Tharmas

While driving to work this morning I listened to our local news station to catch the traffic reports. They carried a story about the “Dr Pepper” controversy, the fact the Christians are emailing the company headquarters because cans of the drink were printed with “one nation...indivisible” but without the “under God” bit. The story was pretty neutral, and ended by quoting a Dr Pepper spokesperson (they’re a local company) saying that they were also receiving emails thanking them. The thought occurred to me that this was just like Christians, to take something that was supposed to be an expression of unity, and turn it into a chance to sow division. Then I thought, that’s a pretty divisive thought itself, and put it out of my head.

Then the station began broadcasting live from the swearing in ceremonies of our new mayor. Typical invocation from some preacher I didn’t hear identified asking for God’s blessings on our city. This didn’t faze me because this is the bible belt and I’m used to it. But then he closed with “in Jesus name our Lord,” or “in the name of your loving Son,” or something like that and it really ticked me off because our Madam Mayor Elect is in fact Jewish and I though now that’s just going out of your way to be offensive.

We have Christians coming on these boards and complaining about people being rude and complaining about being persecuted, even here in the USA (!), but look at the society we live in!!!

Sorry, I just had to get this off my chest. If this is a rant, please transfer to the appropriate place.

ex-idaho

I grew up in Tyler and lived in Dallas for a number of years. You couldn't drag me back to that damn state.

Anyway to your point. I am surprised that a Jewish person would have a protestant minister administer the the swearing in. Usually the person picks who they would like to conduct the ceremony. Bush as an example chose Billy Grahams son. Perhaps it was done to make all the Xians feel more comfortable having a Jewish mayor.

Doug

Another Texan here. Yes, Texas is conservative and in the fundie Bible belt, but there are serious pockets of people that do not fit these stereotypes. Austin is pretty liberal and large parts of central Houston and Dallas are as well. The problem lies in the soccer mom, arch conservative, fundametalist suburbs of these cities and rural areas (like Tyler and the rest of East Texas).

The fact that Laura Miller, a former reporter and columnist for the alternative newspaper the Dallas Observer, managed to get elected mayor of Dallas is pretty encouraging.

Tharmas

Oddly enough it was WASP north Dallas that elected her. She is something of a Populist candidate, the first in many years not backed by the business community (the Morning News abandoned all pretext of objectivity in the way they went after her).

And Idaho, although I would like to believe that she invited a Protestant minister to be gracious, I'm afraid she didn’t. This was not a real inaugural, but a “regular” city council meeting after a special election to fill the vacated post (previous mayor quit to run for the US Senate). Ms Miller had previously objected to Council Meetings being kicked off by prayers “in Jesus name.” I know this because one of the other candidates made an issue of it during the campaign, running an ad that said something like “Ms Miller says Jesus makes her uncomfortable in the Council Chambers, but I say let’s invite Him in.”

When you consider that a number of the other Council Members (Miller was a member of the Council, her main opponent was not) actively supported her opponent, it really just looks to me like a deliberate slap in the face.

Doug

Tharmas,

That's incredible that the North Dallas precincts went for Miller over her Republican opponent. I read a bit about the race and also heard that the Hispanic candidate threw his support to the Republican in the runoff. After I read that, I figured that Miller didn't have a chance. Have you seen polling data on the Hispanic vote? Did they still support the Democrat or was her support so overwhelming in North Dallas and among blacks that it wasn't enough for her Republican opponent?

That's quite interesting. Maybe enough of the wackos have moved to Plano and Frisco, leaving more sane people in their place in North Dallas.

Damn, I loath the northern suburbs but really like Dallas south of Northwest Highway.

Tharmas

The situation is actually fairly complex. Miller’s main opponent, Tom Dunning, was NOT a Republican but a Democrat (not that there’s a party machine in city politics). Being an old style Texas Democrat he acted a lot like a George Bush Sr. Republican, that is wedded to the business interests. He talked a lot about maintaining good relations between the races and gained a good percentage of the Black vote while never resigning his lifetime membership in the Dallas Country Club, one of the few clubs left in the area that still doesn’t admit Blacks, Jews, or Hispanics. The other candidate, Domingo Garcia, was only expected to garner enough votes to cause a runoff (there were also some fringe candidates).

Since Dunning did not have name recognition he ran the classic “anti-incumbent” campaign, essentially an attack campaign. However, since Laura Miller was not a true incumbent (having been not mayor but only a councilperson), she had no record for Dunning to attack, so he attacked her personality. He focused on her combativeness and adversarial nature with ads that essentially called her a bitch over and over while trying to position himself as a nice guy. Meanwhile they had signed a pledge promising a clean, non-confrontational campaign.

It was a tough row to hoe and Dunning’s campaign really blew it. Every time he was caught with his fingers in the cookie jar he simply denied knowledge of anything. For example, when they started a “push poll” (where they call people on the pretext of taking a poll and start bad-mouthing Laura Miller without identifying themselves as Dunning campaigners) he denied knowledge. His negative TV ads he defended by the old line that her character was a valid issue so calling her a bitch was a valid issue ad (he didn’t use those exact words of course).

Miller won something like 46% of the first election. There was to be a run off between her and Dunning. A couple of days later Garcia came out in support of Dunning, which surprised some. Miller then produced a tape of Garcia’s campaign manager saying on a Spanish radio station (in Spanish) right after the election that Garcia would give his support to the first one of the other two candidates who agreed to pay off all his debts. The Dallas DA recused himself and called in the Ft. Worth DA to investigate. Dunning denied knowledge of anything.

Then a week later some of Dunning’s campaign literature was found to bear the endorsements of several city council members, including their titles, in clear violation of the Dallas City Code of Ethics (which Laura Miller had herself drafted and gotten passed a few months previously), so she had fun with that and Dunning of course, denied all knowledge of who had printed the literature or who was responsible.

Then some of Dunning’s campaign workers were found potentially involved in mail-in ballot harvesting at some senior citizen centers in what were thought to be contested precincts. The Ft. Worth DA was called in again, various early ballots were disqualified and this time Dunning had to fire some people (who said they had been told they were to be paid for “getting votes”).

So by the time of the second election many Republicans stayed home. A great many of the Hispanic community voted for Miller because from what I gather from some of the Observer articles I’ve read, she has gained a lot of RESPECT in that community for not patronizing and for not bullshitting. She has no currency with the Black community. I suspect a lot of women may have voted for her because they realized that if she were a man she would be considered “gutsy” and “aggressive” instead of “whiney” and “confrontational.” She ended up with about 56% as I recall, a healthy percentage. I don’t know the exact ethnic breakdown. There probably wasn’t heavy voting in South Dallas I’m guessing.

She’s got 15 months on the remainder of this term before the next election. I’m taking bets she runs for state office then.

So that’s more than you wanted to know. Texas politics as usual. And Jesus blessed her taking office...