I heard the news last night while my friend Jeremy was checking the outcome of the Express-Sidewinders game. I know I promised no politics on this site but I violated that rule a couple times (recent cheap shot with Idiocracy), one more won’t hurt if it’s for the last Democrat governor of Texas.
Richards was up for re-election when I moved to Austin in 1994 and I managed to see her in person once at UT. Some rally where Bonnie Raitt dropped by to lend her support against Bush for governor. I also remember how complacent sounding the people in the Austin area were about her chances, “Oh she’ll win because she’s the incumbent and this Bush is a moron.” Most of those same naysayers forgot to vote too when I took them to task. Did I vote for her? Hell yeah! I held my nose a bit because her environmental record wasn’t very good. Richards’ strength was civil rights for women and minorities as well as her razor wit (a touch of Adlai Stevenson for the South). Didn’t do any good though. Pundits claimed she lost because of her “negative campaign” (Karl Rove’s doing) or she lost support for not backing the concealed-firearms law. No, the forces behind the Restoration wanted revenge for the 1990 election and this would become the stepping stone for the chimp who became the worst president in history since Warren G. Harding (personally, I would go with William McKinley).
Back to the positive. Richards moved on to other endeavors; some good, some bad, especially lobbying. It was still a treat to see her on television shows like Politically Incorrect and the infamous Doritos commercial she did with Mario Cuomo, bittersweet as it was. I also remember an important lesson from her on 60 Minutes, never make threats you can’t follow through on. Course it didn’t sink in until after my time with GDW. She will be missed around here because her uppity nature fit right in with Austin.
Although not a great fan of Ann Richards, I had to admire her sense of humor when she lent her voice and “played” herself on an episode of King of the Hill. Playing a woman who fell in love with sad-sack Bill Dautrieve took courage. I remember once my sister sat next to the then recently ex-governor Richards on a flight to Chicago. Ms. Richards was apparently quite the raconteur (especially after the first in-flight drink) and my sister said that she was laughing at the governor’s stories the whole flight.