Yesterday, Tim and I raced up to Fort Worth for the Texas Democratic Convention. This is our second tour as delegates, and though we worked hard to help elect Wendy Davis for governor in 2014, we got our butts kicked and it took some time before we had the energy to be involved in politics after that. We felt cynical and frustrated and defeated, and we’re just two random people who do some phonebanking and blockwalking and party-attending. I can’t imagine how it must feel to be the candidate or the spouse of a candidate or the campaign team after working that hard and losing.
By now, most of you have seen this fantastic video from Round Rock’s MJ Hegar, an Air Force veteran and all around badass running for a House seat in Congressional District 31. I learned about her from a writer and all around badass that I follow on Facebook, and shared the video, and then several of my friends shared it, even ones who live out of state. Because it’s so amazing, the video has gone viral, and has received comments and shares from Lin Manuel Miranda and Patton Oswalt. Everyone’s going nuts about it, for good reason. If you want to know a bit more about it, here’s the story behind the production.
Yesterday, at the General Session, I pulled the most tweet-able quotes from the speeches to do my small part in sharing the candidates’ messages. By the time Beto got on stage, the crowd of 7,000 or so Texas Democrats went wild. Beto is certainly our standout candidate this year, and he deserves the rock star status because he’s been rolling up his sleeves and doing the work, physically going to every single county in Texas, speaking to people about what is important to them. Afterwards, several people mentioned that if he can pull off this win, we’ll see him running for president in the future. He was THAT good.
But I know after the work we did in 2014 to not count our chickens before they hatch. I am skeptical. I was the person on Election Night in 2016 who refused to believe the people telling me that Trump was winning the election. When people started leaving the party and the mood at the Driscoll Hotel in Austin went from a celebration to a funeral, I remained optimistic. When the news finally sunk in, I stayed in bed the entire next day. My bleeding heart just could’t accept that we’d elected a misogynistic, racist, uniformed, inexperienced, insult-hurling, xenophobic, p-grabber. It was unbelievable, until Inauguration Day, and even then, I wanted to bury my head in the sand and pretend it wasn’t happening.
Last night, Tim and I hopped in an Uber to go to a Beers with Beto event. The Uber driver, Jonathan, pulled up in a fancy black Tahoe. Jonathan was about 25 with a long hipstser beard and a flannel shirt (in June in Texas!). I’d noted on his Uber rating that he was a “great conversationalist.” He asked what brought us to Fort Worth, and we told him we were here for the Democratic Convention, and that we were going to an event to see Beto.
“I’ve not heard of him,” Jonathan said. “Tell me more about him.”
Tim had to answer because quite frankly, my jaw was on the floorboard. How can you live in Texas and not know who Beto is?
But there you have it. Tim and I live in a bubble for sure. We’re smack dab in the middle of Austin where finding a Republican is a needle in a haystack. But STILL. Tim explained that Beto was running against Ted Cruz, and Tim said something fairly watered down about how “Ted Cruz is a bit of a putz.”
“Yeah, I think a lot of people aren’t too happy with him,” Jonathan said while I sat speechless and gobsmacked. Ya think?
I’m not a numbers person. I forget numbers so quickly that if a hotel gives me my room number, I have to look at the little card about 17 times between the registration desk and my room or I’ll end up trying to break into a random room on the wrong floor. For that reason, I had to look this up, because these are big numbers and they worry me.
According to the Dallas Morning News, 1.3 million Republicans voted for Cruz, and 641,000 Democrats cast ballots for O’Rourke.
Do you know the population of Texas? Again, I’m not a numbers person so I had to loop it up. 28.3 million, as of the 2017 census. 28.3 million!! This is why when the Democrats get together, they scream about how we’re actually not a red state, we’re a non voting state. It’s why yesterday, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner brought the entire convention to our feet by yelling, “We’re ALREADY BLUE!”
I don’t know if we’re red or blue because nobody is actually voting, but I do know that if we don’t get people to vote, we’ll spend Election Night crying in our beers once again, and there is just too much at stake to have that happen. So I’ll urge you to do what you can do at your local level. Share the videos, please! Share the articles. Do the phone banking. Donate money (that’s a huge one). Walk a few blocks for your local candidates. Run for office! But good Lord, please vote.
And, if you haven’t heard of Beto O’Rourke, I will not judge you. I’ll be confused and surprised about it, but I’m happy to tell you what I like about him, and why I’m 100% behind his candidacy. I’ll tell you about local candidates if I know something about them. I’m certainly not an expert in any of it but if I can help get 10, 20, 100 people to go vote, then it will all be worth it.
With my big bleeding heart, I send my love to all from Fort Worth! See you at the polls!
