Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Putting on a disguise


Posted By Bryan Preston 
When she was on the Fort Worth City Council, Wendy Davis tried to kick gun shows off of municipal property. She tried this in Fort Worth, Texas, “where the West begins,” and failed. Fort Worth is not Austin, and Texas is not like the liberal enclaves where Davis tends to raise her campaign funds, as she is learning this week.
Revelations that her origins story has some holes in it has sent Davis’ campaign for governor into a full-blown crisis. What’s a candidate to do?
Change the subject, of course. So tonight, the AP reports that Davis is out suggesting that if she becomes the first Democrat elected governor of Texas in a generation, she would expand where Texans could concealed carry our firearms.
Gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis promised Tuesday to veto a state income tax to pay for public schools and expand where people may carry handguns, while her campaign attempted to move past allegations she misled people while telling her life story.
In an interview with The Associated Press, the Democratic state senator from Fort Worth also reiterated her refusal to discuss the volatile end to her second marriage to Jeff Davis, which led to allegations of infidelity and a temporary restraining order against her.
The gun move is a nice try, but Davis should have gone big and come out for open carry. That would have attracted some attention. Hinting that she’ll do something that her record suggests is just a feint won’t get her very far.
While Democrats elsewhere have called for tighter gun laws, Davis said she owns a handgun for protection, plans to obtain a concealed handgun license and supports legislation that allows workers to keep guns in their vehicles at work.
“I think I have been pretty strong in supporting the expansion of the rights of gun ownership,” she said.
Nope, sorry, but she hasn’t. She wants more background checks for private gun sellers, and tried to boot gun shows off of city property in Fort Worth. That is her real record, not the one that she is now making up.
Speaking of making things up, the questions about her origins story aren’t going away.
In an interview with The Associated Press, the Democratic state senator from Fort Worth also reiterated her refusal to discuss the volatile end to her second marriage to Jeff Davis, which led to allegations of infidelity and a temporary restraining order against her.
“What I committed to my daughters when I started this journey was that I would not revisit a very difficult time in our life which was that period,” Davis said. “I am not going to revisit that for the purposes of this campaign, not today, not in the future of the campaign. I would just remind you that there are always two sides to every story in a divorce.”
Another nice try, but Davis has made her story a focal point of her campaign. Now that it’s inconvenient, that story is under the bus along with [finish this sentence as you see fit].
Davis tries her hand on tax policy. Texas has no state income tax. Therefore the following is not what anyone should regard as a courageous stand.
Democrats often blame the state’s reliance on volatile and unequal property taxes for the poor performance of Texas students, and some party leaders have called for a state income tax instead. Davis said she, along with all Republican candidates, would oppose such a solution.
“I absolutely believe that if we look at these decades-old corporate tax loopholes we are going to find that there are some that really don’t make sense for us anymore,” Davis said, promising to find funding without damaging economic growth.
So, let’s cut off those undefined “corporate tax loopholes,” but it won’t hurt the strong Texas economy, pinky-swears! That’s coming from someone who still supports Obamacare, complete with “if you like your healthcare, you can keep your healthcare.” Obamacare itself is hurting the economy. Wendy Davis supports it.
Davis’ campaign is still imploding. She accomplished one thing in her AP interview, though: She has placed her origins story off-limits. To the media, and to her. If she brings it up again, along will come questions about the restraining order, the infidelity, how her education was paid for, the children, all of it.

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