Incoming!
by Susan Bankston
It seems like election season starts earlier and earlier every year. In Texas, the deadlines to sign up to run for political office in November of 2014 started last month, a year in advance. This makes political candidates resemble merchants who put out Christmas decorations right after Halloween—way too much, way too soon.
But at least Christmas decorations are shiny and festive. These guys are rusty, for the most part, and about as festive as spending New Year’s Eve in a convent. With your fourth-grade teacher. During fasting week. And Sister MaryNell has a headache, so there shall be no music. And you don’t have a date. Okay, you do have a date, but it’s Sister MaryNell. You get the idea.
But take heart, drama lovers: the Texas Republican Party is staging a production worthy of a run on Broadway. They say that politics is show business for ugly people, and this year Texas Republicans are going for a Tony.
My personal favorite is the Texas lieutenant governor’s race.
In the Republican primary, the race seems to be between three men who want the most gun un-laws.
In Texas, we have a weak-governor form of government. Personally, I suspect that’s because the framers of our state constitution somehow foresaw Rick Perry. The lieutenant governor has all the power, so there are three Republicans vying to become their party’s nominee for lieutenant governor. They are all male, all straight, all white, all old, and all just flippin’ solid flatass goofy.
Darlin’, we need these candidates like we need a third foot.
If you go to any of their debates, don’t wear your good pants, because this race is gonna knock them off of ya. You’ve heard of Cirque du Soleil? This is going to be Cirque du What-the-hell.
These three Republican candidates have one theme in common: guns. They all have a borderline kinky obsession with guns. Okay, so I’m exaggerating. It’s not borderline. It’s flourishing like a snow-cone stand in hell.
First up is Dan Patrick. He has a talk-radio show in Houston that is so hateful it causes the airwaves to blister. He makes on-air statements so backward that they come out of the radio as Morse Code.
A couple of years ago, Dan—a man who claims to hate the government—tried to pass a bill that would allow all Texas legislators to carry their weapons in bars, churches, hospitals, sporting events, and other places where they are currently prohibited. That would even include businesses that post signs outside saying “Concealed Handguns Prohibited.”
Yeah, the man who hates government wants the politicians to be the only ones armed in churches and bars. This kinda makes sense, since most of our state legislators leave one to go directly to the other.
Then there’s Jerry Patterson. He’s currently the Texas land commissioner, but he wants to move up to where the real power is. Since the Texas land commissioner oversees the Alamo, Patterson decided to allow the first-ever political rally on the actual grounds of the Alamo, benefitting his political career. Now, I’m not saying this stinks, but I do know goats carrying loads of three-day-old crawfish that smell better than that deal.
Do I need to tell you what kind of rally it was?
Patterson’s gun rally at the Alamo featured himself as the major speaker. You know how a shinbone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room? Well, white men holding a gun rally at the Alamo is a device to remind us who lost the last gunfight there.
And lastly, there’s the incumbent Republican lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst. He’s the guy who confiscated tampons during the Wendy Davis filibuster in the capitol because he claimed he had heard a rumor that protestors in the gallery were going to throw tampons at the state senators. This is the same guy who wants to arm teachers in the classroom—you know, because guns are fun but tampons are dangerous (you never know when one of those things is loaded).
The pro-gun rhetoric in Texas has reached such a level that we’re afraid the next guy is going to propose that every citizen must get a holster and some chaps, because you will be required to carry a gun if he wins.
Thelma over at the beauty shop disagrees. She predicts that one of these three men will be the first candidate who actually shoots a man. She might be right.
On another subject, no matter what happens in the world, there is one thing we can count on above all else. Our own Mayor Annise Parker will never shoot off her mouth like the mayor of Toronto. I don’t know about you, but in this crazy world, I take comfort in that.
Susan Bankston lives in Richmond, Texas, where she writes about her hairdresser at The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc., at juanitajean.com.
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