Perry v. Hutchison: Has heat between two Texas cheerleaders made them forget about the rest of us?
Submitted by Ann del Llano on Tue, 2009-09-01 09:32
Authored by Ann del Llano
Texas cheerleader fights are notorious, we even have a history of cheerleader mothers fighting to the death over which cheerleader is the most popular.
Many of us remember the popular kids in high school who cared more about their hair and makeup and fighting over boys than anything else. Both Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison were Texas cheerleaders, but now it's 2009 and there are 25 million people living in Texas.
While two Texas preppies and their friends battle it out for Governor, the other 24 million Texans wait to see if they will address issues that matter in our lives. William McKenzie said it well in the Dallas Morning News:
What was striking about Kay Bailey Hutchison's Dallas gubernatorial rally last week was how so many people there looked like the folks you might see at a Rick Perry event. Dressed as if they had just come from the office, nearly all were white and were largely on the 11th hole of life – or beyond.
There to support Texas' senior senator in her bid to unseat Perry in the March GOP primary, the fact that they wore the same basic uniform as many Perry supporters personified the tribal war Republicans are about to experience.
"What was striking about Kay Bailey Hutchison's Dallas gubernatorial rally last week was how so many people there looked like the folks you might see at a Rick Perry event. Dressed as if they had just come from the office, nearly all were white and were largely on the 11th hole of life – or beyond."There to support Texas' senior senator in her bid to unseat Perry in the March GOP primary, the fact that they wore the same basic uniform as many Perry supporters personified the tribal war Republicans are about to experience."
In the meantime, the list of life-threatening problems that the rest of us face every day in Texas grows. Today we find out that Houston has more young ladies under 15 years of age giving birth than any other city in the country, and Texas has more repeat teen births than any other state with Dallas at the top of that list. We have the highest percentage of people living without health insurance, the most children without health insurance, our air has become some of the most deadly pollution in the country, and an entire one-fourth of our population lives in poverty, a lifestyle that our two cheerleaders are likely unable to imagine. Republicans have failed on immigration reform and continue to insult the largest growing population in Texas at every turn.
Will the two preps stop bickering long enough to think about the rest of us? When will we grow out of this? Will a candidate emerge who deals with real-life issues, maybe the class geek who wasn't the most popular kid but who we would feel more comfortable empowering as our leader? We will see, but until then I don't think I'm going to vote for a high school cheerleader this time around.
And I don't think I'll be able to get this video out of my head over the next year as I watch our two contenders for Texas governor wrestle across the finish line:
