Nightmare For Texas GOP: Wendy Davis Announces Run For Governor

Late Thursday, Texas state senator Wendy Davis, who rose to national fame for her filibuster in opposition to draconian abortion restrictions backed by Gov. Rick Perry and his cronies in the state legislature, made it official: she officially announced her run for governor…

…with a slap at the state’s Republican rule and a move beyond her most famous political stand.

“In Austin today, our current leadership thinks that promises are something you make to the people that write big checks,” Davis, a state senator, said at a pep-style rally outside Fort Worth, in the arena where she graduated high school. “But the … promise I’m talking about is bigger than that. It’s the promise of a better tomorrow for everyone.”

To win an anticipated uphill race against the state’s Republican attorney general, Greg Abbott, Davis cannot run as the heroine of liberals who urged her into the race; she must reach out to more centrist voters, especially women. Davis began to attempt that positioning in Thursday’s speech.

Rather than her celebrity-making moment — which she never mentioned — Davis highlighted an earlier filibuster, waged in 2011, against proposed cuts in state education funding. Although unsuccessful, the effort stamped Davis as a rising Democrat star, and, she said, provided impetus for eventual restoration of some of the money.

“Texas deserves a leader who understands that making education a priority creates good jobs for Texans and keeps Texas on top,” she said.

This is not the sort of “opening statement” anticipated by the Texas GOP. Davis’ campaign rollout shows that she waited until her campaign team had crafted a message that would put Abbott and the GOP off balance. This race will be worth watching.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.