Your new Republicanism, America. Cherish it.
Via
HuffPo, here's another data point for the theory that modern Texas Republicans may just be the seediest people in the world. Presenting the case of lily-white anti-gay conservative Texas Republican comma old fart Dave Wilson, who squeaked out a win for a seat on the Board of Trustees of Houston Community College in his majority-minority district by ...
pretending to be a black guy:
Wilson, a gleeful political troublemaker, printed direct mail pieces strongly implying that he's black. His fliers were decorated with photographs of smiling African-American faces -- which he readily admits he just lifted off websites -- and captioned with the words "Please vote for our friend and neighbor Dave Wilson."
One of his mailers said he was "Endorsed by Ron Wilson," which longtime Houston voters might easily interpret as a statement of support from a former state representative of the same name who's also African-American. Fine print beneath the headline says "Ron Wilson and Dave Wilson are cousins," a reference to one of Wilson's relatives living in Iowa.
Wilson apparently has a history of similarly bizarre mailers, and while having a far-right loon elected to a local college board is no doubt going to be no picnic for all involved, you have to be at least a little impressed by the man's total lack of pretense. No illusions here that elections are a method for informed voters to decide between opposing ideas—just find a cousin with the same name as a prominent local politician and boom, you just got yersself an endorsement.
It's not really all that different from what's done in national elections every two years. If the public doesn't like your ideas and isn't impressed with your record, invent a new persona for yourself and run that instead; that's how we get things like Mitt Romney, everyman. Wilson here just takes it to its logical conclusion, skipping the introduction of the crusty actual candidate at all in favor of a purely fictional, presumably far more interesting version. Give it 20 years and the actual candidates will be played by actors hired by the real ones. I promise you nobody will think twice about it because hey—it's just branding, baby!
