Is Kay Bailey Hutchison’s surprise showing in a recent poll an indication of a strong backlash among moderates against the politics of hate and threats of secession from Rick Perry and his teabagging mates?
Kay Bailey Hutchison caught up with Rick Perry in the recent Rasmussen poll. Down 46-36 in July, Hutchison is now ahead (within the margin of error), 40-38.
Perry’s hypocritical blustering against the federal stimulus money (he took the money) may also have hurt him with everyone who isn’t a Lipton-lidded teabagger.
The same pollster, Rasmussen, found last April that 75 percent of Texans rejected the secession talk. Dog-whistling the bigots, Perry might be discovering that they are far outnumbered by more tolerant Texans.
Paul Burka believes Hutchison’s climb has to do with Perry’s attacks on her, and I think there’s at least something to that. Burka compared Perry’s behavior to Claytie Williams’ famous failure to shake Ann Richards’ hand in 1990.
I think Perry is playing Jim Mattox to Hutchison’s Ann Richards (forgive me, Ann, I mean it only figuratively). To many, Perry just looks like a petulant drugstore cowboy not smart enough to take his hat off in the presence of a lady. He got 39 percent of the vote the last time he ran. Acting like he’s entitled to a free ride while bullying a woman opponent is exactly what Mattox did. It’s not what Mattox believed, by the way. It was just a tactic. And it didn’t work. This is, as they say, a bipartisan Texas thing. Rebublican voters don’t like it any more than Democratic voters.
The conventional wisdom is that Perry has secured the GOP right-wing base, the people most likely to turn out in the 2010 Republican primary. But if there was ever a year when conventional wisdom was worth exactly what you and I paid for it, this is it.
I think it’s too easy for people to look at a few racist yahoos in Texas and assume they are what the state is all about, politically or culturally. It’s not the case, of course. Most Texans are live-and-let-live, tolerant folk. We are “the friendship state” after all. There’s no question that the electoral impact of racism is significant here, as it is throughout the South. But Texas is not a Southern state. In many ways it is the most demographically complex state in the country. We’ll explore that complexity more in the future.
I just want to raise a warning about listening too much to conventional wisdom, including talk that by securing the far right-wing Perry has all but won his primary. I don’t think it’s true. What if the alarm and disgust at the yahoos generates a significant turnout of moderate voters? What happens when health care reform passes and the controversy disappears, as it always does? What happens if there’s buoyancy in the economy? What happens if people are just sick and tired of Perry’s hair?
We don’t yet know what the GOP and Democratic primary slates will look like. I think both the primary and the general election will be late-developing contests up and down the ballot. Texas’ moderate middle appears to me to be as engaged as they’ve ever been. They seem to be repudiating the ugly right-wing rhetoric. That might be good news for Democrats. It’s looking like it might also be good news for Hutchison. The question then becomes, can what’s good for Hutchison be good for Democrats?
“I think it’s too easy for people to look at a few racist yahoos in Texas and assume they are what the state is all about, politically or culturally.”
Too easy and frequently done, this tendency to generalize and stereotype. And in large part, because so much of the political, and cultural, noise comes from that direction. So to pick up on your “what if” questions — what if the “moderate middle” makes significant noise of its own? What if they don’t?
Serious question: how big and strong is the “moderate middle” in Texas?
I believe it is quite strong, and I think everyone would be surprised at the values shared by some of them who consider themselves Republicans or Democrats. Do we care about children and their future? Education? Health care? The quality of life in our cities and rural areas? Water resources? Air pollution? Most of us do. It sometimes seems to me like we’ve been divided arbitrarily into teams or camps. And when we try to talk with one another based upon our big symbolic disagreements over this candidate or that, we fail to see all that we do agree upon.
I moved back to Texas about a year ago, after 20+ years in Nashville, and more years before that in various other states. So I feel as if I’m working on catching up on many things. It’s encouraging to hear that there is a strong moderate middle. I certainly do agree that here, and probably in every other state, we have been divided. Or we allow ourselves to be. I suppose some of each.
A part of the division is accomplished by use of the broad charges and big labels. So at least some of the questions are about how we can see where we agree, maybe first in identifying the problems (and your list is scary but realistic — education, health care, etc.).
The health care / insurance reform debacle (which is what I think it is thus far)is a good example — divisive language about what the fundamental problems are divide us so that we can’t begin to talk together about solutions.
You are so right about the health care debate. I’m afraid I must blame the insurance companies and their Republican allies for this. The strategy is an old one, and I’m afraid I’ll also have to confess to using it in the past. If the facts aren’t on your side, go nuclear. That’s the strategy. Sow confusion, muddy the conversation, turn to personal attacks, anything to keep the attention off the facts. Criminal lawyers do it too. It is exactly the strategy used by the right in their effort to defeat health care reform, which a substantial majority of Americans supports. All we can do is try to see through the mud, and communicate what we see to others. Like I said, I’ve used the strategy myself, and Democrats have been guilty in the past as well. This time it is the Republicans.
Oh yes, Democrats are equally as guilty of these kind of tactics — go nuclear; distract; change the subject; go for the emotional, use the “us vs.them” ploy, etc.
“All we can do is try to see through the mud … ” — that makes me laugh. I’m pondering what “seeing through the mud” requires. Maybe because it’s raining, I thought about windshield wipers, but would only add another layer of smear.