| Democratic Senate candidate Mikal Watts came to Victoria today. He invited Dems to a fairly genteel rally in the Oak Room, which is the nicest restaurant in town. After a short meet-and-greet in which there seemed to be three cameras focusing on any given conversation (Watts explained later that they're trying to generate footage for their website), about 20 of us sat down at white-clothed tables for lunch. The food was good, too. (Unusual, since our beloved Victoria is not exactly the culinary capital of Texas.) Anyway, it was an odd contrast immediately, because our meetings with candidates tend to be in more down-home places, with us inflicting hotdogs or fajitas on them, instead of having them serve roast beef to us on fine china plates.
Watts started out by saying that he was not going to give his long stump speech, and then apparently he pretty much did. He talked about being a generational Democrat and told a story about preparing union flyers during childhood. He talked about the hardships of stopping work for 18 months (while mentioning that he can afford to do so) and being away for his family during the coming campaign. He talked about the war (which he is against, but not really ready to pull out of), health care reform (in favor of), and John Cornyn (very much against). I understand that he's still polishing this speech, but he's got to do better, because it was much like a combination of a dull opening argument and a lecture by one of your more boring history professors. No fire was lit in the audience, although a polite friendliness was. |
| When Watts opened for questions, the issue of his being anti-choice quickly arose. The questioner just wanted to know what he would do about this issue legislatively, not how he feels personally, since he is already known to be anti-choice, and she said as much. The answer was long and foggy. Watts said that his stance is "different from many in this room". He feinted right and left, and brought up "partial birth abortion" using the term "gory", saying that it was really physicians who got the procedure banned because they didn't want to be involved with something so bloody and disgusting. He mentioned that he was not in favor of a "litmus test" (perhaps because he would lose it if a choice test were applied to him). He talked a lot about wanting to increase availability and use of contraception. He never said "I will protect a woman's right to choose". Instead he excitedly said, "God made us a being that wants to procreate".
Someone else asked about the donations he had made to Rick Perry, David Dewhurst, and Greg Abbott. He answered this question more directly. He said he had made the donations through a trial lawyer PAC because the courts had just (I'm paraphrasing here) "closed up", and the donations were an attempt to get more access to the judicial system. Although he did not give correct figures, he pooh-poohed the amounts given by the questioner ($25K to Perry, $20K to Dewhurst, and $15K to Abbott). He also said that overall, he thinks he's given $3.5 million, the vast majority to Dems.
While he seemed earnest and sincere throughout, some of Watts's answers were disorganized, vague, and difficult to understand. Several questions about health care reform were asked, but I did not fully understand the answers he gave beyond "it costs me $600,000 to insure my employees". The questioner did not understand either, although she followed up for clarity. Several models of health care reform were discussed and rejected; no conclusion resulted. In another answer Watts said that he was in favor of stem cell research using discarded embryos from IVF fertilization.
When asked about the Trans-Texas Corridor he gave an answer that was, to the best of my understanding "no, we shouldn't take other people's land like that, but we do need to redo Interstate 69". (Interstate 69 is a project this area has been promised for a long time, and, I believe, would be part of the TTM.)
During and after the luncheon I thought back on recent visits to Victoria by other Democratic candidates such as Chris Bell, David Van Os, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, and others. Those visits usually involved the candidate driving up dusty in their car. We'd meet in the courthouse, at the local Democratic headquarters, at a Mexican restaurant in town. The other candidates asked for campaign contributions, while Watts did not, beyond an empty pickle jar on the sign-in table. We may have fed the other candidates basic hot dog bbqs or Mexican food, and Watts fed us in the very nicest white-tablecloth restaurant in the city. We had been able to talk with the other candidates up close and personal, rather than having stilted videotaped conversations. I was left with less of a feeling of partnership or collaboration and more of a feeling of…being given a very nice roast beef lunch by a friendly, wealthy man who was selling something I could not yet fully identify. It made me wonder if this is what Republican candidates do when they come to Victoria. |
