As he clambers down from the cab of that vintage Chevy pickup on television, I half expect Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to start talking about the price of feed.
But nah: It's a campaign commercial designed for him to come across as a real, rootin', tootin' Texan. The boots, jeans and jacket tell you he's a Texan (by way of Maryland), he supports Donald Trump down on the border and he's a "principled conservative." At the end I think we're all supposed to yell: "Hell boys, he's one of us!"
Well, nah. Instead, Patrick, who has a primary opponent next month, is the icon for exactly what's wrong with the Republican Party in Texas. His right-wing theocracy is way more concerned with bedrooms, bathrooms, reproduction and guns than with his actual job: fixing schools, infrastructure and hurricane damage. Most importantly, though, Patrick is way out of step with the Texas of today.
As arguably the most powerful politician in Texas (since he also presides over the state Senate,) Patrick's chief claims to fame of late lie somewhere between nothing and bigotry. He's helped starve the public education system even as the population has swelled, made war on teachers and public schools and kept trying to snatch taxpayer dollars for private schools. But here's where it gets interesting.
Patrick has amassed a track record, too, in opposing the will of most Texans.
A nonbeliever in climate change, he found religion in Hurricane Harvey — but hasn't convinced anyone to open the state's $11 billion rainy day fund to help Houston. A big fan of Donald Trump, he supports Trump's border wall, a multibillion dollar boondoggle consistently opposed by a majority of Texans in poll after poll.
Patrick's baby, the bathroom bill, which never made it out of the House, was vehemently opposed by Texas business. So was the show-me-your-papers law that was enacted — also over the opposition of business, the police, and the mayors. Maybe "principled conservative" actually means just sucking up to your base and not caring what most citizens want. That would come right from the Trump playbook, after all.
People like Trump and Patrick have given conservatism a bad name — at a time, by the way, when steadily fewer Texans identify themselves as conservatives. For more than two decades it's been true that more Texans identify themselves as conservatives rather than liberals; but many identify as independents. And yes, the right-wing turns out to vote in its primary and the general election, needing to generate only a couple of million votes to maintain its kind in power. But that margin eroded in 2016, when Trump registered only a single-digit victory in Texas. Hundreds of thousands of new voters are registering.
And over time, Texas looks like it is becoming less conservative — even as the definition of that word has been polluted and bastardized, frankly. In about a decade's time, the Gallup Organization's daily polling has followed a decline in people calling themselves conservatives in Texas.
In 2009, for example, Gallop polling showed Texas was among the most conservative states in the country with a lead of 25 points or more over self-proclaimed liberals. Texas was in the company of states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the rest of the Deep South. The same held true in 2010, but it should be noted Texas wasn't even in the top 10 most conservative states .
By 2014, Gallop shows Texas was just "above average"conservative even as much of the Deep South stayed in the "most conservative"category. The same held true in 2015 and 2016. Over this entire period, Texas had gone from at least a 25 point lead of conservatives over liberals to about 15 to 19 and joined the company of North Carolina and Georgia, both now widely viewed as competitive states, too.
Why? In part, Donald Trump is rubbing people's fur the wrong way — particularly when he claims to be a conservative. In Texas, Patrick is a Trump wannabe — the first line in his commercial, after all, is "I agree with President Trump." Last year it was bathrooms; next year, it'll be abortion.
But there's a larger change sweeping Texas: Hundreds of thousands of new Texans have arrived annually since 2010. They are arriving in the big cities and the close-in suburbs. My hunch is these urban residents aren't buying what Patrick is selling. They need functioning public schools, transportation and hurricane recovery. They don't need the Texas equivalent of the Saudi morality police.
There is plenty of room for tolerant, smart, real Republicans. Scott Milder, who is opposing Patrick, is one, as was House Speaker Joe Straus. It's just their party that has lost its way. The first step lies in acknowledging the problem. Milder, for one, once called Patrick a "jackass." Maybe this year Patrick gets in his truck and heads for the back 40. That, after all, is where we keep jackasses. Or at least where we should.
Richard Parker is a journalist in the Texas Hill Country outside of Austin and the author of Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America. He is a frequent contributor to The Dallas Morning News. Twitter: @richardparkertx
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