Realizing that my best hope of getting rid of the blight on our state that Rick Perry has been might be to get him NOW in the primary, I will cast my first vote ever in 26 years of voting for Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican candidate for Governor. Knowing that it is probably hopeless, as the weaselly opportunist Perry has been fanning the Obama and DC hatred effectively, I still must take a deep breath and plunge forward and cast a vote for the lesser evil.
Now, that is not to say that Bill White, the probable Democratic nominee doesn't have a chance, but the GOP pall that hangs over our state, with "God, Guns and Gays" still an effective mantra in many parts of our state, we will need heavy, heavy turnout in November for Bill to have a chance. I can not accurately describe the daily paranoia, the hatred, the smoldering resentment that has seemingly become a part of our political fabric here, because it comes from a place of slogans or hidden meanings, double-talk. Texas may be the greatest example running now of federal issues/fear of government, obliterating the hard realities of life: massive numbers of uninsured, tremendous need for an overhaul of infrastructure, a HUGE deficit coming in funding our schools, due to the "freezing" of funding at antiquated formula levels, a failure to address EPA required quality of air in the DFW area. I am heartened by the election of the Houston mayor, the Dallas sheriff, both wonderful public servants and lesbians, and by the turning blue of our major metropolitan areas, but there is hard core buy-in to Democrats being the root of all evil out in the land of the doublewide and the gated ranch.
Wish me well as I walk in to the voting booth at the local Baptist church...I am fearful that voting the GOP side of the room may be a slippery slope in which I start to go along to get along!