Wendy Davis recently received Ann Richards’ shotgun. Davis is from Rhode Island, not Texas, so it’s only natural that she looked ‘awkward’ holding Ann Richards’ shotgun. Ann Richards is of course the last Democrat to be governor of Texas. Wendy Davis though is no Ann Richards. Now it seems that Wendy Davis is using the Elizabeth Warren playbook with her family-defense and press-control. William Jacobson has a great article about how Davis is trying to following the Warren playbook family-defense and press-control scripts.
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| Is Wendy Davis pulling an Elizabeth Warren with family-defense and press-control? |
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When her political and personal narrative of being a single mom who lived in a trailer and clawed her way through college and law school was revealed to be misleading, at best, Davis’ campaign struggled for the first week. It flailed away at the Abbott campaign, the reporter from the Dallas Morning News, and played the misogyny card.
After Davis’ campaign gained some footing, it went full-Warren with a theme of defending her family. While Warren at least had the decency to keep her family members off stage, Davis rolled out her two daughters to defend her.
Davis also is excercizing tight press access control, cancelling a major interview the day after the story broke, and closing out all the press save for the Texas Tribune, from the event at which Davis’ daughters spoke.
But Texas is not Massachusetts. Not only is the electorate more Republican and conservative, the Texas press is not a bunch of political sycophants.