By Bud Kennedy
bud@star-telegram.com
The year was 1998, and Texas was weary after six years under a Democrat in the White House.
With Bill Clinton in Washington, a popular four-term Democratic official challenged a rising Republican governor.
They debated on a football Friday night, in Democratic territory near the Rio Grande.
And then, Gov. George W. Bush went on to win by 37 points, leading a sweep that has banished Democrats from statewide office ever since.
The theme from 1998’s
Titanic is sounding again through a Democratic campaign, and no rescue is in sight for Fort Worth Democrat Wendy Davis against Greg Abbott.
This was never going to be a favorable year for Democrats, although not the hopeless cause of 1998.
That year, Democratic Land Commissioner Garry Mauro debated Bush in El Paso and lost badly on a ticket where a few races were still close. Abbott won a Supreme Court seat by 20 points, about the average margin.
That was also before Texas passed today’s distinctively narrow voter ID law, and before Democrats lost all their statewide officials and party structure.
So history was already going Texas Republicans’ way this year.
Now, the question is how far voters will go and how hard Democrats’ hopes will crash.
Davis probably didn’t turn the boat Friday night, when she delivered mostly well-practiced lines uncomfortably against a more TV-polished Abbott in their first of two debates.
In the Democratic Rio Grande Valley stronghold of Edinburg, Abbott somehow seemed more at home.
He praised Mexico as a trade partner and talked about his love for his wife, Cecilia, her family from Monterrey and her culture.
On a night when Davis needed an Abbott mistake, he made only one, misnaming a panelist.
But he had no trouble remembering the name
Obama.
Abbott waited only 13 minutes to bring up the Democratic president and at one point named him three times in three different answers within three minutes.
On a night when Davis often looked to the panel or Abbott, he looked only to the camera and voters. His 19 years in statewide office as a civil-court Supreme Court justice and attorney general showed, even though it was both candidates’ first TV debate.
Abbott “made use of every opportunity” to link Davis’ name to Obama’s, UT Arlington political science chairwoman Rebecca Deen responded in a Saturday email.
“Clearly, to the extent there are any swing voters in Texas … the Obama name hurts her,” Deen wrote.
From UT Pan American in Edinburg, 42-year political science professor Jerry Polinard wrote that Davis had hoped to shake Abbott and “hope for an ‘oops!’ moment.”
Abbott’s “careful, mistake-free campaign makes it very likely that the Dems will again be shut out,” Polinard wrote.
Best news for the Davis campaign: Not many Texans saw a debate at happy hour on a football Friday.
Their next debate at 8 p.m. Sept. 30 will draw more viewers as
part of KERA/Channel 13’s The Texas Debates.
Deen noted one similarity between Mauro ’98 and Davis ’14: Democrats are relying on turnout.
Davis, more centrist than Mauro, needs to mobilize party voters and more, Deen wrote.
“And there’s not a lot of time,” she wrote.
The most treacherous waters lie ahead.
Bud Kennedy’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 817-390-7538 Twitter: @BudKennedy Gat alerts at RebelMouse.com/budkennedy
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