Tweedledee And Tweedledum

Those of you who read this blog regularly have probably realized that I have not posted on the Texas governor's race since the March primaries. It 's not that I don't think Texas needs a new governor and a change in direction for the good of all it's citizens -- I do. It's just that I'm having a hard time seeing any difference between the Democratic and Republican candidates.

The Republicans re-nominated current governor Rick Perry, and the Democrats nominated ex-Houston mayor Bill White. The Democrats nominated some very good progressive candidates for Lt. Governor (Linda Chavez-Thompson), Attorney General (Barbara Radnofsky), Land Commissioner (Hector Uribe) and Agriculture Commissioner (Hank Gilbert). They needed to offer Texans a real choice by nominating a progressive to lead the ticket and offer these candidates some coattails to rely on, but they didn't.

The candidate they nominated is nothing more than a DINO (Democrat in name only). The only difference I can see between White and Perry is the rhetoric they use. Rick Perry is prone to use an inflammatory teabagger style of rhetoric (to appeal to his right-wing base), while White is much more circumspect in his speaking style (some might even say boring).

But don't let that relatively unimportant difference in style lead you to think there is also a difference in substance, or in the way they would govern the state. In substance, they are basically tweedledee and tweedledum, and it would take a microscope to see any difference. Rick Perry is a corporate-owned conservative, while Bill White is a corporate-owned conservative. So don't let the party labels fool you -- both would govern to help corporate interests and not the interests of ordinary citizens, and neither will institute any progressive reforms.

White's absolute lack of even minor progressive credentials was brought to light in a story posted by the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram yesterday. They pointed out that the Republican mayor of Grand Prairie, Charles England, has announced his support of Bill White in the governor's race.

Now this die-hard Republican is not thinking of switching parties -- far from it. He simply thinks it would be good to have some new blood in the governor's mansion, so he's picking the new corporate-owned conservative over the old corporate-owned conservative. You can bet he would not support White if he thought White had any progressive tendencies.

Which of the two do I want to win? Frankly, I don't care. I won't be voting for either one of them. If I can't find a decent third-party candidate, then I won't vote in the governor's race. I know I'm probably making many of my Democratic friends angry by saying that, but that's truly how I feel. Blue dogs like Bill White have seriously hurt the Democrats in the last year. So much so that I couldn't even vote for a blue dog for dogcatcher, let alone governor.

Many Democrats will vote for White in the hope that he will be slightly better than Perry. I think they are wrong. For me, to vote for White is to abandon the progressive principles of the Democratic Party.

(NOTE -- I could not bring myself to publish a picture of either the blue dog or the teabagger, so I posted instead a picture of the last Texas governor I was proud of -- Ann Richards).