Texas Blue Mailbag: Week of 5/27/07

This week's edition of the mailbag is heavy on questions and comments about Mikal Watts.

MW writes:

WATTS FORMS U.S. SENATE EXPLORATORY COMMITTEE
San Antonio Lawyer Weighs 2008 Run Against Cornyn

San Antonio, TX - Mikal Watts today filed papers with the Federal Elections Commission forming the “Watts for Senate Exploratory Committee” and announced plans for a summer tour of the state to gather input from Texas voters.

“Over the next several months, I’m going to log many miles and hundreds of hours listening to the people of Texas,” Watts said. “Before I make a final decision to get in this race, I want to know directly from the people of Texas what they really want and expect from their elected leaders in Washington, D.C.”

Watts, who was born and raised in Corpus Christi, graduated with high honors in just two years from the University of Texas and completed UT Law School with honors in just two years at the age of twenty-one. He has been recognized as one of the top ten lawyers in the United States under the age of 40. Watts was a long-standing member of the First Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, and now attends Oak Hills Church in San Antonio. He has been married to his wife Tammy for 14 years and has three children, ages 13, 10 and 9.

- 30 -

The other day we pointed out a Statesman story that had largely fallen through the cracks in the hubbub over the Session fireworks and Lampson deciding against running for Senate — that Mikal Watts had graduated from likely to definite candidate with his answer to the press (in response to the Lampson story) that he was going to form an exploratory committee. And now here it is, the official notice that it has happened. You can expect to hear more from us about this race in the coming weeks (months, and years), so stay tuned. While we're at it, though, we had a few questions...

AB writes:

If we really hope to turn Texas blue, shouldn't we broaden our definition of what makes a good Democrat?

George replies:

I guess the way I think about it is, I don't understand when the definition narrowed in the first place. When Texas was a majority Democratic state, we had Democrats work together from across ideological boundaries. Conservative and progressive Democrats would work together to get elected as a party, since, after all, you can't govern if you don't win. Campaigning and governance are two different things, and you can't do the latter without succeeding at the former first — issues of the latter can, and were, dealt with independently of the former being handled.

I know I mentioned in the last Mailbag that I'd write an article on the idea of a "good Democrat," and where that gets us; unfortunately for me, after I said that, the Lege decided to implode and Craddick decided to claim despotic rule, so the article got its topic switched at the last minute. (As always, blame Craddick!) In Lauren's retrospective on the history of Democrats in Texas, however, she does touch some on what the ideological makeup of the state Democratic party was, and how we operated when we were in the majority.

So, in short, yes, we do have to quit making the perfect be the enemy of the good (as we should have learned by now that an arbitrarily high line for a "good enough Democrat" ends up with us getting Republicans elected instead; better someone represent us 60% of the time than 0%). Let the Republicans eat their young — we don't have to join them.

DR says:

The Barrio Precinct Chairs will support Watts if he does not get involved with the Bexar County consultant coyotes.

Josh replies:

This is not the first email we've gotten with some animosity towards consultants. Because I don't personally know the consultants you refer to, I reserve judgment on their status as coyotes or other animals. I will say that consultants are just like other professions, in that there are good ones and bad ones. Bad ones like Bob Shrum. I'm not sure what sort of animal we would group Shrum with. George says maybe a lemur.

SS writes:

Mikal Watts and any other Democrat planning to run for statewide office could have made some new friends if they had shown up at the large gathering of activists at Scholtz's to celebrate Sine Die. I am personally sick of getting invitations to $500 and up fundraisers that no "working class' person can afford to attend. We have to raise money to compete but many of our "progressive" candidates seem perfectly content to attend those events and damn few others.

This is a noticeable trend among Democrats in my experience. It is a long way from the Mauro, Mattox, Hightower, Richards era where just about every activist in Texas knew one or more of that outstanding group quite well and was more than likely a longtime acquaintance.

Wonder if that kind of personal connection is why they were able to run and win even though they were outspent time and time again by huge margins?

All you high-priced "consultants" might give this some thought next time you are sitting in the drive-through at your bank filling out a deposit slip.

George answers:

Well, this comment led to SS and I having a good email discussion about his thoughts. On the whole, my take was, well, the guy hadn't even declared his exploratory committee when the celebration was; it seems like a bit much to condemn a guy for not attending a celebration in a city he doesn't live in whose announcement he may not even see — I know I didn't hear about it until after the fact — when he isn't even declared yet. Isn't that sort of early to be downing a guy? Myself, I would personally be spending as much time before declaring my candidacy for a major federal election with my family, as that time would be severely limited after I declared. But that's just me. Either way, I can think of dozens of legitimate reasons why a candidate wouldn't make it to every celebration in the state. The folks at Scholtz's couldn't have been the only folks doing a Sine Die celebration get-together.

Perhaps more important, though, are some of the presuppositions made. We mentioned earlier that we've gotten a couple of emails expressing disdain for consultants. I honestly have never quite understood that. I *like* consultants. I'm not exactly beer buddies with any of them (though I imagine that would be interesting conversation), but consultants are consultants because they have experience in their field — I can't see that as a bad thing. And it's not like they sit in a cloudy back room and determine primary results; those saying that "the people need to select candidates, not the consultantocracy" are served by the fact that last I checked, there's no consultant credential requirement to vote in the primary. A consultant gets one vote in the Democratic primary, just like everybody else.

The piece I cited earlier on the history of Texas Democratic politics points out that the "good old days" cited here of Mauro, Mattox, Hightower, and Richards were also the days that the state Democratic party was weaker, and therefore candidates would be more likely to be cherry-picked from the known players in the political arena. Yet those are the days everyone looks back at with fondness. And today, where due to a number of changes — social, political, and technological — make us more involved in the candidate selection process than ever before, we have complaints of Those From On High wanting to control the direction of the party. What gives?

CK asks:

Any links to read about Mikal Watts and what he/she does or did?

Josh says:

If the press release above doesn't slake your thirst for knowledge, consider these destinations: we have written at great length about Watts, and there is always his firm's website, if you're into the biographical background info. For general reading up on a guy, you can hardly beat Google for giving you everything on the internet.