Comedy gold! As the co-founder of the Daily Show, Lizz Winstead might be a funny lady. But what she came up with today was surely an unintentional laugh line. Appearing on Joy Reid's MSNBC show this afternoon, Winstead blamed Wendy Davis' impending thrashing in her race for Governor of Texas on . . . "redistricting."
Lizz, last time we looked, there is no districting—"re" or otherwise—when it comes to statewide races. The entire state is one big district that gets to vote for Governor. Oh, and for good measure, Lizz laid the rest of the blame on "the media." Right. In a state where the major newspaper in three of the four largest cities have endorsed Davis.
Lizz, rather than blaming irrelevant redistricting and the media, could you contemplate the possibility that riding to fame on the basis of a radical pro-abortion filibuster might have won Wendy fans among liberal elites, but made her an awful fit for statewide office in Texas?
JOY REID: Lizz, you have a new poll showing that Wendy Davis is trailing Greg Abbott by substantial margins, 32 to 47. You have an organization Lady Parts Justice that's really trying to push on these issues of reproductive justice. Why do you suppose that Wendy Davis, who came to fame on those very issues, is doing so poorly?
LIZZ WINSTEAD: You know, I don't -- I think part of it is that redistricting is redistricting. And Texas, I think, can turn blue. I mean, let's not forget that 20 years ago Texas had a female governor, who was an admitted alcoholic and a divorcee who was a progressive. So, I don't think that the dinosaurs were walking the Earth back then. But I do think that with Texas, the media has a lot to do with it. I think that there is just so much going on with the way that reproductive justice has become an issue that is big, but in a state as big as Texas, there are so many other issues, and they just don't have the information and the media on their side.
