Keith Olbermann Takes On The Texas' Legislature's Tea Party Supermajority

[kentauros]

Keith Olbermann Takes On The Texas' Legislature's Tea Party Supermajority
The Houston Press
By Richard Connelly, Thu., Dec. 16 2010 @ 10:01AM

We've never been the hugest fans of Keith Olbermann -- cable-shouting from the left can be as inchoate as cable-shouting from the right -- but we post this because it's about Texas.

Specifically about the new GOP supermajority in the House which, Olbermann says, represents "a Tea Party legislature The Nuge could be proud of."

I caught the tail-end of this last night and thought it wasn't KO's best. But perhaps as Thurston points out, people from outside the state just don't really understand our politics, and it's not going to get like they fear.

I was thinking this morning that what we need to do is get some Democrats to run as Republicans and then switch parties once they're in office }(

[sonias]

1. That was painful

I watched it online at Texas Tribune

Olbermann on the New Texas House Supermajority
(snip)
Calling Texas Democrats "as relevant as the mythical chupacabra" after a pair of party defections announced yesterday, MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann featured the new GOP supermajority in the Texas House as its No. 1 story on the program Wednesday night. (Which really means it's the quirkiest topic, as the show "counts down" to the end.)

Never one to mince words, Olbermann says Texas' GOP gains have made the country's second-largest state "a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tea Party" before going on to interview a staffer from The Onion on what the Republican supermajority means next session. (We've certainly covered the implications, too. Check out Ross' latest from earlier this week.)

You may be right - it's time for all of us to be republicans - become RINOs ourselves. Since this is becoming a one party state I mean, and it's not the Democratic party either. :(

The Texas Observer has a great new series of articles on the Latino Texas vote - or where it's not. Here's one:

Texas Observer 12/15/10
2030 Election Wrap-Up: Viva Los Republicanos
How did Texas Democrats blow it again?

On a grim election night 20 years ago, as Texas Democrats mourned and puzzled over their largest statewide losses in history, one of the state representatives who’d lost her seat in the Tea Party landslide detected one small silver lining: “At least we can say with confidence that things can only get better from here. Right?”

Well, sort of. In the two volatile decades following their historic nadir of 2010, Texas Democrats’ fortunes have indeed improved, but without ever achieving true parity with a Republican Party that has only once relinquished control of the state House since 2002—and without nailing down the decisive bloc of loyal Latino voters that the Democrats had long counted on. Last night’s emphatic re-elections of Texas’ leading “Nuevo Republicanos,” Gov. Eva Guzman and U.S. Sen George P. Bush, dealt yet another blow to the ever-hopeful, perpetually disappointed Democrats. And this one stung far more than 2010: For the first time, a majority of non-Anglo Texans—nearly 56 percent, according to initial exit polls—rejected the minority party in favor of the GOP. Meanwhile, Texas Democrats won a bitter consolation prize: They carried the ever-diminishing Anglo vote, now less than 35 percent of the total, for the first time in more than half a century.

:kick:

[Vogon_Glory]

2. Everyone Loves A Winner--Even The Ones Who Kick You In the Teeth?

I'm beginning to wonder if part of the reason Texas Democrats did so poorly this year is because there is something cultural or psychological in the mindset of those citizens who either didn't vote or who voted Republican in spite of the obvious fact that those same Republican reactionaries are working against their interests.

I don't know if it's because too many poorly-educated voters have decided that political elections are like 'Dancing With The Stars,' where voters choose the prettiest and best-dancing (usually the side-step, the back-step, and the double-shuffle, as we have seen) candidates instead the ones who will take care of their interests, or if it's because they feel obliged to vote for the winner--the guy with the whitest teeth, the fanciest suit, and the most expensive automobile. I really DON'T understand such a mindset. Maybe it's because I've always been the odd man out since primary school, maybe it's because I have a much broader vision of what comprises a truly decent society than the so-called 'traditional values' crowd's tunnel-vision obsession with who is playing bed-sheet bingo with whom, and I'm still just selfish enough to ask myself 'What's in it for me and my younger kin?'. But I'm coming to the very unhappy conclusion that apparently a LOT of Texas voters have a vote-for-the-winner--even-if-he'd kicking-you-in-the-teeth' mindset.

Maybe enough pain will wise some of the voters who stayed home or voted Republican. Lord know that the rest of the electorate has elected a bunch that will be only too happy to deal out such grief.


:argh:

:dem:

[sonias]

3. "enough pain will wise some of the voters"

I'm hoping for the same thing too. If they actually approve of what's going to happen to them, then we have a really big problem. What are they to do? Keep taking the kick or speak up?

:shrug: