Good morning Austin:

I especially like the image on the Wendy Davis campaign sticker that adorns today's First Reading. La Valiente Wendy. Wendy the valiant, the brave.

It calls to mind Lolita Lebron, the Puerto Rican nationalist who, as I wrote in a 1998 profile of her, "on March 1, 1954 ...  rose from her seat in the Ladies’ Gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives, wrapped herself in the Puerto Rican flag, cried out in English `Free Puerto Rico Now' and opened fire. While Lebron aimed at the ceiling (`I wanted to bring the roof down'), by the time she and the three other nationalists she led that day were through, five members of Congress lay wounded."

Of course, in the Davis sticker, she is holding a microphone, not a gun, but the depiction of Davis is very reminiscent of Lebron - who Pedro Albizu Campos, the nationalist leader who ordered the attack, described as “a Puerto Rican heroine of sublime beauty." And the Texas flag - which, except for the fact that the Lone Star is contained in a rectangular instead of triangular field of blue - is a dead ringer for the Puerto Rican flag. It all brought to mind one of my proudest achievement as a reporter. Possessing only the most rudimentary high school Spanish, I coaxed Lebron - who after 25 years in prison was granted clemency by President Jimmy Carter and returned to Puerto Rico - out of seclusion and into an interview, for which I traveled to San Juan.

Ah, if only I could have that kind of success with Wendy Davis.

As I've recounted here before, my big interview with Davis, originally scheduled for Monday, Jan. 20, was abruptly canceled that day. It was the day after Wayne Slater's now-famous piece raising questions about details of her personal narrative. I wrote about Wayne's story in that Monday's Statesman, and, after it appeared, was told by the Davis campaign that, since I had already written my piece, the interview was no longer necessary. A higher-up in the campaign has since assured me that they didn't cancel the interview to "punish" me; they weren't even thinking about me. OK.

Last Sunday, I covered Davis' speech at the Equity Center's conference at the Austin Convention Center. I may have been the only reporter covering her speech, or at any rate, I was the only one to follow her out the door when she was finished. I caught up with her and two of her aides - a man and a woman - on the down escalator, and sought to introduce myself to the senator (yes, I am, ashamed to stay, our relationship is that infant stage of development). Davis offered a wan smile and when I started to ask a question, the woman called out, "Hector," and Hector Nieto, who had been standing in front of Davis on the escalator, climbed a few steps to get between me and Davis, and that was that. Nieto, who I have met before and has a very nice air about him, was very nice, but the point was that Davis was not going to be taking any questions.

Now comes Tuesday. Davis was to be the featured speaker at the Travis County Democratic Party's fundraising dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel. Tuesday morning, I called the party headquarters to ask what time I should be there to cover Davis' speech. I was informed that that wouldn't be necessary, because the speech was "closed press." Hmm. I thought to myself, "how Republican of you." I mean, I recall the GOP state party fundraising dinner was closed to the press, but they are the party that supposedly doesn't trust the maintream media. Democrats are supposed to be the party that likes the press. More or less. At least in theory.

Then, in the early afternoon, came this advisory from the Davis campaign:

State Senator Wendy Davis tonight will deliver remarks at the Travis County Democratic Party (TCDP) Johnson Bentsen Richards dinner in Austin. During her remarks, Senator Davis will set the record straight against attacks made by Greg Abbott and his allies to distort the facts and distract Texas voters.

 The TCDP program starts at 8PM CST. Senator Davis is expected to deliver her remarks at approximately 8:30PM CST. Although the event is not open to the press, a live-stream of the event will be available via the Texas Tribune. You can watch the live stream here.

Well that's interesting, I thought. Livestreaming an event that's closed to the press. My first thought was that this bit of ingenuity was the brainchild of the Davis campaign - a way to get their message out without requiring Hector to have to stare down a whole phalanx of reporters.

But no, that was apparently not the case.

As campaign spokeswoman Rebecca Acuña told me in an email yesterday:

The Texas Tribune made arrangements with the Travis County Democratic Party to live-stream the JBR dinner in early January. When the campaign learned that the Texas Tribune would be live-streaming the event, we shared the link for the live-stream with members of the press.

When I checked with the Tribune, they corroborated that account. As Tribune Editor Emily Ramshaw explained it in an email:

(Tribune reporter) Jay Root first saw a copy of the invitation to the event in early January. He called the Travis County Democratic Party on or about Jan. 8 and talked to Joe Deshotel, and asked if he could come cover the event and if we could bring our new livestreaming equipment. (We finally have it all up and running, and we’ll be using it like crazy for the duration of the Texas governor’s race.)

The party didn’t get back to us for a while. Jay followed up a couple of times, then had to leave on a reporting trip to Mexico. On Friday, Jan. 24, while Jay was in Mexico, the party reached out and told him he could cover the event, and that the Trib could bring its livestreaming equipment.

We sent Jay and a member of our multimedia team to the event, covered it and streamed it live.

Well, good on Jay, but this offered a new wrinkle. Not only was the Tribune able to livestream a closed press event, but the Tribune was able to have its reporter in a closed press event.

This all set David Saleh Rauf, Austin bureau reporter for the San Antonio Express-News and Houston Chronicle, and a ferocious reporter with the journalistic metabolism of the Politico reporter he once was, into a Twitter tear yesterday, in which he called out the Davis campaign and the Travis County Democratic chair Jan Soifer for this turn of events. As in:

Hey @jansoifer -- why did your group bar state press Monday but give exclusive access to one outlet to hear a gubernatorial stump speech?

— David Saleh Rauf (@davidSrauf) January 30, 2014

I asked Joe Deshotel, communications director for the Travis County Democrats, about all this yesterday.

In the past, he said, reporters had no interest in covering their dinners. This time, with Davis speaking, they were able to up the price from $150 to $200 a ticket and sell out, raising about $300,000 for the country organization.

The absolute capacity of the Four Seasons ballroom is 697, and if they had allowed press coverage, the space the reporters would have occupied would have cost the party $5,000 in lost ticket sales.  Jay Root didn’t even have a proper chair, Deshotel assured me.

Deshotel said he understands the concern from reporters from other news organizations, but that Chairwoman Soifer  was trying to solve a problem – guaranteeing that reporters and anyone else who wanted to watch Davis’ speech would be able to, without costing the party money it needs for its get out the vote and other party building efforts, which was the whole purpose of the dinner.

And, he said, they didn’t want to advertise the availability of the livestream until the last possible minute so as not to lead some potential attendees from saving the 200 bucks and watching from home.

He also said that the party had not intended to schedule its dinner so that Davis would be speaking opposite President Obama's State of the Union speech.

On Tuesday afternoon, I wrote a story about Davis' two daughters issuing open letters defending Davis as a wonderful mother.

Then, that night, I placed an earphone in my right ear to listen to the State of the Union, and listened with my left ear to the livestreaming Travis County Democratic dinner.

Once Davis began to speak, my right ear shut down. Obama's State of the Union could not compete with Davis' passionate recounting of the residual state of her disunion from her second husband, Jeff Davis. ("I never gave up custody of my children, I never lost custody of my children, and to say otherwise is an absolute lie.” Gardner Selby does a superb job of sorting this out at PolitiFact Texas.)

In the midst of this, I received an email from a producer with CBS This Morning, asking if I would be able to do an on-camera interview about the latest in the Davis saga. I replied that when her speech was over I would have to write about it and wouldn't be available until later, and he responded that anytime before 5 a.m. would work. Great, I thought, that's my time of night. But, a little before 10 he informed me that I was off the hook; they had found another reporter to talk to.

I wrote my story about the Davis speech - which replaced the story that would have been in Wednesday's paper focused on her daughters' letters - and went home. The next morning, I tuned in to see the report on the CBS This Morning, which included a very brief snippet of their interview with, of course, Jay Root.

He was asked about the longterm damage of the current controversy on Davis' campaign, and Jay said he didn't think it would continue to dominate A1 coverage over the long haul. I was as glad that it was not me answering that question, because I haven't the foggiest notion. And it made sense that they had Jay on and not me. After all, he was in the room when she gave her speech. I was just watching it being livestreamed.

In any case, I don't know whether the press strategy of the Davis campaign is of her own choosing, or whether she is being cocooned by an overprotective staff. If it's the latter, perhaps it's time for Davis' supportera outside her campaign organization to raise the cry, "Free Wendy!"