What a difference 12 months can make! Just ask Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator who was cheered on by the “mainstream media” for conducting a “passionate” filibuster against a bill to restrict abortions in the Lone Star State. While the law eventually passed, the obscure official was instantly catapulted into the national spotlight and encouraged to run for governor in the 2014 election.
One year later, the Democratic candidate's campaign is losing momentum despite the fact that she recently celebrated the anniversary of her attention-grabbing tactic by wearing her “comfortable pink sneakers” at a rally that led Manny Fernandez of the New York Times to declare: “For Wendy Davis, a filibuster goes only so far in the race to be governor of Texas.”
Wendy Davis
Pre-spinning what could be a "blow-out" loss by liberal Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, Politico on Monday accentuated the positives. A headline on the home page touted, "How Wendy Davis Wins By Losing." According to writers Anna Palmer and Katie Glueck, there is nothing but upside: "But even if Davis suffers a big loss, she could still score a win for her political career — setting herself up as an important player in the party regardless of the final score."
Offering spin that liberal journalists often hold for weeks before the election, the journalists admitted, "But privately, many of her supporters are resigned to her losing. And, already, some political operatives are pondering how she can stay politically relevant beyond November." A new poll has the pro-abortion Democrat behind by 12 points. According to Politico "many liberals believe [the poll] could mean a blow-out in November."
The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday about a big setback for the Wendy Davis campaign for Texas governor. The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) did not include her campaign as a top target which means it won't be prioritized for heavy spending. The reaction from the Davis campaign could best be described as an angry hissy fit which bitterly attacked the DGA.
Pretty big political news from Texas to the extent it was covered by the Wall Street Journal. Therefore you would expect the Texas Tribune which is supposed to cover the nuts and bolts details of Texas politics to report this story. Well, as of this writing there is NADA about this at the Texas Tribune. To get an idea of how completely absurd it is for the "nonpartisan" Texas Tribune to avoid this story, first let us take a look at the the WSJ report titled "Wendy Davis’s Race in Texas Isn’t a Top Target for DGA" about that organization keeping her campaign out of the big leagues in terms of support:
The liberal journalists at MSNBC have been quite enamored with Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, constantly promoting her Democratic campaign. Yet, a new poll showing her trailing by 14 points has gone unmentioned on the network. Even more interesting, Republican candidate Greg Abbott is beating Davis even among women, 49-41. The Public Policy Polling survey was released on Tuesday. Also, it should be pointed out, PPP is a Democratic polling firm.
In the past, MSNBC hosts have attempted to spin bad news for Davis. In January, Andrea Mitchell gently explained, "[She's] being forced to answer media reports down there that she had slightly altered her resume." In July of 2013, the journalist became one of her early cheerleaders, prompting, "Are you thinking about statewide office? Are you thinking about running for Governor?"
MSNBC's rooting interest in the Texas gubernatorial race and the Lean Forward network's loathing of voter ID laws came together Monday in a hit piece on Republican gubernatorial nominee Greg Abbott.
MSNBC.com scribe Zachary Roth sharpened his pen to attack the Texas attorney general's "bogus voter fraud crusade." Essentially Roth whined that because there were only a handful of cases of potential voter fraud which Abbott's office was able to document for the network that the state's tightening of ID requirements at the polling stations were an empty gesture at best, and, you guessed it, racially-motivated at worst (emphasis mine)
"Wendy Davis Will Turn Texas Purple" insists the teaser headline on the Daily Beast front page today. No, this is NOT satire, but the honest-to-goodness belief of community organizer turned Daily Beast contributor Sally Kohn.
The headline for the story itself -- "Wendy Davis Is One Step Closer To Turning Texas Purple" -- dials down the hype a tiny bit, but the argument of her piece is pretty clear, even as Kohn desperately latches on to one poll for her ray of hope for the Lone Star State (emphasis mine):
Last year, the Texas legislature passed sweeping legislation aimed at improving the safety of the state’s 44 abortion clinics. One year later, 20 of those clinics are closing their doors instead of choosing to make the necessary upgrades required to make their clinics meet surgical center standards.
In keeping with the liberal media’s objection to these new safety standards, the March 7th “New York Times” ran a front page piece lamenting the voluntary closure of more than half of Texas’ abortion clinics. Times reporter Manny Fernandez moaned how “Shortly before a candlelight vigil on the sidewalk outside, employees of the last abortion clinic in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas shut the doors on early Thursday evening, making legal abortion unavailable in the poorest part of the state in the wake of tough new restrictions passed last year by the Texas legislature.”
Even when attempting to say something nice about a conservative, MSNBC somehow managed to stick its foot in its mouth. Resident MSNBC.com voter-ID conspiracy theorist Zachary Roth sickeningly blared in a March 5th piece that “No One Pushes Greg Abbott Around” with an accompanying picture of Mr. Abbott waiving to supporters from his wheelchair.
Roth spent the first three paragraphs in a fairly tame manner, describing how Abbott was left paralyzed at age 26 from a freak accident the Republican sustained while running, before launching into an all-out attack on the Texan. Roth promoted how Abbott “likes to point out that he’s filed 30 lawsuits against “Barack Obama”—never President Obama—and his administration.”
At the Associated Press on Friday, Chris Tomlinson wrote a story of national significance ("State officials investigating Democratic activists") which the wire service appears not to have ever carried at its national site.
It is nationally significant because the establishment press, both in print and over the airwaves, has chosen to make the Lone Star State gubernatorial candidacy of Democrat Wendy Davis a national matter. However, continuing a pattern going back several months (examples here and here), when negative matters relating to her campaign or to those assisting it surface, all of a sudden we're supposed to believe nobody outside of Texas cares.
The left constantly rants about alleged illegal coordination between conservative and Republican candidates and groups with little to no proof. At least once, when it had no evidence, it went to court to try to get a judge to allow them to engage in a wide-ranging fishing expedition to find something, anything, which might "prove" it. Fortunately, a Wisconsin judge in mid-January turned back that request involving Badger State Governor Scott Walker and organizations which independently advocated for his 2010 election and defended him against the 2012 recall effort.
James O'Keefe's latest video involving Battleground Texas would appear to demonstrate that many in the left assume conservatives routinely engage in illegal campaign activity because, well, the left routinely engages in illegal campaign activity. Watch Project Veritas's latest video after the jump, and ask yourself whether the illegal use of voter information O'Keefe exposes would be ignored by the press if a conservative or Republican organization were engaging in it:
Pity The Daily Beast’s Keli Goff. Anyone who would try to explain “How Wendy Davis Became America’s Conscience on Abortion” must have a tragically ill-formed concept of conscience. Or maybe Goff just lost a bet.
But “The Texas gubernatorial candidate didn’t flip-flop,” Goff assured readers on Feb. 18, “she just voiced what a large percentage of Americans already think of this hot button issue.” That issue is a ban on abortion after 20 weeks, and Davis’ recently expressed support for such a ban (provided certain changes) is indeed in line with what a large percentage of Americans think. But most Americans didn’t become media stars and jump-start their political careers staging a catheterized, cutely shod 11-hour filibuster against such a bill.
In near identical fashion to their treatment of abortion-activist Sandra Fluke, MSNBC has been running the unofficial political campaign for Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis. During her failed filibuster of new abortion laws in Texas, MSNBC helped propel Ms. Davis into the national spotlight, with host Chris Hayes going so far as to claim that her campaign is a “matter of life of death for many Texans.”
On the February 17 Morning Joe, the entire panel, sans conservative co-host Joe Scarborough, continued with the Wendy Davis love-fest before ultimately conceding that the liberal Democrat will likely not become the next governor of Texas.