You noted:

Whatever they are putting in Texas water, it sure does grow some awesome women, doesn’t it?

I reply: That’s a “state secret!”

There was a real arrogance with Democrat State Chair, Bob Slagle. It represented an attitude that opened the door for Texas Republicans. The GOP just needed a name and a figurehead to
package.

In the Texas governors Democratic primary years ago, I voted for Richards over Tx Attorney General Jim Maddox. Maddox was a true pit bull of a Democrat, who at the time, greatly offended my delicate sensabilities with his vicious campaign. Ann became a great governor, bringing a progressive positive image of Texas to the country during her term and in the years that followed. I voted for her again over you-know-who. A vote I do NOT regret.

But every day since the year 2000, I remember…and truly believe that In that Texas primary long ago, I voted against the only Democrat in America (Maddox), who posessed the temperment and balls it would have taken to strangle Karl Rove and George W Bush in their plush little guilded cribs.

Ann was a national treasure. Rest in peace Lil’ Hon.

politics, unfortunately, makes such distinctions necessary.

I’m a grandmother now. And I have one nearly perfect granddaughter named Lily. And when I hold that grandbaby, I feel the continuity of life that unites us, that binds generation to generation, that ties us with each other. And sometimes I spread that Baptist pallet out on the floor, and Lily and I roll a ball back and forth. And I think of all the families like mine, like the one in Lorena, Texas, like the ones that nurture children all across America. And as I look at Lily, I know that it is within families that we learn both the need to respect individual human dignity and to work together for our common good. Within our families, within our nation, it is the same.
And as I sit there, I wonder if she’ll ever grasp the changes I’ve seen in my life — if she’ll ever believe that there was a time when blacks could not drink from public water fountains, when Hispanic children were punished for speaking Spanish in the public schools, and women couldn’t vote.
I think of all the political fights I’ve fought, and all the compromises I’ve had to accept as part payment. And I think of all the small victories that have added up to national triumphs and all the things that would never have happened and all the people who would’ve been left behind if we had not reasoned and fought and won those battles together. And I will tell Lily that those triumphs were Democratic Party triumphs.
I want so much to tell Lily how far we’ve come, you and I. And as the ball rolls back and forth, I want to tell her how very lucky she is that for all our difference, we are still the greatest nation on this good earth. And our strength lies in the men and women who go to work every day, who struggle to balance their family and their jobs, and who should never, ever be forgotten.
I just hope that like her grandparents and her great-grandparents before that Lily goes on to raise her kids with the promise that echoes in homes all across America: that we can do better, and that’s what this election is all about.

I liked Ann Richards, she was a hell of a leader and someone who earned the respect of everyone around her. I agree, Texas would have been better off had she gotten another term. But that single cloud remains over her memory for me.

George Ryan will probably die in prison, but he’ll always be remembered for having the courage to stop the machinery of death in Illinois. In the midst of his trials (literally) he held onto that moral certainty that there was something wrong with the machine, and acted on it. Why couldn’t Governor Richards have done the same thing?

As a whole, we are the worse for her not being among us anymore. We will miss her, and I hope she inspires 100 or more others to follow in her footsteps in public service. That would be her best legacy.

peace…

JF

Goodbye Ms. Richards you will be missed here in Texas and all the rest.

p-rex, actually I lived in Texas twice, once for about 16 months in Corpus Creepus going to flight school and then at NAS Dallas for two-plus years.

so, yeah, I have some texas creds, I think.

RIP Ann.

well, it’s not about ‘texas creds’ — i wasn’t trying to out-texan you, by any means! i happen to be one that thinks living in texas doesn’t make you any better than any other american.

america has seen enough ‘texas swagger’ in the last 6 years to last us a century. i last lived there during the bush-governed years, unfortunately, and i would ask people, “so, you voted for an ivy league cheerleader from connecticut… what in the hell happened to texas?”

no one could give me an answer. and it wasn’t like i met anyone that didn’t like ann richards, that i can recall. they just went for that chest-puffing fake rancher crap.

what a world we’d be in now if gov. ann had won that second term.

RIP Ann!