Women prefer Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) to Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D), according to a new Public Policy Polling survey released Tuesday. Abbott and Davis are the respective Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates. The poll found that 49 percent of women said they preferred Abbott over Davis while 41 percent said they preferred Davis to Abbott. Meanwhile 53 percent of men said they prefer Abbott while 32 percent said they prefer Davis…. What’s worse for Davis though is that her unfavorable rating has increased since the 2013 filibuster that catapulted her to national prominence. Right after that filibuster, PPP found Davis’s favorability rating at 39 percent and her unfavorable rating at 29 percent. The latest PPP poll found Davis’s favorability rate at 33 percent and her unfavorable rate at 47 percent.
It may be trite, but that makes it no less true: most Texans would vote for a ham sandwich if it appeared on the ballot with an “R” behind its name. The sad reality is that few Texans really seem to think about the positions of candidates before they walk into a voting booth. Or, even worse, if they do think, they’re blind to what’s being to them and in their name. Whether it be their addiction to Fox News Channel and/or the steady drone of “Jesus was a Republican” propaganda they’re fed from the pulpit on Sunday mornings, few Texans really seem to clearly consider who and what it is they’re voting for. Survey after survey has shown that your average Texan is poorly informed about statewide issues and feels disconnected from the political process. Or they simply don’t care.
I realize that some Texans will legitimately and carefully ponder their choices and, after sufficiently ruminating, still vote Republican. It’s a free country; that’s their choice. I’d submit, though, that these folks are a pronounced minority, and that most Texans essentially vote as they’re instructed…and as a result they get exactly the quality of leadership they deserve. That the quality of said leadership is embarrassingly inept and corrupt almost goes without saying.
Even with that explanation, there’s one question that baffles me: How can Texas women voting Republican possibly make sense in a rational world? How is it that women in Texas prefer Greg Abbott over Wendy Davis? I realize that Davis’ campaign has experienced its stutters and starts, but when you consider the alternative…well, I don’t get it.
Greg Abbott is in every sense of the phrase an empty suit. His campaign, based almost completely on dog whistle politics, pandering to Conservatives, invoking his love of Jesus, and frequent spasms of sexism and silliness, would be a nonstarter in any other state. In the Lone Star State, though, Abbott has the one (and only) thing going for him that really matters- he’s a Republican. Abbott could shut down his campaign today and limit himself to tweeting about his devotion to Jesus and all things Texas, and he’d still poll ahead of Davis. The truth is that Abbott could be caught in flagrante delicto (no mean feat given he’s confined to a wheelchair) with an entire Girl Scout troop, and he’d still easily carry the entire state except for the Rio Grande Valley.
That Davis’s unfavorable rating has increased since she came to national prominence demonstrates that the one thing Republican do exceedingly well is smearing those who dare to oppose them. Texans are quick to believe the worst of politicians on the left side of the political spectrum, a standard not applied equally to those on the right side. Republicans understand this, having created Texas’ political environment through the skillful slandering of Democrats.
Want to be thoroughly demonized in Texas? Just watch what happens when a Republicans sticks the “Liberal” label on you. In the Lone Star State, “Liberal” is considered Latin for “Hide the wimmins and chilluns, for this one’s of the Devil, Wilma.”
The good news is that it’s only mid-April, and election day is still more than six months away- still plenty of time for Greg Abbott to have his very own hookers and blow scandal. Nah, that still wouldn’t give Wendy Davis the bump she’s going to need in order to win.
And so Tea Party ignorance, racism, and misogyny will continue to reign from El Paso to Beaumont and from Wichita Falls to Winnie.
