How does a Democrat candidate for the highest office in the state become a nonperson at the "non-partisan" Texas Tribune? When that person's campaign goes into such a freefall that it becomes an embarrassment to even report on it.
Such seems to be the case with the Wendy Davis campaign for governor in Texas. The last time the Texas Tribune directly reported about her was a full week ago on August 15 which not so coincidentally is when the Rick Perry indictment happened. The backlash from that obviously political indictment which is already falling apart as reported by Bryan Preston of PJ Media has become so great that Wendy Davis now acts like a deer caught in the campaign headlights as she appears unable to respond according to this Dallas Morning News Trail Blazers blog:
Wendy Davis on Wednesday had little to say about the indictment of Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The Democratic nominee for governor gave stock answers to several questions about Perry’s legal problems.
“These are serious charges,” Davis said during a news conference in Dallas. “I trust the justice system to do its job and I won’t presuppose what the outcome will be.”
Davis, a state senator from Fort Worth and Democratic nominee for governor, even avoided answering a question about Perry’s link to the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, an agency embroiled in scandal.
The title of that report is "Wendy Davis has little to say about Gov. Rick Perry's indictment." And if Davis has little to say about that indictment then the Texas Tribune has even less to say about Wendy Davis which is nothing since August 15, the day of the indictment. You can see that as of this writing on the Texas Tribune search engine the Wendy Davis nonperson status at that periodical which is is supposed to report in-depth on Texas politics.
Ironically the last Texas Tribune mention of Davis on August 15 was in a story titled, "After Perry Indictment, Democrats Look to Pounce." Instead Democrats such as Davis are looking to avoid as a result of the indictment backfiring bigtime. Here is part of Bryan Preston's report on how that indictment, including the charges about the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, are already crashing down upon the Democrats:
Is the political indictment of Gov. Rick Perry already backfiring on Democrat governor hopeful Wendy Davis?
Gov. Perry’s official courthouse portrait immediately became the Mugshot Seen ‘Round the World. Instead of becoming a liability, it became a badge of honor. It will probably be on campaign T-shirts, mugs and shot glasses (the Rick Perry “MugShot” is irresistible) before long.
Perry followed that visit up with a trip for ice cream, sealing the win on what the Democrats hoped would be a terrible day for him and the beginning of the end of the Perry era.
The case itself is already ripping the heart out of what’s left of the Texas Democratic Party. The lead investigator has destroyed, as in burned to the ground and salted the earth, the TDP’s narrative that Perry battled Travis County drunk driving DA Rosemary Lehmberg in order to scuttle an investigation into a Texas anti-cancer agency, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. Not true, says Chris Walling, lead investigator on that case. So, that’s done and dusted.
The CPRIT allegations have been swirling for a while. Back in May, Democrat governor hopeful Wendy Davis was trying to tie the CPRIT investigation around the neck of Attorney General Greg Abbott, the Republicans’ nominee for governor. The leftwing Texas Observer dutifully transcribed her attack.
On Tuesday, Davis appeared at the Austin Tex-Mex restaurant Juan in a Million to level some of the same criticisms. “Greg Abbott allowed our cancer institute to become a piggy bank and allowed his donors to siphon off millions of tax dollars from cancer patients and from taxpayers,” she told a crowd of supporters. “When Abbott served on the oversight board of our state’s cancer research institute, he wasn’t looking out for cancer patients. He was looking out for his political donors.”
...Davis wants some distance now, but it’s too late for that. Perry’s indictment is world news, and even the likes of the New York Times think that it’s bogus. Liberal professor Alan Dershowitz even compared it to show trials in the Soviet Union.
...It was a Matt Angle hit group, the Soros-funded Texans for Public Justice, who filed the complaint against Perry that got the governor indicted for exercising his constitutional veto power. (George Soros — convicted felon). That complaint went to Lehmberg’s Public Integrity Unit. She handed it off to a judge, who likely for political Pontius Pilate reasons appointed the special prosecutor, Michael McCrum. McCrum won the indictment, using at least two grand jurors who have turned out to be partisan Democrats. One of them even attended the Democratic Party’s state convention while she was weighing the Perry indictment — and sought to meet with a prosecution witness who happens to be an elected Democrat during the convention.
...Wendy Davis may now consider running away from them, but the damage is done. She is sinking in the polls and the indictment has renewed Gov. Perry’s popularity. That helps Greg Abbott. The Texas Democratic Party has taken politics in this state to a new and dangerous low.
The big question now is when the Texas Tribune starts directly reporting (as opposed to merely providing links to other periodicals) on Wendy Davis again? In the past few months, she has appeared on the site almost daily, sometimes in several stories per day but since the Rick Perry indictment, and its backfire, nothing.
