| I have lived outside of Texas for six years now, and I have always been both amused and frustrated by everyone else's sense of my sometime-home state. I would never claim to be Texan - you need at least one full generation there to claim such stature - but I encourage people to visit, I encourage people to meet Texans in their natural environment. As I fly into Houston, the plane coming through thick clouds threatening a storm, I find wide, flat land and rows and rows of pick-up trucks; I step off the plane only to be smacked in the face with breath-snatching humidity; and I'm immediately greeted with tourist shops selling fake spurs and brightly colored Western-style button-down shirts. Steak joints, gun stores and strippers - this isn't the ideal place for a peaceful, vegetarian homosexual. And yet...
This state is the home of Jim Hightower, a political force like no other, a populist, a straight shooter, a mouthpiece for rural progressives, a real spokesman for Southerners with common sense and a liberal bend. He has published two smart books on this election alone ( Thieves in High Places and Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush ), filled with reasons to vote President Bush out of office. He does radio spots on Air America, often serves as a talking head, and sends out smart stuff from his Web Action Center, found at www.jimhightower.com - "your one-stop connection to grassroots populism."
Another Texas native - though I believe she lives elsewhere now - is the endlessly funny and consistently intelligent writer Molly Ivins, who has just published Who Let the Dogs In?: Incredible Political Animals I Have Known and previously published the bestseller, Bushwhacked . She offers political commentary regularly for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram . She's a progressive voice in a land of cattle and oil money, a feminist, Texas-style, and a great insider in Texas politics. She has been on President Bush's back for years, making solid case after solid case against him.
And let us not forget the indefatigable Governor Ann Richards, who led Texas for one glorious term, from 1991-1995. She is credited with overseeing an economic turnaround in the state, and, as a teacher, improved education across the board. She stressed opportunities for women and minorities. Most of all, she taught me about the classic Tough Texas Gal - there are many, and they are an impressive breed.
At the age of 15, I wrote to Governor Ann Richards about her turkey-hunting tradition - she very publicly shot a turkey every year for Thanksgiving, I believe. I was against hunting and was following orders from an animal rights group I supported. She wrote back personally, explaining her family's tradition of hunting, and swearing that she would not needlessly harm an animal. My mother licked her thumb and smeared the signature, not believing it was real. I still didn't like hunting, but I had to respect her cultural explanation for this act, and her effort to write back to a sensitive kid with too much time on his hands.
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This is how I made my peace with Texas, by noting these good ol' fashioned liberals still fighting the good fight. There are plenty of other examples - Austin is full of them, obviously, and their presence online stretches from the Burnt Orange Report, an influential blog produced by a few University of Texas Democrats, to writings by Robert Jensen, a UT journalism professor who was nearly fired after writing an Op-Ed in the Houston Chronicle about 9/11 just days after the attack with the headline, "US just as guilty of committing own violent acts."
I don't live there, and I'm not ready to move back due to the endless heat, but Texas is a big place. Regardless of its status as a "red state," I think liberals around the country should remember our friends in the Lone Star State, and give them the credit they deserve. Liberal in Massachusetts? It's not a struggle. But mouthing off about gun control in a state where a person can legally carry a handgun on their person while walking through the mall is a serious risk. Driving down US 59 through East Texas with an HRC sticker on your car takes more cajones than flying a rainbow flag in San Francisco. And campaigning against an elected judge who opposes abortion in Abilene is worthy of more applause than protesters in New York City marching against the war.
All are worthy activities, all deserve attention and support, but Texas liberals are getting discounted for geographical reasons alone. Let's count on their support in the fight against Bush and the neo-cons, and let's return the favor. Republicans, led by Bush, want to assume the state is their own. It's a given. Well there are plenty of individuals in Texas who think otherwise, and we must remember that every vote against Bush, regardless of the outcome in our antiquated electoral college system, means something. In fact, a vote against Bush in Texas could mean quite a bit.
Don't let their polite manner fool you, our Texans will come out swinging when the time is right. They are not Republican lapdogs, they are not all blind Bush supporters, and they are not, I can tell you, fools.
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