Partially cross-posted at ACA Signups
There's been a
whole lot of fuss since yesterday over a new TV ad that Wendy Davis is running in Texas, attacking Greg Abbott for being a cruel hypocrite by winning millions of dollars in compensation for his own personal injury lawsuit, but then spending years screwing over anyone
else who might otherwise be entitled to similar compensation.
Personally, I think the outrage on the right over this ad is fake, and the getting-the-vapors over it by some on the left is perplexing (and that's saying a lot for me, because I usually don't care for this sort of ad myself). I don't see it in any way as attacking Abbott for being in a wheelchair--it's pretty obvious to me that the point is his jaw-dropping hypocrisy.
Now, I will say that I think it would have been better to have, say, the woman with the prosthetic arm referred to in this ad be the one to address the camera--not only would that instantly neutralize the "sympathy" factor for Abbott (missing arm vs. paralyzed leg), but it would also give the attack a human face as opposed to a disembodied voiceover.
HOWEVER, there's been another development in the Davis/Abbott race in the past few days which has been completely overshadowed by the "wheelchair" ad.
I posted a modified version of the diary below over at ACA Signups yesterday morning (before the Davis ad was released). That's an unusual move for me, because on the rare occasions that I go off-topic at that site (ie, non-ACA topics), it's generally for something innocuous.
Yesterday I made an exception...because yesterday I learned that one Clayton Williams, a Texas oil millionaire, has donated a whopping $120,000 to Texas Republican Gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott.
Now, a rich Texas Republican giving gobs of money to another rich Texas Republican running for office isn't exactly newsworthy (although the dollar amount is--holy crap, does Texas have any donation limit for state races???). However, Williams isn't just any Texas Republican.
For one thing, he once ran for Governor of Texas himself back in 1990.
For another, he lost that race to the legendary Ann Richards, the last Democrat to hold that position.
Most significantly, however, is why he lost that race. There may have been more than one reason, but this is almost certainly the biggest one:
ALPINE -- Sitting by an early morning campfire Saturday waiting for a heavy fog to clear, Republican gubernatorial nominee Clayton Williams jokingly likened foul weather to rape, saying "if it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it."
Yep. That's right. He actually said that.
That brings me to this entry. You see, while I'm best known these days for running ACA Signups, I also had a much smaller amount of internet fame 2 years ago. Inspired by the one-two punch of Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin and Richard "Rape Babies are a Gift from God" Mourdock's epic fails as well as the since-discontinued, always absurd "terror level color chart" used by the Bush administration a decade ago, I put together something called the Republican Party Rape Advisory Chart.
Many dKos regulars know this (I repost one or more of the charts from time to time).
It only took a few seconds to find a half-dozen similarly offensive, repulsive and flat-out medically inaccurate statements by various Republican elected officials, candidates and/or party activists. There were even a few female candidates like Linda McMahon who uttered insanely awful things about the topic.
The first "volume" went viral on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook et al, and I found it disturbingly easy to compile a second volume. And then a third. And a fourth...
It's actually up to 8 full volumes now, with no sign of stopping anytime soon, but I started feeling kind of sick just wading in the filth, so I stopped updating them awhile back (besides, this project kind of took over any free time that I had).
Of course, there actually is a connection with the Affordable Care Act here as well, if indirectly. As I noted a few months ago, the Michigan Republican-held legislature passed a bill which--whether by design or not--will result in up to 200 women per year being fined and/or punished...for being raped.
Why? Because the part of the ACA which outlaws any government subsidy of abortion clashes directly with the state law which requires a separate rider for abortion coverage...even in cases of rape or incest. This effectively means that Michigan women who are impregnated via rape will be forced to either shell out $500 from their own pocket to pay for the procedure or endure 9 months of unimaginable emotional torture.
It's no accident that a huge portion of the quotes below focus on abortion as it relates to rape.
With all of that as prologue, and with the midterm election coming up in just 3 weeks, I've decided to repost the entire Republican Party Rape Advisory Chart "library" here to remind people (not just women, but caring men as well) that hideously misogynistic attitudes towards women by Republicans are no longer just a few individual cases, but have become an ingrained part of the party psyche.
This does not mean that every registered Republican feels this way. It does mean that every vote or dollar which goes to help Republican candidates is helping to promote this attitude.
Update: I appreciate the comments, but I'm depressed that even in a diary specifically noting a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DEVELOPMENT in the Davis/Abbott race, people seem to be mainly focusing on the Davis ad.
Let me just add this about the Davis ad: As I noted above, I think the subject of Abbott's hypocrisy is ripe and appropriate for attacking. As for the style of the ad, I've already suggested how I think it should have been done, but failing that it sounds like it's purely the image of the wheelchair that's causing so much uproar, not the rest of the ad (the voiceover or the on-screen text).
I've already heard people trying to compare it to the ads attacking Max Cleland and Tammy Duckworth, which is absolutely insane. In both of those cases, 1) the attacks were FALSE; 2) Cleland/Duckworth were injured while in the line of duty and 3) they were both being accused of not being patriotic.
In this case, Abbott was injured in a freak accident, sued & won millions, and then spent years denying others the same things he received.
The Cleland/Duckworth ads would have been legitimate IF they had been accused of trying to cut funding for the VA, for example (and if those claims were true). However, that wasn't the case for either one.
ANYWAY...with that being said, Abbott remains the one who accepted $120,000 from the guy who compared rape to bad weather.