Texas state Senator and filibuster heroine Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth) spoke to the National Press Club on Monday, and was asked if she planned to run for Governor. After dodging, Davis promised that she would run for either her state Senate seat or the office of Governor.
Asked, “Will you run for Governor?”, Texas state Senator Wendy Davis demurred at first, with vague references to Texans wanting a change from the very fractured current leadership. No fun.
But asked if she would run for any other office other than Governor, Davis got specific and promised, “I will run for one of two seats — either my state senate seat or the Governor.”
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
That made a lot of Texans (and national supporters) happy. It looks like she is very seriously eying up a run for Governor.
Davis is quick on the draw, too. Asked, “Would you run as VP candidate with Hillary Clinton?” She quipped, “We’ll have to find out whether Hillary is running for president first.”
Davis referenced the fact that Republicans defunding family planning clinics has taken aim at women’s health care, “Partisan legislation and budget cuts have cut access to health care for over 160,000 woman.”
She spoke about the excitement generated by her record breaking filibuster and the support it garnered, “Every Texan deserves that moment. Every Texan deserves a voice. And every Texan should know the future belongs to all of us.”
“I know because I remember the first moment when I discovered my own. It happened when I was standing in front of a book shelf holding what was to be my first college book. I will never forget the feeling of that book in my hands. It was an incredible and overpowering feeling. It was farther than anyone in my family had gotten.”
Davis shared how important being able to attend college was for her, saying “Education is a pathway out of poverty.” She added, “I always thought of college as something that belonged to someone else. The state of Texas helped make it affordable for me.”
She shared some of her Grandfather’s wisdom, “The task may not be quick and it may not be easy but it’s important, it’s essential, and together, it can be done.”
Wendy Davis shares a few alarming traits — if you’re a Republican — with another Southern Democratic woman, Alison Grimes, who is challenging Republican Mitch McConnell for his U.S. Senate seat. Davis and Grimes are both strong, smart, ladylike fighters.
It’s not that one needs to be “ladylike”, but that in the South, which is currently dominated by Republicans, people think “feminist” and they think 60s radical. People hear “war on women” and they roll their eyes. It takes a village to change things, and part of that village is women like Grimes and Davis who can mainstream feminism and Democratic ideas in a way that is palatable to some of the holdouts.
Heck, they might not even call it feminism, but policies that represent equal rights for all are feminist policies. The thing is, when these policies are explained correctly and not dressed in FemiNazi scare tactics, they are already mainstream. For example, Davis advocated to test every rape kit today. Who would argue with that out loud? No one.
But behind the closed doors of policy debate, this is exactly what Republicans stand for. In fact, in Texas Republican Jodie Laubenberg (champion of SB5) claimed rape kits can give an abortion. Naturally PolitiFact wept.
This last Davis soundbite says it all, “And though I’ve been characterized… as a bit of a problem, my record is really about the effort to find solutions.” Oh, my.
Southern Republicans have stirred things too far, awakening the Steele Magnolias. This is not a war they are going to win.
Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Connect with Sarah on Post, Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.
