Houston Elects a Lesbian Mayor

While the health care kerfuffle lingers on and on in Washington, an election in Texas has shown that things in the US don't quite follow the media's preconceived notions of what's what. Houston, a city with a reputation of having redder necks than most metropolitan areas, just elected Annise Parker, a lesbian, as mayor. Apparently, being able to run a city of that size counted for more among voters than what she does in the privacy of her own home.

The rest of the country (indeed, thanks to former President Bush most of the world), thinks of Texas as a pickup driving, cowboy hat and boots wearing, big belt buckle having backwater that may someday have civilization. Often, it is easier to report on one's own bigotries than it is to go after the facts. One of the prime facts is the Republican Party has an image of being a party of white people, and Texas has not had a white majority since 2005.

Moreover, there are pockets of blue in this red state. John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Hussein Obama in 2008 carried every major Texas city. Along the Rio Grande, even some of the rural counties lean a bit to the left. And when it comes to education and civilization, the University of Texas system has no fewer than nine campuses (the University of California system has 10), six health institutions and 190,000 students, That isn't to say Texas is hyper progressive, merely that it is no more monolithic than other political entities its size.

What one didn't hear in the reportage on the mayor's race in Houston was that the Republican candidate didn't make the run-off. Gene Locke and Annise Parker are both Democrats. While the Los Angeles Times decided that Ms. Parker was a "conservative," at least according to Andrew Malcolm's recent piece, it's hard to think of Houston as a bastion of rightist thinking when the GOP can't make it to round two of the mayor's race. Moreover, the outgoing mayor is a Democrat.

While the GOP does control the state legislature and a majority of the seats in Congress from Texas, it isn't guaranteed to vote Republican. The Democrats need to pay attention to this, just as surely as the Republicans need to remember New York. Congressional seats are gerrymandered pretty badly, but Senate races, gubernatorial contests and mayoral elections don't suffer from that. When properly worked, most of these jurisdictions are a tolerable shade of purple.

© Copyright 2009 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.

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