January 21, 2014 - The Dallas Morning News ran a story yesterday that I guess is supposed to be critical of Wendy Davis? I'm really not seeing the complaint though. Apparantly it's a big deal she divorced at 21 instead of 19 (though this is only when the divorce finalized, I'm guessing the marriage went south before that), she only lived in a trailer for three months, her second marriage may have largely just been a means to get into law school (I guess she's really good at long term planning, and he's a victim for gosh marrying someone 12 years younger who had a kid (because what man could possibly want to be a father, and it's not like our culture obsesses over the necessity of woman being young)), and didn't retain custody of her kids (cuz every woman is supposed to want her kids more than their father, want to disrupt their lives by forcing them to move, and custody doesn't usually go to the primary caregiver and/or parent who makes less (both of which were the father in this case, though it's usually the other way around)). There are even vague referrences to her being unfaithful to her husband, not like a successful politician has done that before though I guess she's far worse cuz her lover isn't as yet revealed to be an intern or prostitute nor has anything about this infidelity been corroborated. I don't think they get what's attractive about Wendy Davis as a politician is her policies. Not many women have an opportunity to be in politics, many women people probably don't want to because of all the ridiculous scrutiny they'd have to endure. Nowhere in this narrative is she succeeding at the expense of taking advantage of other people, she's largely succeeding on her own merit or mutually beneficial relationships. She recognizes her priviledge to have reached the position she has reached and seems to be using that to try to benefit people worse off than herself. If this was a male politician would any of these "revelations" be viewed as career-endingly negative? Does she have such a good shot in a race she's consistently been trailing in that she's gotten her opponents so scared they're resorting to try to blast her history as way more controversial than it seems to be? If this latter question is true, I'm psyched that Texas might actually get its act together. So if you're voting in Texas be sure your voter registration is up to date, cuz they have "fun" voter ID laws that seem particularly targetted to disuade likely democrats, including trying to make sure the registered name matches the presented ID, which is a burden to anyone who may change their name due to marriage or divorce.

-D