Jay Root has posted an entertaining take on the disaster that was the Wendy Davis campaign for Texas governor.
The gist is that Davis’ longtime advisers warned her not to behave like an out-of-touch coastal liberal if she wants to win in Texas.
Davis instead turned to the likes of Zac Petkanas from the Harry Reid operation in Nevada. Petkansas proceeded to operate is if he was working in a state where acting like a bully while trashing the state’s majority is the surest road to victory. Predictably, he failed and is now regarded as a childish clown by an entire state.
Petkanas doesn’t figure in Root’s story, as it focuses on Davis and how she ignored her advisers and ended up taking Texas Democrats backward.
Back to Jay Root’s story:
“The campaign is in disarray and is in danger of being embarrassed,” Cari and Dougherty wrote in a lengthy memorandum on Jan. 6. “The level of dysfunction was understandable in July and August, when we had no infrastructure in place — but it doesn’t seem to be getting better.”
Addressed to then-Campaign Manager Karin Johanson, the memo warned that the Davis campaign had “lurched to the left,” was failing to communicate a positive message and offered virtually nothing to the swing voters the senator would need to win statewide.
“There is not a model where a candidate who appears this liberal and culturally out of touch gets elected statewide anywhere in the south — much less in Texas — without some inoculation,” the consultants said.
The authors of that memo own Prism Communications, which had been Davis’ consultants during her runs for state Senate. They had guided the Democrat to victory in a Republican-leaning district, and they saw the dysfunction and tone-deafness in the Davis statewide campaign way back in January.
Davis fired them.
Now Davis’ former advisers are leaking to the media, mainly to protect themselves and their future earning potential. “This disaster wan’t our fault!” is their obvious message.
As for Davis…well, MSNBC is bound to call any time. Her running mate, state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, has abandoned her statewide ambitions and is angling for a city post in San Antonio. Texas Democrats are in full retreat.
But there is one thing that we can be sure the Texas Democrats will not do, and that’s moderate their positions to appeal to this conservative-libertarian state. That lesson remains stubbornly unlearned.
Watching that campaign from the outside, it was always obvious that Wendy Davis was a very poor choice for nominee and that her campaign was doomed. She lacks experience, and she is way out on the left on the issues. She was a media creation in a state that disdains the mainstream media and the culture from which it springs. She kept running out of state to raise money, and just never seemed like she had a clue about how Texans who are not trust fund babies or trial lawyers really think.
It’s fitting that Wendy Davis has left her party in total disarray. Thankfully, the voters limited her damage just to the Democratic Party. Just think what she might have done to Texas if we had elected her governor.
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