The following is a guest blog article from Nick. H. and may not reflect Mutanatia’s own viewpoints on the matter.
Nicholas Hentschel District #21 – Smith) Favors Wendy Davis over Greg Abbott…still.
By Nick Hentschel (District #21 – Smith)
Since the weekend of October 11th, a strange new development has been “trending” on Facebook. “SCANDAL!!!” screams the chorus of linked articles from FOX News and Conservative Daily, in protest of Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Wendy Davis. It seems that people are angry over Wendy’s new campaign ad . . . or are they?
For weeks now, Wendy has been running an ad criticizing her opponent, Greg Abbott, and his record on denying assistance and compensation to the disabled, and to other “victims.” This is a serious complaint, given that Abbott is wheelchair-bound, himself, which fact he’s played up before (and repeatedly). Thus, the ad depicts an empty wheelchair on the screen, signifying Abbott’s supposed absence when the disabled community needs him. Flashed on the screen are a series of questionable decisions Abbott made on this subject: ruling that a one-legged woman isn’t disabled, protecting doctors who cripple patients, and worse. All this is contrasted with Abbott’s own, successful lawsuit for over 10 million dollars, when he was crippled by a falling tree.
Strong words, indeed, and many of them Abbott’s own. Even worse, Abbott seems to be playing right into it, having not only complained previously of people disrespecting his condition (see below), but even highlighting it in his own ads. In one memorable commercial about Texas’s traffic problems, he showed himself as able to wheelchair himself faster than gridlocked cars! Now that he’s being criticized on that note, the knives have come out.
Abbott’s supporters now shriek that Davis is attacking Abbott for his disability. They say that this constitutes “a new low” for Davis’s allegedly dirty campaign. All manner of conservative-leaning websites, from the reactionary (FOX News and Conservative Daily), to the moderate (CNN) bemoan the alleged “scandal” and “backlash,” while only one liberal site seems to comment on it: MSNBC. Curiously, their online poll shows their readers supporting the ad, by a ratio of 4-to-1.
Is this a real scandal? Or maybe it’s an act of desperation by Davis? Could it be the ugly last gasp of a hopelessly failed campaign? Or is it just hype, which, in the spirit of Karl Rove, is attacking the opponent where she’s considered strongest?
If my tone didn’t give it away, I’m not buying it. I’m still voting for Wendy.
Why, you ask? When I’m a disabled voter, myself? Well, there are several reasons, many of which are encapsulated by the hubbub over the Wheelchair Ad (as it’s now being called). This hyped-up nontroversy reveals, all by itself, a shocking number of bad character traits in Greg Abbott. Many of these traits suggest that neither he nor his followers should be allowed anywhere near a position of power.
We’ve been through this before. Believe it or not, this isn’t Greg Abbott’s first attempt to accuse Wendy Davis of attacking his disability. Back at the start of the campaign, his staffers accused Davis of mocking at his disability, supposedly based on recorded comments of Davis supporters (that’s right, not her staff, not Davis herself, but unaffiliated people at a convention) making cracks about Abbott being in a wheelchair, saying that he couldn’t win because of his lack of charisma, including his being wheelchair-bound.
As you may imagine, this was not only unproven, but a hard to tie back to Davis, and the story failed to gain any traction. Not only, therefore, does Greg Abbott give off the impression of being The Candidate Who Cried Wolf, in revisiting this complaint, but it shows a dreadful lack of ideas, and very poor judgment in re-using a tactic that failed, the first time.
It’s brazenly hypocritical. Within days of their first complaints about the ad, the Abbott camp blew its moral authority by attacking the disabled in exactly the way they’d been complaining about, while Wendy Davis shored up her support in that area. Within weeks of the “scandal” breaking over The Wheelchair Ad, Davis held a press conference in which she stood by the commercial, while flanked by a small platoon of disabled supporters, including law student Lamar White, Jr. Despite the vocal support lent her by Mr. White, who has cerebral palsy, and the other guests, the Abbott campaign viciously went on the attack, dismissing the entire display and calling the disabled guests “human props.” Worse still, Abbott’s campaign manager and others openly mocked Mr. White’s movement and disability, as he was helped to the stage in his own wheelchair.
Worse still, Abbott refused to apologize when asked, denying responsibility, as he often has for personal attacks. Lamar White has since called out Abbott on this, calling him a hypocrite and demanding an apology. If he was hoping to appeal to disabled voters with this ad, and/or to make himself look like he supported them, Abbott’s plans seem to have backfired. He has shown not only himself and the element he supports to be deeply bigoted against the disabled, but he has also played the hypocrite, the liar, and the coward all at once.
The timing is suspicious, pt. 1. To this writer’s knowledge, the ad had been running for several weeks prior to Abbott’s people complaining about it. This seems to suggest that despite his protestations, it actually didn’t bother him when it came out, further adding to the image of hypocrisy and staged, insincere scandal-mongering
The timing is suspicious, pt. 2. It’s worth nothing that Abbott is launching this supposed counterattack in the last weeks of a bitterly contested election, widely thought to be too close to call. And it’s getting worse for him, too: his supposedly insurmountable, 17-point lead has shrunk to 8 points, then 6, and will surely shrink further before the election.
Davis has frequently outmatched him in fundraising, and then chiefly through grassroots donations, while Abbott has had to go begging, out of state, to donors like the Koch Brothers. Every controversial law that he pledged to defend has been getting overturned or declared unconstitutional, from the Voter ID law to the very anti-abortion measure that jump-started Wendy Davis’s career. And now his outgoing boss, Governor Rick Perry, has been indicted for abusing the office that Abbott seeks.
In the midst of all of this, we’re supposed to believe that Abbott’s biggest worry is an ad that mentions his being disabled? More likely, it’s a desperation tactic, designed to compensate for his weak performance, if not distract from it.
Bad political strategy: what is he thinking?! It’s hard to understand not only the timing of Abbott’s complaints, but also the intent of them, as well. Exactly what audience is he trying to win over? The disabled vote, while important, can’t be enough to swing the results of an increasingly neck-and-neck election, especially when there are so many larger and more obvious constituencies. Male, female, white, black, Hispanic, young, old, rich, and poor voters are all far longer-standing and larger groups; there’s very little reason for Abbott to concentrate so much on the disabled, unless he’s somehow alienated or lost them all. This is certainly not political genius.
Bad political strategy: attack ads don’t work. Few truths are more obvious and widely accepted than Americans’ disillusionment with attack ads. These tactics consistently alienate voters and lose elections. And yet Greg Abbott has made such attacks a cornerstone of his campaign tactics (all the while trying to distance himself from them), calling his opponent “Abortion Barbie,” and distorting her biography so badly that national pundits have called him out on it. We can see where that’s gotten him, and yet not only has Abbott not learned his lesson, but he is actually doubling down on this failed strategy, and is counting on it to save him at the last minute. This suggests a terrible inability to learn from his mistakes that we don’t need in an adult, much less in a leader.
“Anyone But Bush” didn’t help Kerry in 2004, and hatred of Obama didn’t help Mitt Romney. Simply getting people angry at Wendy Davis (or trying to), won’t make Greg Abbott any more appealing, and certainly won’t make him governor.
It isn’t working. If anything, as shown above, Abbott’s tactic seems to be backfiring, alienating disabled voters and their supporters, totally failing to persuade progressives, and actually giving the Davis campaign more rope to hang him with. This shows a failure of leadership, and a level of political stupidity, utterly unacceptable in a public figure.
He started it. Abbott was making overt references to his disability months ago to at least attack his opponent, if not to garner sympathy. He’s already tried this attack once, and frequently played up his wheel chair use in his own ads. He’s gone a long way to identify himself with his wheelchair in the public mind; he has no business getting upset that Davis listened to him.
Turnabout is fair play. Abbott was running even more obvious, vicious attack ads long before Wendy Davis ever did something like questioning his record. For Abbott to claim he’s been fouled is to play by a set of rules that applies to him and no one else.
It’s irrelevant, and doesn’t answer the ad. That’s right: Abbott hasn’t answered the ad’s fundamental questions about his record. Those accusations, alone would be enough to lose my vote, but his reaction to them is not only worse, but is so far beyond belief that I have a hard time accepting that someone like him even exists! The twisted, self-serving thinking behind Abbott’s actions is unthinkable in a true statesman.
Let’s not mince words here, people: Greg Abbott has run one of the worst campaigns that I’ve ever seen or heard about. He’s shied away from every major issue to concentrate on attack ads that push away voters and planted articles in the media that pooh-pooh his opponent’s chances. (Funny how that’s the same tactic that the GOP used to get rid of Obama.) He’s backed out of debates (or tried to) and performed badly when he does appear.
He’s made one verbal gaffe after another, offending just about every constituency, all while lying all the way. His political legacy is already in ruins before he takes office, and his mentor and chief backer is on his way out of politics, and possibly into jail. He seems to be pathologically incapable of making a “right” move.
The current “scandal” over Wendy Davis’ new ad is simply the same bad campaign strategy, distilled into one move. And all by itself, it shows why Abbott should not be governor. He’s an idiot, in more ways that one, unable to learn moral lessons from his own suffering, or practical lessons from his mistakes. He is hypocritical, insisting on one set of rules for himself and his friends, and another for everyone else, even when it goes against his own, supposed interests. There can be NO getting through to this man, as he has neither the ability to see the world as is, nor any interest.
He lies as a way of life, committing layers upon layers of deceit and dishonesty, all while denying that he’s doing it! He and his followers are inherently mean-spirited, and deeply bigoted against the disabled, the poor, women, and probably other groups, as well. He’s greedy to the point of self-destruction, and won’t play by even his own rules: when he can’t take the heat, he insists that everyone else get out of the kitchen.
And above all else, he’s not a leader. Throughout the campaign, he’s shown that he can only lose support, not gain it, and that his greatest talent as a leader is to cause disunity, incite hatred, and push people away. And that’s not way to govern.
Greg Abbott thinks that this passive-aggressive approach to attack ads is a novel, progressive, brilliant political stroke that will save his campaign. But really, it’s the same old crap . . . and it’s why I’m voting for Wendy Davis.
© 2014 by Nicholas Ivan Hentschel
Political Musings from, and by, Mutants 