texas pride
by Jeremy P. Jacobs
Published: March 5, 2008
I have been signing my emails “Hook ‘Em Horns” a lot more recently.
True, in the interest of full disclosure, I did not go to the University of Texas. I was, however, raised in the Lone Star State and my older sister went to that monstrosity of a school, outfitting my entire family in Burnt Sienna Orange along the way. In fact, I fled Texas as soon as I graduated high school and didn’t return for four years.
But after a long primary season, I can’t help but feel a strong sense of pride that Texas, a state whose constitution leaves the door open to possible secession, could determine who the Democratic and (to a lesser extent) Republican nominees for president will be.
The Democratic nomination resting on Texas shows just what an extraordinary race this has become. Simply put, Texas hasn’t been this important in years, and political reporters are struggling to figure out how to cover it. Failing to grasp the complexities and rich history of the state, news organizations have turned to catch phrases like “High Noon” and “Texas Two-Step” to try to infuse some Texas spirit into the contest.
Last week, the New York Times ran a piece called “Pieces of Texas Turn Primary into a Puzzle.” The article began: “When Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton issued her gunslingers invitation to Senate Barack Obama, challenging him to ‘meet me in Texas,’ the question many people here asked was, which one?”
“The frontier-conservative Texas of Amarillo, in the Panhandle, where former President Bill Clinton stumped for his wife this month, sharing the civic center with the annual gun show? The vast, immigrant-heavy Texas of Houston, where more than 100 languages are spoken in the city’s schools?
“Maybe the one of East Texas,” the article went on, “with its Deep South ethos, a region one Democratic consultant described as being more like Mississippi than Texas? Or the profoundly unpredictable one found here, in the central part of the state, among the most heavily Republican areas in the country (and home to President Bush’s ranch), yet represented in Congress by Chet Edwards, a well-liked Democrat who recently endorsed Mr. Obama?”
While Randy Kennedy, who wrote the article, tried to give a picture of how complex the state is by posing these questions, he clearly had no answers and provided no context. Kennedy quoted scholars that basically said the state is really diverse and campaigning is really difficult, but ultimately failed to provide any understanding of or insight into Texas’ rich cultural history that shapes its politics.
Instead, Kennedy dove into the typical political jargon of discussing Texas’ media markets and television ad buys. He discussed where the candidates were spending their time and touched on the esoteric Primary/Caucus hybrid Texas uses to award its delegates, calling it the “Texas two-step.”
First of all, while the “Texas Two-Step” is a very technical, difficult and, well, cool-looking dance that I firmly believe would give the stars of “So You Think You Can Dance” a fit, I really don’t see how it applies to politics. “High Noon” also need not be used; does the media think Obama and Clinton are going to have a high stakes shoot out a la Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman in “The Quick and the Dead?”
Maybe this is just a result of the country’s attraction to the idea of Texas. Texas culture and lore have always been somewhat marveled at from “The Alamo” in 1960, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards, to the mega hit “Dallas” television series, to John Sayles’ “Long Star” in 1996, to, well, the election of President George W. Bush.
Just last week, I went to an alumni reception for my high school that was held in New York City. I talked to several of my former teachers about the attention Texas has been getting leading up to Tuesday’s primary. Most of them scoffed at the coverage, saying it is indicative of the mainstream media’s ignorance of Texas sensibilities and politics. The media, one teacher said, is quick to label Texas “Bush Country” without taking into account its rich progressive history and the influence of former Gov. Anne Richards, who was a remarkably popular figure in Texas and remains so since she passed away in 2006. The media also forgets, that teacher went on, that George W. Bush’s 1994 campaign for governor, run by Karl Rove, resorted to a filthy smear campaign that covertly questioned Richards’ sexuality with unsubstantiated claims.
But even so, don’t they feel the same sense of pride that I am feeling? Isn’t it exciting that Texas is playing such a large role in this year’s presidential race? Texas finally matters!
“Texas has always mattered,” one of my former teachers corrected me. “And it always will.”
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