prematurely grey

I’ve been wondering how to write about everything I’ve thought and done since the last post. Obviously, that’s a losing proposition for all concerned, so I’ll try to keep it relatively short.
Last Thursday, I wrote an email to my Austin Dem friends with the subject line “I’m Drinking the Kool Aid.” It was my personal version of the form email the Chris Bell website asks you to send all your friends once you’ve signed up to support him. Being me, mine had to be far more dramatic and self-revealing–surprise?

After I wrote the email, I walked out the door, got in the car, and drove over to the east side to meet Bell at VII J’s–a new, Katrina-refugee operated restaurant that I’ll go back to when it’s not overrun by a combination of Bell staffers, reporters, and a few neighbors who were brave enough to walk through the door. I met Bell, ended up interviewed by KVUE (sandbagged by the charisma question!), and walked out wondering what I could do to make my vote in November not only register my rejection of Rick Perry but to actually elect a new governor.

Since it was me talking, Chris Bell got an earful that ended with Austin Democrats being completely demoralized by redistricting and the national party blaming us for Bush and then leaving us high and dry. What Chris Bell got was my anger. And that, I think, is exactly what he needs.

Last week, I wrote about Clinton’s anger being dead-on, the perfect example for all Democrats of uniting passion with intelligence. It was just a comment on something on the Huffington Post (don’t get me started on that thing–it makes me insane–the one-sheet for smug, self-satisfied coastal liberals’ cris-de-couer–complete with their heads up their asses every day), but it crystalized a series of thoughts and feelings I’d been having since Ann Richards died:
It’s time we all stopped wishing Chris Bell was the Big Dog or Ann Richards’ spiritual son. It’s time to get over wishing Chris Bell had as much charisma as Clinton or Richards and apologizing that he doesn’t. It’s time to stop judging him negatively against Kinky’s (more another day–he’s starting to feel like the Bobby Riggs of my early middle-age) mesmerizing love affair with the English language. It’s time to wake up.

Why did it take me so long to come to Bell’s cause? Why didn’t I support Bell whole-heartedly from the very start?

That is an excellent question. I have an excellent answer that I’ll save for another post. Right now, I leave you with a link to a June 2004 post in Off the Kuff–a great blog devoted to Texas politics. Click on this. Read this. And if you won’t, if you think, “Who gives a shit about another political blog,” well, it’s time to give a shit.

Political blogs are like historical archives that are available to all of us, without having to fly to Charlottesville or Berkeley and get special permission to go in. We can look up dates, look up events, and see what people were saying and reporting at that moment. And the historical moment I want to direct you to is Chris Bell’s June 2004 ethics complaint against Tom DeLay.

Do you remember that? Do you remember that Chris Bell is the “disgruntled redistricted-out-of-office” freshman congressman who filed the complaint? He’s the one that everyone tried to paint as a sore loser. He’s the one that filed out of personal spite. Or so we’ve read, heard, or dreamed, over and over, as the Republican machine spun and spun and spun.

Since Prematurely Grey was founded on the principle of bringing Tom DeLay down (one haircut at a time), we must always remember to take care of our own. And not only is Chris Bell one of us, he’s one of our champions. Wake up, Austin! What if we actually started taking this election seriously? What if we turned everybody out? What if all the Democrats and independents who hate Rick Perry not only voted against him, but voted for somebody with enough pull, enough intelligence, and enough of a base to actually win? We’d be winners. And the Republican machine would start to crumble.