by Molly Ivins
Her real passion is kids and education. I guess that’s why Bush struck me as so flat when he said that schools would be his top priority. Of course, Richards started out as a teacher (“spent her entire adult life in politics” is just one of those charming little election-year lies we’re all so used to) and also spent twenty years raising four terrific kids.
Anyone who has ever seen Ann Richards with a bunch of schoolkids knows the magic of a great teacher. I’ll never forget Richards with a group of forty or so Anglo, black, and brown kids from Dallas visiting the Capitol. She uses the Socratic method: She asks the questions; they figure out the answers. “Who owns this building?” she asked. It took several steps for the kids to realize they’re taxpayers, too, and finally shout out in delight: “We own it. It’s ours.”
Ann Richards is not a perfect person. In the first place, she has serious perfectionist tendencies; in the second place, she gets crabby when she’s tired. But you’ll never find a former employee of Richards’ telling tales about what a stinker she is, the way Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s do. Because on top of the smarts, the discipline, and the fact she works harder than anyone around, she has warmth, wit, and charm. They are genuine, and she is generous with them.
It’s not that there’s much wrong with Bush; it’s the comparison to Richards that makes one want to refer to him as “little,” “young” (as though forty-eight were young), “callow,” and, frankly, sort of a jerk. When you compare the two of them in wisdom, life experience, understanding and liking of people, and knowing how to get things done for Texas, he is a shallow little twerp who’s too dumb to realize how much he doesn’t know.
He may well beat her. It’s up to you.
November 1994
Adios, Annie
AVE ATQUE VALE, Miz Ann. Hail and farewell, Governor Richards. Adios, Annie. Keep your wagon between the ditches. May your days be full of laughter. Good on ya.
Ann Richards’ electoral loss to George Dubya Bush will keep political scientists studying for years. By all the conventional measures, she should have walked back into office. Her approval rating was and is over 60 percent—practically golden. The state’s economy is ginnin’, crime rates are down, school scores are up, she never raised taxes, and never had a scandal.
The short, easy version is that Richards lost because of President Clinton. In Florida, where Clinton was at 42 percent in the approval ratings, Governor Lawton Chiles pulled it out. In Texas, where Clinton hovers around 36 percent, there just wasn’t a shot. Another short, easy version is that she won by 100,000 votes last time against a gloriously inept opponent, and in the meantime, 120,000 people have moved into the state and registered Republican.
The more complex and more accurate version is that George Dubya ran a helluva campaign and Annie ran a dud. Their race became a peculiar black-and-white negative of the 1992 presidential race between George Dubya’s daddy and Clinton, with Richards as the stay-the-course, no-vision candidate and Bush as the proponent of change, change, change. George Dubya’s campaign was full of ideas and plans (of dubious merit, but whatthehey), while Richards neither successfully sold what should have been limned as a brilliant record nor projected any enthusiasm for a wonderful future. The New Texas disappeared. The television ads were lousy.
A lot of they-sayers believe Richards & Co. underestimated George Dubya, who ain’t no Claytie Williams. I thought she took him seriously from the git-go, which is why she flip-flopped on federal protection for Caddo Lake, thus royally annoying the enviros. But dismissing him as a “jerk” set off the now-famous angry-white-male vote. I’m not sure what Richards could have done to win over that vote; my personal opinion is that some men feel threatened by a strong woman, especially one with a quick tongue.
Of the hundreds of distinguished appointments that Richards made, which will surely include the black, brown, and female leaders of the coming years, only a literal handful were gays or lesbians. But the Christian right, using the fear-mongering hyperbole for which it is so noted, managed to imply that the capital had become a sink of iniquity. Richards’ veto of the concealed-weapons bill set off the gun nuts. I still think it was statesmanship of a high order.
As for Richards’ real record in office, to the extent that the governor of Texas is really nothing more than a salesman for the state, I’m not sure we’ve ever had better. Ann Richards is as popular outside Texas as she is inside. And although her sense of humor may have cost her votes with the angry white males, I think she has definitely proved again that it is possible to hold high public office and be witty, too.
Her biggest mistake in my book was early on, when Bob Bullock had the guts to come out for a state income tax and Richards left him out there, slowly twisting in the wind. (So did the bidness community, which has quietly been in favor of same for many years.) That was gutless.
In the bidness community’s books, Richards’ appointments in insurance, environment, and nursing home regulation were “too militant.” They felt they were perceived as the enemy when they went in to deal with those folks, and no one likes that. There’s an extent to which it was a real problem with some of Richards’ more purist appointments and an extent to which it was nothing more than willful misperception. Besides, anyone who doesn’t make enemies in office isn’t worth spit.
Richards said in a farewell interview with the press corps that if she’d known she was going to be a one-term governor, she would have “raised more hell.” I wish she had. But these are relatively minor quibbles with what is, overall, a distinguished record. My political memory of Texas governors goes back to Allan Shivers, and I know that in that time we have not had a governor who worked nearly as hard as Ann Richards. Who was nearly as gracious as Richards. Who made more good appointments than Richards. Who set a higher standard of honesty than Richards.
A special thanks is due Richards from recovering alcoholics and addicts all over the country. Her grassroots work in this field, done in addition to her duties as governor, has been tireless, inspirational, and quite simply extraordinary. From mansions in Dallas to prisons all over the state, she has changed lives. To see the governor of Texas sitting in a circle with convicted criminals saying simply, “My name is Ann, and I am an alcoholic,” is to learn a great deal about recovery.
What our notoriously weak governors actually do is set a tone for the state. So let it be recorded that for four brief shining years, Ann Richards gave the joint some class.
Good on ya, Annie. So now go camping and have some fun.
January 1995
The Lege
WE DIDN’T ASK for it, we don’t want it, we’re not ready, and we haven’t done anything to deserve it; nevertheless, the Texas Legislature is about to start again.
Veteran Texans know that the only solution is to hunker down and laugh, since the one thing we can count on our Lege for is Pure D, top-grade, high-octane entertainment. Better than the zoo, finer than the circus, pratfalls, fistfights, clowns, animals—what could be better? It’s representative democracy, Texas-style, in full-blooded action. As former state senator Carl Parker used to say, “If you took all the fools out of the Legislature, it wouldn’t be a representative body anymore.”
A brief recap on some of our major players:
• The Gov, George W. Bush, is somewhat short of running room on account of he’s playing to a two-tier audience. The national press corps will be watching his every move, analyzing how it will play not only in Iowa and New Hampshire but even among general voters beyond the primaries. Meanwhile, he has to keep the red hots in his own party from doing anything that will embarrass him nationally, and that may not be easy.
• The Lite Gov, Rick Perry (a new player at this level), has not started out in a sure-footed manner.
A lite gov can, both by the Texas Constitution and by force of personality, be far more powerful than the gov, as Bob Bullock has been. Perry hired some good staff people, and all were hopeful. Then word hit the Capitol that Perry proposed to replace Senator Da
vid Sibley of Waco as chairman of the powerful Economic Development Committee.
Sibley is widely regarded as one of the best and brightest of the Republican senators, a class act, and Bullock (never one to waste talent) gave him some big jobs. A perfect storm of rumors attended the alleged effort to remove Sibley, including one that Bush intervened.
The whole thing led to a come-to-Jesus session between Perry and the Republican senators, and now no one says anything for the record. Speculation is that Sibley keeps his chairmanship but that some of his power is stripped by moving jurisdiction on tort questions to another committee.
In general, Perry is regarded, both by philosophy and by campaign contributions, as entirely a creature of the business community, especially big business.
• Democratic House Speaker Pete Laney normally runs a benign and nonpartisan operation, giving major committee chairmanships to Republicans and pretty much letting everyone have a run with his or her bills. But the Speak is now down to a six-vote margin in the 150-member House, and furthermore he is reportedly more than a little chapped over the tactics used by Republicans to defeat Democratic members. It’s not that easy to make Laney mad, but the R’s have done it. He will probably recover his usual equanimity before the session starts, but it may take a lot less than it once did to turn him into an angry Democrat.
• She’s baaaack! The least popular member of the Legislature, Representative Arlene Wohlgemuth of Burleson, was reelected, proving that Wohlgemuth may have learned something since last session but the voters of Bosque, Johnson, and Somervell counties sure haven’t. Good luck to all y’all.
Wohlgemuth distinguished herself last session by killing off about fifty bills with a parliamentary maneuver because she hadn’t gotten her way on an unrelated matter. That means several dozen bill sponsors will be out gunning for anything she puts up.
We can also count on some of those jolly hot-button issues being brought up. The anti-abortion forces are determined to push parental notification through this session. School vouchers will be a big issue; they are supported not only by Republicans but also by many Chicano reps who support Roman Catholic schools and some black reps who have been convinced it will im-prove inner-city education. The generous campaign contributions of James Leininger, the San Antonio millionaire who favors vouchers, are also a factor.
Personally, I favor Jim Pitts’ old idea of handing the death penalty to eleven-year-olds—as long as we give them hot milk and a teddy bear before we slip ’em the needle.
Tax relief is in sight, but the gov’s proposal to give it all in property tax relief will get a fight. The state doesn’t even have a property tax. Sales tax relief makes more sense, especially since the sales tax weighs more heavily on poor people. And you must admit that there is a certain contradiction between saying you want to improve the public schools and making all your cuts in the tax that supports the schools.
The most promising and important initiative that the state could take (aside from putting some serious money into the schools) is in health care for poor children. This is not only high payoff in terms of cost savings down the line, but there’s a 3-to-1 federal matching program (as rich as it gets), so we could cover every poor child in the state for as little as $150 million. That’s out of a projected $2 billion surplus.
January 1999
Sympathy for the Shrub
STRANGE PEACHES IN the media world. As one who rarely identifies with Governor George W. Bush, I find myself in odd sympathy with the Shrub these days just because media people keep turning up in Austin to ask me about him. I seem to be on the list because I’m one of the few people who will say anything negative about the man on the record. What chaps me is the kind of questions I’m asked.
I offer to explain how Bush flubbed the tax-reform proposals last session—couldn’t even get his own party to go along—and the visiting journalists want to know if he ever used drugs.
I describe his one legislative triumph—a tort reform bill that has so completely reversed the state’s old reputation as a trial lawyer’s paradise that we have now become an insurance company’s paradise—and the visitors want to know if I’ve heard any gossip about his love life.
Give us a break!
I reluctantly agreed to do one more TV interview the other day because this crew said it had come to cover the issues. They said they were particularly concerned that Bush was so vague on so many important questions, and they were here to pin him down. Great, says I—this is public service.
It’s one thing to try to straddle the abortion issue when you’re governor of Texas and have no power to do anything about it; it’s another matter to straddle on abortion when you’re running for president and will be naming people to the Supreme Court. It becomes necessary to clarify what has been a singularly muddled bunch of mush, on this and other topics.
So in comes the happy TV crew to report that Bush has just addressed a group of young people and told them not to make the mistakes he made when he was young. But what mistakes did he make, specifically and in great detail, the television reporter wants to know. This is what he means by clarification of the issues.
Next, a print journalist asks in all seriousness: “But why does Bush keep bringing up this supposed misbehavior when he was young? Why does he dwell on it?” I was completely boggled; you could have knocked me over with Drew Nixon’s brain. Why does Bush bring it up? Why does he dwell on it?
This is a national press corps that has obsessed about the president’s sex life for fourteen months; while much of the world’s economy collapsed, our political press corps was completely caught up in a tawdry soap opera. Now, they come to Texas and bombard Bush and everybody else with questions about his private life, and they want to know why Bush is dwelling on it? Now that’s chutzpah.
If the media want to address Bush’s character, then they should address his character, not his sex life. The main thing about Bush is that there’s not much there there.
This is not a person of great depth or complexity or intelligence; he does not have many ideas. (Actually, aside from tort reform, I’ve never spotted one.) I don’t think he knows or cares a great deal about governance. Nevertheless, he is a perfectly adequate governor of Texas, where we so famously have the weak-governor system. Bush was smart enough to do what Bob Bullock told him to for four years, and it worked fine.
Bush is also a pretty nice guy. I really think you would have to work at it to dislike the man. His best trait is self-deprecating humor.
He’s above average; he’s more than mediocre. He has real political skills. If you separate the political part of public life (i.e., running for office) from the governing part (i.e., what you do after you get there), Bush is much better at the politics. This is true of many people in public life—in fact, a genuine interest in governance is relatively rare among politicians.
As proof of his political shrewdness, I submit two pieces of evidence: first, his careful wooing of the Hispanic community in Texas (such a refreshing contrast to that fool Wilson in California); and second, an extremely difficult balancing act keeping the Christian right, which controls the Texas Republican Party, from being perceived as the face of the party. (Most of Bush’s money comes from precisely the kind of rich Republicans who are horrified by the Christian right; anyone who has covered Texas Republican conventions during the past ten years knows how deep that split is.)
The single worst thing I can say about George W. Bush after five years of watching him is that if you think his daddy had trouble with “the vision thing,” wait’ll you meet this one. I don’t think he has any idea why he’s running for the presidency, except that he’s competitive and he can. On the other hand, most Republicans don’t want government to do much anyway, so Bush is perfect for them.
Anyone who thinks Bush’s sound-bite slogan “compassionate conservatism” actually means something programmatic should study the latest reports on poverty in Texas. Hint to national media people (courtesy of the Ce
nter for Public Policy Priorities):
• Texas has a much higher percentage of poor working families with small children than other states.
• More poor Texas families have a full-time, year-round worker than similar families in other states.
• Texas’ poor families are more likely to rely on earnings for a majority of their income, and less likely to rely on welfare, than similar families in the nation.
• Poor working families in Texas are much less likely to be covered by health insurance. They are less likely to receive unemployment benefits. More than half the poor families are headed by a married couple. One out of six Texans is below the poverty level. The child poverty rate is 24.2 percent, compared to 20.4 percent nationally.
In other words, poor Texans are doing everything Bush thinks they should—they work, they marry, they rely on themselves, they don’t get help from the government—and the upshot is that the state has more poor people, and those poor people are much poorer and less healthy than poor people elsewhere. Now that’s an issue.