From Salon: http://www.salon.com/2013/11/18/progressive_women_will_get_their_revenge_on_karl_rove/
Conservatives mock Wendy Davis and other Texas women for ties to national feminists, but we’ll have the last laugh!
Joan Walsh
Monday, Nov 18, 2013
I’m proud to be part of an innovative Internet telethon Monday night to support abortion access for Texas women, organized by Lizz Winstead and Sarah Silverman. It’s already a big success – the physical event is sold out and the “telethon” (which you can watch tonight here) is inspiring house parties across Texas and the country. It’s going to be a lot of fun.
But I saw a couple of folks on Twitter mock the notion that Silverman or Winstead (or me, for that matter) have any connection or affinity with Texans – or Texans with us. It reminded me of the otherwise reasonably smart George W. Bush strategist Matthew Dowd admonishing Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis for “allying with Hollywood actresses” in her race for governor, implying such ties would turn off regular Texas voters.
But I think national progressives owe Texans some support. They were the first victims of Karl Rove’s anti-women divide-and-conquer politics that put Bush in the White House. Not only did he knock off Ann Richards as Texas governor in 1994, but the redistricting plans overseen by Rove and Tom DeLay to take back the Texas Legislature targeted women in particular. In 2002, five Democratic women lost their seats when their districts were redrawn as Republican strongholds.
Rove transformed the Texas of Barbara Jordan and Ann Richards, of Sissy Farenthold and Sarah Weddington, into a state now best known for George W. Bush and Rick Perry (not a Bush ally but his inheritor nonetheless), Blake Farenthold and Steve Stockman. And under Republican control, Texas has passed some of the most restrictive antiabortion laws in the country.
The truth is, some progressives like to act as though Texas is a red-state hellhole, uniquely receptive to Tea Party insanity and we’d be better off letting it secede. But demographically, the state is a microcosm of the country, with a fast-growing Latino population, an aging and declining white population, and women playing a swing-vote role. Texas Democrats have been fighting what Rove did to their state for the last 10 years, but they’ve had a lift lately from national Democrats, who’ve put money into groups like Battleground Texas and We Are One Texas (headed by former Annie’s List director Robert Jones) to boost participation by women, Latinos, African-Americans and younger women, and turn Texas blue.
Continue reading at: http://www.salon.com/2013/11/18/progressive_women_will_get_their_revenge_on_karl_rove/
