| On a 36-25 vote, the State Republican Executive Committee elected Cathie Adams the party's chairwoman over Melinda Fredricks. Adams will serve as chairwoman at least until June, when the state party will meet and have elect a full-term chair. Cathie Adams has spent years as president of the Texas Eagle Forum, an organization, which nationally "has been leading the pro-family movement with strength and decisiveness since 1972." She also already endorsed Rick Perry for governor, just like her predecessor Tina Benkiser. And she might be even more conservative.
Interestingly, the Republican Executive Committee decided to vote without debate. Why?
There was no debate because members agreed not to hold a general discussion before voting. Member Rebecca Williamson of Hunt told colleagues before the agreement to restrict discussion that an initially contemplated 30-minute debate might lead to controversy and personal attacks.
"After all, the press is here," Williamson said.
Earlier this week, John Cornyn pushed away a reporter's camera. Kay Bailey Hutchison abruptly cut off her own press conference. We see today, though, that a pattern exists among Texas Republicans. They wish to hide their thinking, and they wish to hide the problems that they are having.
But in this game of Hide and Seek, we can find what we want to know, anyways. Even without debate, we now definitely see three truths about the Texas Republican Party.
- The Texas Republican Party is split into two groups. The first group is the one of crazies. The crazies move forward gun-ho and follow their leader, the Reverend Rick Perry.
- The second group is one of confused and/or unorganized non-crazies. There is no leader here, but Kay Bailey Hutchison is the highest ranking among them.
- The crazies are winning. Adams was just elected today, and she's already taking shots at Kay. It's amazing how the crazies can stay on attack even when Rick Perry misses a step or two, as he definitely has with the Cameron Todd Willingham case. And in response, the other Republicans are dithering more than anyone else in the country.
But Republicans don't want you to know this. The dithering hide from the press because, well, they are dithering on how to play the game of politics effectively. And the crazies sometimes have to hide just because their crazy.
Just as a reminder, these people hold an absolute majority in every section of Texas state government. Ditherers. Crazies. Really. |
