This morning, former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd announced he was running for Texas Lt. Governor as a Democrat.
Earlier this week, Living Blue in Texas published an article about the “mythical moderate,” an imaginary winner in Texas politics, who has over and over again sunk Democratic elections in Texas. Here we are again. A man who has spent his entire career working against the values Democrats hold dear has announced his candidacy for Lt. Governor.
Dowd is not a Democrat, nor does he share our values. However, he thinks that he will win Texas Democrats over by running as a DINO and winning over the mythical moderate.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]Not only has this strategy failed time and time again, but once more, it alienates progressives and sets the tone for a split party.
Who is Matthew Dowd?
Dowd worked for Texas Democrats back in the 90s, when the party was led by Yellow Dog Democrats who still held Conservative values. In 1999, he left the party and became a longtime advisor and later Chief Strategist for George W. Bush—a name Texas Democrats know well.
Dowd has worked to defeat Democrats for years, advancing divisive narratives designed to help Republicans win elections.
Dowd has been an opportunist who has played both sides, from Democrat to Republican, and now Democrat again. He had only shown loyalty when politicians were up and backed away from them when their popularity faded.
In 2004, during the Bush-Kerry campaign, Matthew Dowd worked hard to sink John Kerry.
During that 2004 campaign, Dowd was Bush’s chief political strategist. Yet, here he is in a 2004 interview saying that the Bush campaign was proud to be Conservative (him included) and tearing John Kerry’s positions apart.
Ultimately, Bush won re-election, despite being incredibly unpopular. As a result, America and Texas were given four more years of Bush policies, some of which we are still dealing with today.
Will Texans be able to see past these four years that scarred our country so profoundly and forgive Dowd for taking part in it?
After Dowd left the Bush campaign, he later apologized for his role in the Bush presidency. Perhaps he had some time of come-to-Jesus over Conservatism, or maybe it was an opportunistic move to separate himself from a president who had the lowest approval rating in American history
Matthew Dowd and Karl Rove.
In a 2005 interview, Dowd self-described himself as “very close confidant of Karl (Rove)” Salon published an article in 2007, connecting Dowd to Rove and Bush, saying, “Rove’s and Bush’s radical imperatives derived from Dowd’s conclusions.“
Dowd was a key architect of many of the Bush Administration’s worst received and unpopular decisions and policies. Dowd tried to wash his hands of any guilt by turning against the former president. But there is as much blood, anger, and tears on his hands as the rest of the former Administration.
In 2017, Dowd teased at running against Cruz, then said a Democrat can’t win Texas.
He tried to capitalize on anti-Cruz sentiment in 2017 by teasing a run that never came to fruition and repeatedly called out the two-party system. Only four years ago, he wouldn’t caucus with either party and, “I think a Democrat can’t win in the state.”
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]If Matthew Dowd believes a Democrat was incapable of winning Texas, why is he now running as a Democrat in the State of Texas?
Is it to derail Mike Collier’s campaign? Is it to ensure that even if Texas turns blue, seats aren’t held by Liberals or Progressives?
Why?
These are questions that Dowd will have to answer as his campaign develops.
Dowd’s absence of the values Texas Democrats want from our candidates is glaring us all straight in the eyes.
Will Texans be able to see past these four years that scarred our country so profoundly and forgive Dowd for taking part in it?
What about education? Dowd worked for Richard DeVos (Betsy DeVos’ husband) in the gubernatorial race against Gov. Granholm.
This is another problematic issue facing a Dowd candidacy. The far-right in Texas has been pushing for school vouchers, further defunding our public education system. Quality, well-funded public education is a Democratic value that is one of the top priorities for nearly all Democratic candidates.
However, Dowd worked for DeVos, a long-time proponent of school vouchers. The DeVos family single-handedly wrecked the entire public education system in Michigan. Betsy DeVos bought her position in the Trump administration and later worked hard at destroying public education in America.
Why did Dowd work for Richard DeVos? Was it because he held the same values? Or was it another opportunistic move?
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]In 2016, Dowd propagated a false equivalence between Trump’s sexual assault allegations and Clinton’s emails.
In fact, the Washington Post wrote an entire article about it. The fact that Dowd asserted that sexual assault and using the wrong email was the same thing. This is problematic for Texas women, who have already been stripped of many of their Constitutional rights under Republican leadership.
Over the last two decades, Matthew Dowd contributed to the polarization of our country.
In 2004, Dowd specifically designed Bush’s reelection strategy to trigger the ”anger points” of Republican voters to ensure maximum turnout. Dowd’s analysis destroyed the rationale for Bush to govern as ‘a uniter, not a divider,’ wrote Thomas Edsall in his book “Building Red America.”
Although Dowd calls for bipartisanship now, he designed and executed the “base mobilization” strategy for Bush 2000 and Bush 2004.
It appears that Matthew Dowd is an arsonist complaining that the building burned down.
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