened with Wayne Slater, who’s always impressed me as one of the fairest and most objective political reporters in the Lone Star State. Given what could arguably be called the hit job Slater did on Davis, I find myself having to rethink my previous assessment of him.
We all have a history, and our recollection of that history is often fuzzy at best. If you’re my age (53), and someone asks you to recite in vivid detail what you did when you were 19 or 20, I daresay most of us would would struggle with the details. We might recall the broad general outline, but the details of a specific time and place might be hard to come by. Even if you could recall that period in your life, would you remember what you were thinking? What your plans and dreams were?
The same is true of politicians, but the media allows for ZERO margin for error in reciting their personal history. Get a detail wrong, and you could very well find yourself accused of dissembling or dishonesty. Wendy Davis, who’s basing her campaign in large part on her story of rising out of poverty to political success, is finding that her story’s being examined with a fine tooth comb. And guess what? Some of the details are a little fuzzy. Being that Davis is a politician, that of course makes her a liar…at least in the eyes of the media who are (wittingly or otherwise) doing the dirty work for those who wish for nothing more than to destroy her utterly.
How does Slater go about promoting the Right-wing portrayal of Davis as a dishonest gold-digger who used men up and tossed them aside one they were no longer of use to her? How about by using a conveniently anonymous source to disparage her:
A former colleague and political supporter who worked closely with Davis when she was on the council said the body’s work was very time-consuming.
“Wendy is tremendously ambitious,” he said, speaking only on condition of anonymity in order to give what he called an honest assessment. “She’s not going to let family or raising children or anything else get in her way.”
He said: “She’s going to find a way, and she’s going to figure out a way to spin herself in a way that grabs at the heart strings. A lot of it isn’t true about her, but that’s just us who knew her. But she’d be a good governor.”
Well, at least Slater’s anonymous source was kind enough to say that Davis would “be a good governor.” What I don’t understand is why Slater felt it appropriate to use a source who didn’t have the balls to man up and own his opinion. Sorry, but that’s just lazy journalism, and I’d always respected Slater for being above this sort of slothful dishonesty and character assassination.
Personal histories are complicated things. While I certainly agree that they should be discussed and portrayed as honestly as possible, timelines can be tricky to nail down.
Davis was 21, not 19, when she was divorced.
Horrors!! Git a rope boys! We’re gonna string us up a lying Librul scumbag!!
That’s not even the worst part, not by a long shot. Slater relays Davis’ work and relationship history in a way that makes it look as if she used her husbands as bankrolls to elevate herself in the world. Yes, Wendy Davis had a master plan, and she used her feminine wiles to seduce men into financing her ambition…or so Slater would have us believe.
Silly me; I’d always thought that marriages were about partnership. Wendy Davis wanted to go to law school, and so her husband, Jeff, supported her while she did so. Yes, they eventually divorced, but is that proof that she used her ex- to bankroll her law school tuition? Whatever happened to “community property?” Isn’t that the sort of thing married couples do- support one another as they work to achieve their dream? Now Wendy Davis is some sort of lying, conniving manipulator who uses men as stepping stones? What’s next; calling her the Black Widow? Davis had owned up to her past and admitting that she wasn’t in a place that would allow her to be a good mother. There’s no shame in admitting that where you are emotionally will create limitation. Davis was at least honest with herself and her family about her inability to be the mother they needed. Would that more women in similar situation could do the same. Ambition in men is considered an admirable thing; in a woman it’s still consider unladylike and selfish. This is even more true in Texas, where being a successful female politician (and even worse, a Democrat) means being figuratively tarred and feathered by a standard that isn’t applied to men.
I suppose it’s true that, as Davis even admitted, she needs to tighten up her story. If this sorry episode has made anything crystal clear, it’s that Wendy Davis will be held to a MUCH different (and far less stringent) standard that Greg Abbott. She’s going to have to work twice as hard and be twice the candidate Abbott is, because in Texas there’s no such thing as a level playing field if you’re a woman with ambition.
