More from the Wendy Davis campaign: Greg Abbott; what does he know of struggle?
Yesterday I wrote a post about Wendy Davis that got quite a bit of blogosphere attention and traffic. It contained the surprising (to me, anyway; most Texans already knew it) piece of information that Davis’s opponent Greg Abbott has been a paraplegic since a terrible accident in his mid-20s, and that despite this fact Davis was accusing him of a failure to understand struggle and hardship. She added, with no sense of irony, that her attackers hadn’t “walked a day in my shoes.”
It turns out these statement were hardly flukes. Today I found two more quotes of the same type, both issued on Monday. No, they don’t have the gaffe-like quality of “walked a day in my shoes.” But if anything they’re even worse in terms of substance.
The first is from Matt Angle, head of the Lone Star Project, an anti-Republican group that is self-described as “one of the most aggressive and effective political research and strategic communications organizations in Texas” [emphasis mine]:
The Abbott attacks are a malicious expression of fear. Greg Abbott knows that Wendy connects with and inspires Texans. The Abbott campaign to tear down Wendy and her family show an overall hostility to mothers who have to juggle work with getting an education with raising their kids. Moreover the attacks show that Abbott is profoundly out of touch with Texans who face challenges and meet them with a courage he just can’t muster…Wendy struggled through some tough times when she was younger, worked hard, fought hard and came out a success, with daughters who adore her. That’s a real and inspiring Texas story that terrifies Greg Abbott.
The second is from Davis herself, in an interview with a reporter from the San Antonio Express-News, the original of which is unfortunately behind a firewall:
In an interview, [Davis] called [Abbott] “completely out of touch with the reality of the struggles that a young woman like I faced.”
So this is a very focused and well-thought out campaign to (a) double down on Davis’ message of how much she has struggled, despite the discrepancy between her original narrative and the facts; and (b) accuse Abbott of insensitivity to people’s struggles, as well as cowardice and fear.
From what I’ve read about Greg Abbott (most of it in the last two days), he—unlike Davis—doesn’t seem to be one to get into a contest about who’s had more suffering in life. But I’ve done the research, and I’m writing about it.
And you know what? The fact that he became a paraplegic as a young man is only part of it:
Abbott said he has been driven by the notion that he wants to do the right thing, that time is precious and life can change in the blink of an eye.
That idea came to him long before his injury, when as a teenager [Greg was 16] his father died of a heart attack. A grandfather’s death also was sudden — in a car wreck, he said.
“I’ve seen that repeat — losing my dad in an instant, actually losing my granddad in an instant too … and what happened to me, obviously,” he said. “And so basically I have an oversimplified mantra and that is you never know when a tree’s going to fall on you. … What would you do differently if you knew that? And I know that.”
Abbott is straightforward about what he lost when his legs became paralyzed, saying the last photograph of him before his accident was from a dance he attended with Cecilia [his wife].
“The inability to ever dance with her again, or to see her eye to eye as she is standing, or to hold her … or to walk into a lake — you know how it’s fun when a dad and daughter get to walk into a lake together and curl your toes into the sand? Not happening,” he said. “The little things in life that matter the most — many of them are lost.”
Still, he said, his life “has been fuller and better after my accident. It’s hard for people to understand. But there’s a greater closeness to God and a greater closeness to family and I spend time with my daughter in ways that I may not have had I not encountered this situation,” he said.
He and Cecilia adopted their daughter, Audrey, after 16 years of marriage.
Cecilia said the father-daughter bond is tight. When their daughter was 5 or 6 and people asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, Cecilia said, “She would say I want to be a judge in a wheelchair.”
What a coward. A man who clearly “is profoundly out of touch with Texans who face challenges and meet them with a courage he just can’t muster.”
Davis’ supporter Matt Angle may have thought he was writing about Abbott, but he inadvertently described Davis and her entourage instead when he wrote that the “attacks are a malicious expression of fear.” Exactly. The attacks on Abbot are not just malicious and fearful: they are stupid and despicable.
The Leftists know that, with the mass media’s “close air support”, they can keep LYING and lying and lying forever.
Our attempts to shout the truth are kept in our dissidents’ silos, seldom or never heard outside. Except when we personally tell a leftist or low-info voter the facts ourselves. Arduous and time-consuming, but it’s our best bet. The more outrageously they lie, the easier it will be to call them on it, as in this case. And people are likelier to pass on shocking facts than boring ones.
The so-called War on Women is all that the Dems have.
Good luck with that it TX.
The viciousness of the campaign against Abbott and for Davis is a reflection of how important democrats view Davis’ possible election. The day Texas turns blue is the day that one party rule at the national level becomes permanent.
The strategy is obvious, flood the country with ‘undocumented immigrants’ legalize them and provide a path to citizenship. Voila! 11-33 million new democrat voters. Texas goes blue and game over.
Texas became a “majority-minority” state in 2004, meaning various ethnic minority populations now outnumber Whites.
Texas 2010 US Census Bureau: Whites: 45.1% – Hispanics and Blacks: 49.1%
Hispanic population has been growing @ a rate of 10.9% since 2000
Demographically; it would appear that it is just a matter of time till Texas goes blue.
Davis might very well believe what she saying. A lot dishonest people believe their own lies.
I’m not sure why this is, but if a lie is self-aggrandizing they will choose to believe it over the truth. Denigrating others is common enough with these lies since is easier to lower someone else down than raise yourself up.
Davis is trying to her struggling for a few years as a single mother 25 years ago to claim victim status. That alone is pathetic, but paired with what she’s been saying about Abbott (when it is a liberal journalist who printed the story), is contemptible.
What’s sad is that this has become standard operating procedure for the Democrats, with our president leading the pack.
Even funnier, when she was a Ft Worth City Council’person’ she tried to ban gun shows in the town that bills itself as “Where the West begins”. Those gun shows are held in “The Will Rogers Center” of all places.
Other news from the Zeitgeist: I happened to watch the end of tonight’s episode of “Revolution” (NBC), which I hadn’t seen before. I noticed that the Villains had military khakis and very prominent American flag patches on their shoulders. This is treated by the Hollyweird types like the Nazi swastikas.
I looked up the show on Wikipedia, and sure enough: Leftwing Nutjob Propaganda in full throat.
>>The Patriots are a mysterious group who claim to be the former members of the United States government. In the season one finale, it is revealed that Randall Flynn has been working for the Patriots, a group that supposedly includes the last President of the United States and the remnants of the last U.S. government, who have been sheltering at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.[14] In season two, they are reclaiming U.S. soil after an absence of seventeen years, and are hiring bounty hunters who are gathering warlords. Whether they represent a true continuation of the U.S. government has been questioned by Major Neville. Their official documents are marked with a symbol resembling the Eye of Providence.
[The PATRIOTS] are brutal, dangerous, violent, cruel, selfish, abusive and dictatorial, and they are responsible for the nuclear attacks on Atlanta and Philadelphia when they sent Randall Flynn on the mission to the Tower. They also have a secret agenda in mind.<<
Well, THAT isn't obvious, is it.
Don Surber notes it this way:
Cue the Association in a re-write of “Windy.”
Who’s speakin’ out to mock paraplegics?
Saying that one is running scared
Who gave away both of her daughters?
Everyone knows it’s Wendy
Who’s ripping out pages in her bio?
Lyin’ at everybody she sees
Who filibusters to capture a headline?
Everyone knows it’s Wendy
And Wendy has pink tennis shoes
And speaks with the sound of lies
And Wendy married money
Then dumped her kids (then dumped her kids)
Then dumped her kids (then dumped her kids)
[Flute music interval]
Who’s speakin’ out to mock paraplegics?
Saying that one is running scared
Who gave away both of her daughters?
Everyone knows it’s Wendy
Who’s ripping out pages in her bio?
Lyin’ at everybody she sees
Who filibusters to capture a headline?
Everyone knows it’s Wendy
Her actions are pretty evil, even for a lying liberal lady.
http://donsurber.blogspot.com/2014/01/daily-scoreboard-january-22-2014_22.html
Some have said that the difference between a liberal and an conservative is that the liberal believes paradise is in the future; the conservative believes paradise is in the past. The liberal thus sees the future as always better than the present; the conservative is skeptical that the plans for the great future will come to fruition.
I suspect that exposure to sudden tragedy can turn people towards conservatism, because tragedy can show that the future is not necessarily all that rosy-colored. At age 6 I was involved in a fatal accident- I was sitting behind the driver and saw him collapse into the steering wheel after being hit in a head-on collision with a drunk. When you have direct experience that all you have can be lost in the twinkling of an eye, you become very skeptical about rosy visions of the future. At least that was my experience. Rosy-colored visions of the future are standard for liberals trying to sell the government program de jour.
I suspect those experiences of early tragedy- the deaths of his father and grandfather- also had an effect on Greg Abbot’ s becoming a conservative. The liberal says the future will be great compared to what you have- a claim which is belied by the experience of sudden loss.
vanderleun, love the song. Am going to memorize it to sing to my yellow dog TX Democrat drinking buddy.
I wondered if their daughter was adopted when I saw a family picture and noticed that while Mrs. Abbott is a pretty Hispanic lady, the daughter looks extremely Caucasian. Then it occurred to me–not to get too personal about the gentleman–that another aspect of his accident could be impotence and an inability to father biological children. Which–and I am not demeaning adoption; I am an adoptive mother myself–is a whole other cross to bear for Mr. Has Never Suffered As Wendy Davis Suffered.
We all know she won’t win. Might be a good time to stop giving free publicity to Davis. One foot in the mouth episode from somebody right of center will never be forgotten. Her shit will be down the memory hole and forgotten one way or the other never to be seen again.
What is with the overwrought faux empathy on the Left? Empathy can be really destructive when taken too far and I think we’re seeing the effects now.
But again, she is auditioning for MSNBC or a party apparatus position or to write a book. She’s not going anywhere in Texas.
Holmes
But again, she is auditioning for MSNBC or a party apparatus position or to write a book. She’s not going anywhere in Texas.
Wendy Davis reminds me of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chairperson of the Democratic National Commitee. Both have a tendency to run off at the mouth, regardless of how stupid they sound. Yup, Wendy Davis would do just fine in the Democrat Apparat.
Davis is a dupe of the Democratic Party. Shortly after her pink shoes filibuster she was whisked away to Donk HQ Paradise for indoctrination. I suspect it was the party that released the false stories, in order to generate further press coverage. It’s not going to work like that in Texas. She’s probably lost half of any Texas resident funding the party might have expected. But she’ll get the name recognition, the party will get neophyte attention to build on for 2016.
I expect to see her rewards as some introductory speech on an off night at some Dem party convention sometime soon. After November she’ll be tapping into those Harvard connections for a way to produce some real income.
BTW, thanks for taking an interest in this and stirring up the chatter. Gregg Abbott has done more for Texas in a wheelchair than most any other person has done otherwise.
Why do so many of these lying twits attend Harvard?
Geoffrey Britain Says:
January 22nd, 2014 at 7:19 pm
That’s exactly right. When that happens, America as we have known it is gone forever.
It’s so close the Left can taste it, and they are pulling out all the stops.
As a newcomer to Texas, complete with training Stetson (big hat, not allowed the fancy band yet), am I correct in noticing that the Lt Governor here does more of the actual work of running the state than the Governor? Meaning no disrespect to Rick Perry.
Richard McEnroe, you are correct in concluding that the lieutenant governor in Texas does more of the actual work of running the state. Bill Hobby, who was lieutenant governor from 1973-1991, did not serve so long by acquiring a reputation for incompetency.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_P._Hobby,_Jr.
Wendy Davis is a monster.
I thought that before I heard she had abandoned her children to her soon-to-be ex-husband immediately after he had paid off the last of her student loans. She’s scum, and a despicable human being.
But I count her a monster because she advocates using scissors as a method of birth control. That is, she has no trouble endorsing abortion on demand, until the abortionist is sticking scissors into the skull of a baby.
Vile.
Unless and until her opponents can actually find the guts to tell the public about what people of her ilk believe people like her will continue to be regarded as serious candidates for office.
Solely because the public gets nothing more than a glossy marketing brochure about what people like her really believe.
She’ll lose, as she deserves. It just really irritates me that she won’t be despised, as she deserves.
Basic biographical facts are easy to verify by searching the relevant records. As lawyer (or more accurately shyster) she should have know anyone can search birth, marriage, and divorce records at the courthouse. Also, any news report such as announcements, being in a public position (political or non-political), etc. will be available. The fact one may need to search at the courthouse or library does not mean it will not be found. Her best story would have been tell the truth and when some checks her story they will not find discrepancies. No discrepancies means no story. No story means no scandal.
In the end, Ms. Davis attempted the usual two-fer of Democratic political advancement: first, the near deification of herself and her own life, and second, the “politics of personal destruction” against her opponent.
Other nationally prominent Democrats, from Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton to Elizabeth Warren, have done the same. It’s usually worked for them which is why the Democrats down the line have copied the method. In politics, few things are as strong as the tried and true. So of course Ms. Davis and her bully-boys in the various PACs first put out her version of her life, and when that was hit, immediately went after Mr. Abbott at a very personal and basic level.
Like the scorpion stinging the frog: it’s what they do.
Texas being Texas and not Massachusetts, this didn’t work for Ms. Davis as it did for Elizabeth Warren.
And for those with an eye on 2016, you’ve just been given both Ms. Clinton’s playbook and how to stop her.
Wendy will probably get trounced in November, then make a dramatic comeback two years later when she’s tabbed to be the main speaker for “GOP War on Women” night at the Democratic National Convention – maybe right before they officially nominate a woman who faithfully served as wife and enabler for the serial sexual predator who inhabited the Oval Office.
And of course they’ll be so beholden to Wendy for her stirring speech (which probably will be given with a catheter tube running down her leg and trailing behind her pink sneakers) that, if all goes well for them in the national election, they’ll reward her by naming her to be the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
“What is with the overwrought faux empathy on the Left?”
It is not “overwrought”, it is very deliberately calculated. Since their policies are intellectually and morally bankrupt, their chief political weapon is to falsely claim the moral high ground by pompous bloviating about racial, gender and sexual identity while making sure they demonize their opponents. They don’t really believe a word of their own bullsh*t. They pontificate about “homophobia” and “racism” while they simultaneously call Tea Party members “teabaggers” and Jew-bait supporters of Israel. And they get away with it because they are in cahoots with the craven and treasonous MFM.
She’s done. The Democrats are squawking to save face because they had already put so much towards her campaign with money, fake awards, air time on television, and kissing her butt. They can’t just walk away like that. This all is Democratic face saving for wasting their efforts and not bothering to vet her. Miss Wendy knew she didn’t have a chance to win but was going through the motions to be a minor Democratic “celebrity” to appear as a talking head on lefty media and a schmoozing abortion fundraiser demonizing her own constituents which is probably a dream job for a hack like her. She will still have an audience but it will be a tiny one. Her desperation to avoid “joke status” is telling.
I know what McCain or Romney would do if Davis apologized for her insensitive remarks. They would be quick to forgive and move on. Abbott should use the issue to tar Davis and other dems for their lies, distortions, and poor record on jobs, the economy, health care and privacy. That is, hold them accountable for their words and deeds.
An acknowledged left leaning newspaper publishes the story that details the facts and misrepresentations Davis has made, repeatedly, about her life story, which she doesn’t dispute, and she responds by accusing her political opponent of attacking her unfairly. I understand the politics of that tactic, but do not understand why no one is calling bullshit on this factually challenged attack on her opponent.
What if Davis really doesn’t believe an of this crap and is just in it to suck a few retirement dollars out of the DNC? What if she knows her days are numbered and decided to make noises about running for governor, knowing full well the DNC would be right there?
Everything about Davis is cold and calculating and heck, it’s not like she hasn’t used a sugar daddy to cover her bills before.
Pingback:More from the Wendy Davis campaign: Greg Abbott; what does he know of struggle?
I just wanted to make a small observation regarding the notion that a candidate’s “struggles” in life are a qualification for public office.
As a general matter, it would seem to me that people who are really smart and talented, and who exercise good judgment, struggle a great deal less in life than people who are stupid, immature, or just not that capable. Of course, life can throw obstacles in one’s path that even the most talented and gifted among us would find difficult to overcome — for example, an accident that leaves one paralyzed.
Evidently Ms. Davis’ claimed struggles stemmed from the fact that she had been a 19-year-old mother “headed for divorce.” But this predicament, it seems to me, was not the result of some capricious act of cruelty meted out by God or fate; it was in fact a situation entirely of her own making. Nobody forced her to have a baby in her teens, before getting an education that could make her economically self-sufficient. Nobody forced her to marry a man at age 19 whom she would feel compelled to divorce by age 21.
I realize that people are people, and they make mistakes, and those mistakes shouldn’t necessarily be devastating to the fulfillment of one’s future goals and aspirations. However, it seems to me that, before heaping praise on Ms. Davis for overcoming her problems as a young wife and mother, we should acknowledge that those problems only existed in the first place as a result of decision she made for herself. And we should recognize that there are undoubtedly many, many contemporaries of Ms. Davis whose inability today to cite comparable struggles in their lives is due to the fact that they were simply a lot smarter and more prudent than she was. I certainly wouldn’t consider any of those people less qualified for public office simply on the basis that they never had to overcome the kind of difficulties Ms. Davis had created for herself as a young woman.
Po’ wittle weepy Wendy. The girl victim-martyr hasn’t seen Mr. Paraplegic Abbott WALK in her po’ wittle shoes!!!!!!!!!
That this broad even exists in TEXAS is beyond breathtaking. CANNOT possibly make this S*** Up!!
I lived in Dallas for a couple decades and for most of that time I was an advertiser in Dallas Morning News. I have an extreme dislike for that paper and it is an extreme left leaning decaying paper newspaper that has been losing circulation and ad dollars for a number of years. Steve Walsh above makes an interesting point about that particular paper breaking this story with all of the sordid details.
I suspect that Wendy’s truth surfaced they decided that Abortion Barbie is a dead duck so they might as well use her story to get it all out at once and see what happens and in doing that the paper can also make a claim in the upcoming election year of being fair and balanced which will not be true.
Before he passed away a few years ago one of the senior editors lived next door to my in-laws in Dallas. He was a left leaning moderate and he was pushed out early when they fired most of the older staff to save money and hired youngsters who churned out badly written tripe and Democrat press releases and called it journalism.
I think that the big Dems might be scraping Wendy off their shoes and clearing the board so they can find a more suitable candidate and not have to mess with her in the primary. She will run but the dollars won’t be behind her.
Conrad,
The premise of Wendy Davis’s narrative is the she didn’t make a mistake.
A mistake is judged by a standard. A standard is based on a norm.
Marxism is about redefining or altogether replacing social norms, and thus our standards, and thus what is or is not a mistake.
So, what you view as mistakes of her own making are normal to the Marxist movement in which Davis is an avatar. That movement means to make her ‘mistakes’ the norm of our society and your norms and standards abnormal.
Old Texan:
Except I read that the filing fee for the primary was a month ago. So apparently they’re somewhat stuck with Wendy, unless someone else viable already filed.
I wonder whether the paper knew how negative the reaction to the article would be. Maybe they thought it would be more minor?
Conrad, Eric:
I think the premise was that she was raised by a single mother, too, who struggled, and so that’s why she was screwed up and made mistakes, and yet they all managed to right themselves without men. Turns out Davis was also underrepresenting the amount of help she got from her father, as well as from her second husband.
neo, from what I have read, the premise that Davis was a single mom like her mom is not true. As far as I can tell, she was ‘single’ only briefly and left her kids for her husband to raise.
Neo,
I’ve read (though admittedly, not bothered to confirmed – I’m not a Texan) that her father has said he was *not* an absent dad and was involved in her life post-divorce, plus Davis had a step-dad because her mom re-married within a few years of the divorce.
If anything, the incongruities in Davis’s narrative are more stark because she seems to have had an exceptionally high amount of support from men throughout her life.
Neo, thanks for the information and you are right about the filing, it is closed and there is only one other Democrat candidate Reynaldo “Ray” Madrigal in the race.
Frankly I had not paid much attention to the Democrats since I thought Wendy was a lame duck out of the gate. The major metro areas vote Democrat and the rest of the state with the exception of the border areas tends to vote Republican.
I consider myself a pretty informed Texan, and never heard of Wendy until the infamous filibuster to defend the right to have late term abortions. It stands to reason I guess the Democrat handlers needed to generate a larger than life narrative for her. If it isn’t already apparent, she’s something of a twit- she recently proposed to introduce gun legislation that would allow a concealed weapons license holder the right to store a firearm in their car, at their place of employment.
As any CC license holder here knows, that’s already a law. And she voted for it in 2011.
The Democrat machine is going to need to do a lot more work to sell her to Texans than invent hard luck stories. And it’s just my opinion, but the underdog bit doesn’t seem to resonate the same here- an awful lot of Texans came from humble backgrounds and did well for themselves. That’s what they pride themselves on – if you want to do well you can in Texas.
Texans are familiar with Greg Abbot and his record is of a decent, fair guy. It’s going to be difficult to trash him. She would do better to knock off the sob stories and talk about what qualifies her to be governor, and what she’s going to do. Economically speaking, Texas is in great shape, so any discussions about altering that trajectory aren’t going to help.
I don’t think that Wendy Davis ever really thought that she had a shot at being elected. I think that she has been angling for a spot as a regular contributor for MSNBC all along. A liberal Sarah Palin. This controversy will sink what chance she had to be governor, but make her a guarantee for TV. The libs will love her even more.
Pingback:If a Tea Party Candidate did this….OMG!!! Wendy Davis mocks Greg Abbot | Home Grown News Media
Eric, above @9:59, writes, ‘Marxism is about redefining or altogether replacing social norms, and thus our standards, and thus what is or is not a mistake.’
Project Veritas has provided us with a video of Battleground Texas, compromised of leftovers from the Obama campaign and is the group charged with turning Texas blue.
Their attitudes exemplify that Marxist intent.
View this video of the ‘Battleground Texas’ discussion…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yZpr5JJGmI
Thanks to Project Veritas
Twitchy http://twitchy.com/2014/01/23/busted-wendy-davis-
supporters-caught-mocking-greg-abbotts-disability-video/
…a young woman like I.
Ok, now I’m really outraged.
🙂
But seriously: “stupid and despicable” is right.
I’ve heard before that Democrat likes in Austin and Texas cities are somewhat high on haters of the disabled.
I just read Abbott’s Wikipedia entry. Good-looking, handicapped, Hispanic wife, adopted child, lawyer, successful politician, defended the Ten Commandments. The governorship of Texas is not the highest office this guy could attain.
Mac, thank you for the observation. I was beginning to think that no one had spotted it. Another observation: While I have seen this mistake from both sides of the aisle, it seems to me that more radical liberals make the same mistake than their more conservative peers. I wonder if there is some psychological trait in play here. does the word “I” carry more attention-attracting value than the (uncapitalized) word “me”?
Typos, the bane of my existance.
I haven’t noticed a political slant to mistakes like “a young woman like I”. It seems to be more a matter of educational level. For some reason, erring on the side of the object pronoun sounds unsophisticated, so the overeducated overcompensate in the other direction.
Mac, SpaceBlue, Nick:
Here’s a post I wrote on the subject. Enjoy.