| Paul Burka kicked up a fuss on his blog when he incautiously and not-quite-correctly re-cycled from memory some old thoughts from Democrats about how Tom Craddick did us a favor by remaining in office. I think the necessary corrections have been made there. But it does beg some questions that deserve longer answers.
Should Democrats have helped unseat such an unpopular speaker as Craddick in favor of a youngish, polished, urban moderate like Straus? That's two questions really. The first's about Craddick; the second about Straus.
My answer to the first: Political opponents are not deer. They don't get fatter and grow bigger antlers next season. You have to defeat them when you can, because you don't know what tomorrow holds. It's too cute by double to believe you can out-think all of tomorrow's political uncertainties. Anyone remember progressives voting for John Tower in the 1961 special election for the U.S. Senate, under the assumption he'd be easy to beat in a general? Good guess, that.
My answer to the second -- what about Straus -- has to do with why I'm a Democrat in the first place. Maybe Burka's right and he turns around the Republican Party. I doubt it, because that party is simply on the wrong side of history.
But I'm a Democrat because I care about children's health, about public and higher education, about jobs, about the availability of health care, about the quality of Texas air, water and soil, about safe communities, about fair and open elections in which scandalous, artificial barriers to voting are removed.
I don't know where the new prospective Speaker is on these issues. But I believe he will certainly be better than Craddick. Democrats are one vote shy of demanding a Democratic speaker. Republicans chose Straus. I'm for change.
Burka was wrong when he implied some Democrats would game the system for future political advantage. That would be bad politics. And I don't know how it could be explained to today's eight-year-old Texan who can't get to a doctor, is stuck in a going-nowhere education system, whose father lost his job and whose mother is still treated as a second-class citizen.
Who among us could look that eight-year-old in the eye and say, "Just wait 'till your 12. We promise." |
