#NoPosersinTexas
George HW Bush; George W Bush; Dan Patrick; Ted Cruz; Allen West; Dan Rodimer; Chad Prather. What do these individuals have in common? First, they either held, hold, or are running for political office in Texas. Second, NONE of them are actually from Texas. HW and W were well known Connecticut blue bloods who wrapped themselves in the Texas flag to run for federal office. Ted Cruz is from Calgary, Canada. Allen West, who was born in Georgia and went to Congress from Florida, was oddly elected chair of the Texas Republican party and recently resigned to run against Abbott for Texas governor. That leaves Dan Rodimer, from New Jersey, and Chad Prather, also from New Jersey. What a coinkydink.
You can correctly characterize all of these men as carpetbaggers; most were/are shitheads. What separates Rodimer and Prather from the others, though, is that not only are they shitheads, they’re also posers, dressing up in cowboy costumes and talking with that fake gnarly drawl that those who are not from Texas believe is how native Texans talk. While it’s true that many Texans do talk with that drawl, we also recognize a poser pretending to be from Texas. And, it mightily pisses us off. These two clowns really piss me off.
Rodimer is just your everyday weirdo who decided he wanted to be in Congress after he failed at being a professional wrestler, so he moved to Nevada where he ran and was beaten badly after allegations of domestic violence surfaced. So, he had the great idea of moving to Texas, changing his voice, donning a cowboy hat and renaming himself “Big Dan” Rodimer to run again for Congress. His chances faded pretty quickly when the Washington Post picked up his story and showed the ad he made pretending to ride a bull using a stunt double. The ad was simply awful, even cringeworthy.
But compared to Prather, Rodimer is a minor leaguer of fakes. Prather is the world champion of loudmouthed, boastful, smartass 5-inch-brim-hat-wearing fakes. He styles himself as a comedian and a “fast-talking, observational humorist”, but has scrubbed his New Jersey roots from his online persona. In fact, he’s damn near scrubbed all of his past from his online persona. Besides having an online gig on Glenn Beck’s The Blaze website, he’s a YouTuber, usually done from the front seat of his big I-Have-a-Tiny-Penis pick’em-up truck, and he’s a dynamic self-promotion machine. His videos are a fast talking stream of bile delivered with a smile, whining about “libruls”, Biden, Pelosi, and everyone not Trump. The most irritating thing about him is his boasting about being “Unapologetically Southern”, not understanding that those of us actually from Texas don’t consider ourselves southern, but Texan. The South is NOT Texas. He’s also more than happy to let you mistake him for a native Texan, which he most certainly isn’t. He got my attention when he announced he was running for governor against Abbott because he got pissed off when Abbott mandated masks for 5 minutes last year before caving to Trump and dropping the mandate WAY too early, contributing to the 53,000 deaths in Texas from the virus. Prather’s entire platform is made up of two planks: “I’m pissed off about masks”, and “I need to sell some T-Shirts”. That’s it.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Texas is a most welcoming state and we love for people to move here. But we need REAL people to move here who are respectful, hardworking, and sincerely wanting to put down roots. Clowns like Rodimer and Prather are NOT who we’re looking for, and we goddam sure don’t want them trying to represent us in Austin or Washington. Add Allen West and Dan Patrick to this toxic waste, and Texas looks worse if that’s even possible after the damage done by Abbott, Cruz, and Cornyn. Here’s how bad it is in Texas Republican politics right now…the primary race is made up of a Trump Mini Me (complete with a failed Wall policy), and two carpetbaggers, West and Prather. Jesus.
My message to these posers? Leave us alone and go back to wear you came from. We have enough problems and we have to get Abbott out of office, but we most certainly don’t need any help from these fakes. So, #NoPosersinTexas
Don’t forget Kinky Friedman.
1Is it time for all good Texas democrats to vote for the craziest republican running in their primary? Or is the chance too good the craziest one running would win in the general?
2I’ll guaradamntee that the craaazziiesst GQP sonuvabitch possible would walk away with both the Texass primary and the general elections by a crooked mile.
3As I recall a father and son who lived in CA ran in the TX primary last year, one as a Dem and one as a GOPer. Perhaps we could start by tightening up the rules that you have to live in your district for a year before you can run – or at least live in the state!
4Mah Fellow Murkuhn @1, My first thought too. A-hole Kinky might have helped pRick Perry get re-elected in the 2006 guv race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Texas_gubernatorial_election
5Sandrigde, Holy shit. Just looked at the votes cast in that race. Kinky got 12%. That’s amazing. We went to a rally just to see what’s up with running for and losing as a candidate for sheriff then running for governor. It was poorly attended and he was a terrible speaker. Maybe 25 people and that included his bunch. And Carole 5 names got more.
But the one that I’ll always remember is Dan Patrick’s best friend running as a democrat. When the subject of Dan’s radio program came up he said, let’s let my opponent decide. And that was it. The Texas Democratic party needs to pay attention to who pays their filing fee.
6I’d like to see the TX Dems being extremely careful about who they let run under their banner.
We’ve had stinkers in the past, and then we’ve had vote-splitters and Q-ships (a name more appropriate now, perhaps, than before, what with Q Anon.) I think there’s a reasonable set of people between running a sleaze and trying to find the Mary Poppins “practically perfect in every way”. Effective politics requires someone with the guts to die on a hill (ruin their career, not get elected again) if necessary and the judgment and personality that don’t insist every ant-hill must be treated as a place to die.
We don’t need a Manchin or Sinema in the TX Dems. No wafflers, but yet reasonable people with very strong basic character.
7