Lessons from W'.s home state

Some of George Bush's liabilities weren't on the radar screens of natives

Ten lessons learned when the governor (George W Bush) of your state (Texas) runs for higher office (president).

1. Out-of-state media will examine your hometown boy much more closely than the locals.

Some of Bush's biggest liabilities nationally were things the average Texan was unaware of - or didn't care about - before the campaign. Texas' inadequate indigent defense system especially for those facing the death penalty was not on the radar screen of most natives. Same goes for air pollution and Bush's corporate-friendly enforcement agency, the state's mixed educational record, the governor's Vietnam-era National Guard service, his lack of smooth verbal (ahem) delivery, etc.

All of Bush's (and by extension, the state's) blemishes were magnified into gigantic warts.

2. Item 1 produced defensive crouches by some local media types.

More than a few editorial folks in Texas were stunned - stunned! - that the national media could not see what a divine place Texas is. They pleaded that their home state wasn't the third-world country it was made out to be by the likes of The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Well, obviously the comfortable suburbs of Dallas and Houston are not suffering (although dirty air respects no culde-sac or manicured lawn), but the area along the Mexican border is one of the poorest in the country.

That, too, is part of Texas, and there's not much Governor Bush could point to in the way of improving things during his tenure.

3. Everybody from the rest of the country wants the inside scoop on the candidate.

When asked,"What is George Bush REALLY like," I always answered, "With W, what you see is what you get" This could be good or bad news, depending on your ideology

4. The subtleties of the governor's record were lost nationally.

Despite my comments on Item 2, much of the blame the governor took for the states problems was for things not directly under his control. As Molly Ivins wrote during the campaign, in Texas, governor is the fifth most important job in the state.

5. The governor wasn't at home much.

Bush spent much of the almost-two-year campaign out of the state. Not that he was missed all that much. It doesn't say much about the degree of difficulty of the job if everything can run smoothly while the governor is at a pickle-tasting contest in Michigan.

In fact, in the wake of a damaging tornado last spring in north Texas, the governor opted to attend a fundraiser in New Jersey rather than tend to the windswept folks back home.

6. We didn't see much of the "campaign."

With Texas considered a lock for Bush, the Democrats and third parties didn't pay much attention to the state. At most, the candidates did drive-by fundraisers in Dallas and Houston.

This also kept all of those nasty TV ads off the local airwaves. One of my favorite letters of the campaign season was from a local woman who wrote that she was sick of all nasty political advertisements on TV and in the local papers. Our one question was: Where are you seeing them, since both the DNC and the RNC would be fools to spend a dime in a state so secure for Bush?

7. Texas' winner-take-all Electoral College math is fuzzy.

A system of dividing up a states Electoral College electors by percentage of votes would have helped in a big of place like Texas. It would have offered Gore or Nader the chance to target pockets of supporters in hopes of attracting a least of share of the electors.

8. The state may have been sewed up for the guv, but the loyal opposition made its voice heard.

In a place where the governor's Electoral College votes were pretty much automatic, plenty of letter writers wrote in opposition to Bush, as if the state would swing the election.

The Texas Truth Squad, a collection of elected officials who barnstormed the country pointing out the flat tires on Dubya's bandwagon, was a constant source of amusement and, sometimes, outright anger. As Don Corleone told Sonny, "Never tell anybody outside the family what you're thinking."

9. It's important that the presidential candidate not pick a vice presidential candidate from his home state.

How important? Well, it's in the Constitution. We all found that out when Bush selected Dick Cheney as his veep nominee. As we've all been lectured to over these past eight years, you can't ignore the rule of law, so Cheney went to his native Wyoming and registered to vote there, thus in some sense establishing residency in Wyoming.

Cheney had lived in Dallas since the mid1990s and had worked as CEO of Dallas-based Halliburton. Yet he swore in a court case that he was not a Texan.

It was fun to then watch Cheney - after his party slammed President Clinton for getting by on technicalities - become veep according to a very technical reading of residency laws.

10. Bush owned the states newspaper endorsements.

According to a survey in MediaInfo.com, the only Texas newspaper that endorsed Al Gore was the Longview News-journa.

It was not enough to swing the state.

NCEW member Bob Davis is op-ed/Sunday editor for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram He is not a native of Texas, but of Alabama, where the politics are even goofier. E-mail him at [email protected]

Copyright MASTHEAD National Conference of Editorial Writers Spring 2001
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