{"id":210265,"date":"2016-11-05T10:31:48","date_gmt":"2016-11-05T16:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=210265"},"modified":"2016-11-05T10:31:48","modified_gmt":"2016-11-05T16:31:48","slug":"party-leaders-rhetoric-leaves-texas-republican-women-reeling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/11\/party-leaders-rhetoric-leaves-texas-republican-women-reeling\/","title":{"rendered":"Party leaders&#8217; rhetoric leaves Texas Republican women reeling"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_72372\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/gageskidmore\/5440990018\/in\/photolist-9hNuLJ-9hKrun-9hHqDv-9hLwdw-9hNwso-9hHpJr-9hLx6s-9hLwSC-9hKpTt-9hKraP-9hNwi1-9hKp4g-9hNvWh-HkLZL-2oQiC-9KUYs-9hLxAs-9VjNra-9KD2oX-qu7Gu-9rmBGH-9VT6fh-uooUsi-5RhK99-9hNwCN-9hKpmZ-9hNvfQ-9hKrPH-9hNvzC-9hKoVK-9hKrkx-9u7qjZ-9rd77n-xRyc1-9rknN8-5KnqeT-9rphtQ-9wtCb2-9uayT3-9FTZtY-fNcrqH-vPTJzZ-6Rnrkd-5Dd1xc-bXt9R-4r8psj-vGv8u-uT5y6P-vMTbLN-9DncXb\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-72372 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Trump-Donald-771x494.jpg\" alt=\"Donald Trump\" width=\"771\" height=\"494\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Trump-Donald-771x494.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Trump-Donald-336x215.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Trump-Donald-768x493.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Trump-Donald-1170x750.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Trump-Donald-780x500.jpg 780w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Trump-Donald.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Gage Skidmore \/ Creative Commons<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. (<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0\/\" target=\"_blank\">photo cc info<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>For many female Texans working in Republican politics,\u00a0last month&#8217;s\u00a0release\u00a0of a video showing GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump boasting about groping women was bad enough. They have since watched in astonishment as\u00a0male elected officials from their own state have\u00a0engaged in coarse rhetoric of their own.<\/p>\n<p>The simmer turned into a full rolling boil on Tuesday, when someone using state Agriculture Commissioner\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/sid-miller\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sid Miller<\/a>\u2019s Twitter account\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/11\/01\/miller-calls-clinton-obscene-term-twitter\/\" target=\"_blank\">used a four-letter word<\/a>\u00a0that is frequently described as \u201cthe worst word in the English language.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I heard about the tweet, I was stunned,\u201d said Jennifer Waisath Harris, an Austin-based public relations consultant with a long history with the GOP. \u201cI have not been surprised with some of the words that came of the commissioner\u2019s mouth &#8230; but it\u2019s one of those words you just don\u2019t utter.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/11\/04\/texas-women-republicans-boil-over-coarsening-rheto\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Texas Tribune<\/a>,\u00a0a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The consequences of what Miller\u2019s camp describes as an accidental tweet, juxtaposed with both Trump\u2019s tone and recent comments from two Texas congressmen,\u00a0has the potential to run off an entire generation of the party&#8217;s female talent pool, according to\u00a0several women with strong ties to the party in Texas.\u00a0They&#8217;ve spent their careers fighting for hallmark conservative values including school choice, opposition to\u00a0abortion, limited government and a strong national defense.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can\u2019t believe he even employs anybody who would post such a thing if he didn\u2019t do it himself,&#8221; wrote\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/elizabeth-ames-jones\/\" target=\"_blank\">Elizabeth Ames Coleman<\/a>, a former Texas Railroad Commission chairwoman who also served in the Texas House, in an email. &#8220;Is everybody just so desensitized by the barrage of gutter-level talk that they don\u2019t recognize it anymore? How embarrassing to have any Texas elected official perpetuate this kind of discourse.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Miller&#8217;s camp immediately deleted the tweet, first claiming the account was hacked but then blaming it on a staffer carelessly copy-and-pasting other&#8217;s tweets. A spokesman said that Miller shared others&#8217; horror around that term, never uses it and avoids objectionable language altogether.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People make mistakes,&#8221; said Miller&#8217;s consultant, Todd M. Smith, in an interview. &#8220;There are errors that happen in campaigns, especially in this fast-paced world of social media.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The minute that Commissioner Miller and his campaign became aware of the offensive tweet, it was removed instantaneously, and he issued an apology within five minutes and the centerpiece of that apology was that that term was vile and offensive and had no place in the discourse,&#8221; Smith said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everybody makes mistakes,&#8221; he added. &#8220;It\u2019s how people respond to mistakes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But in interviews with a dozen female consultants, lobbyists, officials and aspiring politicians, the refrain was clear: These conservative Texas\u00a0women no longer\u00a0feel welcome in the party they have spent decades helping\u00a0build.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Harris, for instance, fashioned herself as a female \u201cAlex P. Keaton,\u201d the iconic teenaged conservative character from the 1980s sitcom Family Ties. But these days, while she does not see herself switching parties, she considers herself &#8220;more and more independent.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She and these other women fit the ideological profile of traditional conservatism. But their alienation has culminated into votes this year for\u00a0Evan McMullin, an independent presidential candidate with a GOP pedigree; writing in other names on the ballot; or even casting ballots for Hillary Clinton, a woman they grew up reviling.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There\u2019s a common thought process right now with young Republican women, and that is, &#8216;Is this the party for us?\u2019\u201d asked Randan Steinhauser, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee,\u00a0the governing body of the Republican Party of Texas,\u00a0and a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/07\/22\/school-choice-fight-fresh-force-emerges\/\" target=\"_blank\">prominent school choice activist<\/a>\u00a0in Austin.<\/p>\n<p>In recent weeks, the most outspoken Republican woman in Texas politics has been\u00a0Jenifer Sarver, a fixture in both Washington and Austin Republican circles dating back to her time serving in the George W. Bush administration and a Republican staffer\u00a0in the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n<p>She pinned the blame for the current\u00a0change in tone on the Republican primary voters who nominated him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a disgrace and an embarrassment and has easily coasted into office,\u201d she wrote of Miller in an email. \u201cHis use of the \u2018c\u2019 word says more about the GOP primary voters in Texas than it does about him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is vulgar and offensive and revels in being so,\u201d she added. \u201cI\u2019ve always felt pride in being from a state that supports and nurtures strong women, but this new wave of openly sexist attitudes perpetrated by Texas GOP leaders is disheartening and shameful, and I worry about the message it sends to the little girls in my life.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Democratic party is not where most of these women see their futures. But many hope their values will win out\u00a0in\u00a0an intensive party civil war that they see as inevitable.\u00a0Otherwise,\u00a0they expect to\u00a0work on third-party efforts or leave politics altogether.<\/p>\n<p>Several of the women interviewed similarly described the sadness of sheltering their children from their lifelong passions for politics.<\/p>\n<p>The anger right now is concentrated mostly on Miller and Trump, but even more frustrating to the women interviewed for this story\u00a0was the broader pattern\u00a0that&#8217;s emerged.<\/p>\n<p>Early this month, U.S. Rep.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/blake-farenthold\/\" target=\"_blank\">Blake Farenthold<\/a>, R-Corpus Christi, brushed off Trump\u2019s vulgar comments as \u201clocker room talk\u201d and suggested he would consider continuing to support Trump even if the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/10\/12\/blake-farenthold-pushes-envelope-supporting-trump-\/\" target=\"_blank\">nominee bragged about raping a woman<\/a>. Farenthold quickly walked back the comment, saying he was thrown off by a hypothetical question and would never have &#8220;condoned rape or violence against women.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A couple of weeks\u00a0later, U.S. Rep.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/brian-babin\/\" target=\"_blank\">Brian Babin<\/a>\u00a0of Woodville, took a cue from Trump in the final debate and said Clinton\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/10\/21\/texas-congressman-hillary-clinton-has-done-some-na\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201chas done some nasty things\u201d and \u201cI think sometimes a lady needs to be told when she\u2019s being nasty.\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was asked twelve times in the course of two minutes whether Hillary Clinton was a nasty woman,&#8221; Babin said in a statement for this story. &#8220;I responded persistently that Hillary has done some nasty things and I stand by that. That was the point I made. My comments were related specifically to Hillary Clinton and to suggest otherwise is taking quotes out of context and dishonest.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tying all of the commentary together minutes after Miller\u2019s now-infamous\u00a0tweet Tuesday, a female GOP operative not authorized to speak on the record on political matters quipped: \u201cTo be fair, maybe a gentleman needs to be told when he&#8217;s being nasty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For many of these women, the deafening silence from most of the party leaders from their state has been almost as disturbing as the handful of sexist remarks.\u00a0While\u00a0Gov.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/greg-abbott\/\" target=\"_blank\">Greg Abbott<\/a>\u00a0rushed out criticism of Miller&#8217;s tweet,\u00a0most\u00a0of\u00a0the party\u2019s leadership \u2014 which is now mostly men \u2014 kept\u00a0quiet.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They have not done a good enough job denouncing Donald Trump and Sid Miller, and it&#8217;s just a shame,\u201d said Steinhauser.<\/p>\n<p>A question emerging among these women is: Which came first? Did Donald Trump normalize this way of speaking, or is this representative of\u00a0an escalation in tone over several years?<\/p>\n<p>Some wonder if Trump forever shattered unwritten rules on political comity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI worry if we get a mainstream candidate, will the temperament be the same?\u201d asked a female Texas GOP consultant who declined to speak on the record for fear of losing clients. \u201cI hope not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But most of the women noted that the number of GOP women running for office in Texas has been falling off for years, and the male officeholders currently drawing outrage have few professional female equals to challenge their worldviews.<\/p>\n<p>One of the women contacted for this story\u00a0pointed to Democrat\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/wendy-davis\/\" target=\"_blank\">Wendy Davis<\/a>\u2019s 2014 unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign as the turning point, saying the rhetoric toward her was markedly rougher than what the late\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/ann-w-richards\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ann Richards<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/kay-bailey-hutchison\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kay Bailey Hutchison<\/a>\u00a0encountered in their day.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the root, they say it\u2019s not helping their ideological cause.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re not good at what they do if they think that\u2019s good politics,\u201d said Sarah Flores, a Houston native who was deputy campaign manager on Carly Fiorina\u2019s presidential campaign.<\/p>\n<p>For Flores, the frustration goes back to 2012, when Democrats effectively accused the GOP of waging &#8220;a war on women.&#8221; She described how in the 2014 cycle, Republican women went to bat across the country to defend their party, only to see the undermining of those efforts this year.<\/p>\n<p>Coleman, the former statewide official, agreed that beyond being tactically dubious, it was counterproductive to attack Clinton in this way.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Guess what guys, and gals too, they are called &#8216;adjectives&#8217; and there are a myriad of acceptable ones that you can use to describe the problems with Hillary&#8217;s agenda without having to resort to intellectually-arrested vocabulary,&#8221; said Coleman in an email. &#8220;Silly gutter talk is not the way to &#8216;win friends and influence people,&#8217; two goals to which the Republican Party should aspire.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Evangelical women are similarly distressed, questioning what happened to the \u201ccompassionate conservatism\u201d brand that helped\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/george-w-bush\/\" target=\"_blank\">George W. Bush<\/a>\u00a0move Texas firmly\u00a0toward the Republican party.<\/p>\n<p>But straying from the top of the ticket is not a universal worldview among Texas Republican women. Red State Women, an Austin-based Republican group,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=68BerPb9GFk&amp;feature=youtu.be\" target=\"_blank\">released a video<\/a>\u00a0Wednesday making the case that Clinton is a uniquely problematic candidate and the stakes surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court were too high to vote against Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Some in the Miller camp are frustrated, saying that a number of GOP women privately offered him their moral support. His supporters further wondered if some of this commentary had less to do with what they view as a human error and more to do with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/10\/31\/election-home-stretch-millers-basks-trumps-spotlig\/\" target=\"_blank\">Miller&#8217;s strong endorsement of Trump<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a candidate many of the women interviewed publicly denounced long before Miller&#8217;s tweet.<\/p>\n<p>All the while, several\u00a0women in the state&#8217;s political class confessed to\u00a0re-evaluating their future in the GOP. One of the women said the toxicity made her put aside lifelong ambitions to run for public office.<\/p>\n<p>That is the nightmare of Steinhauser, the State Republican Executive Committee member, fears.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve tried to get involved in the party and tried to broaden the tent and to get other young women involved, but it makes my job harder when you have folks like Sid Miller and Donald Trump using this type of language,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>None of the women interviewed said they are\u00a0considering\u00a0joining the Democratic party. Several suggested they would follow the lead of the McMullin campaign and explore\u00a0building a new party.<\/p>\n<p>Steinhauser suggested that with Miller, at least, women would have the final word.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are political consultants by trade,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re conservatives, and as a strong conservative woman, I open the door to a strong conservative woman challenging Sid Miller.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Disclosure: Jennifer Waisath Harris has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/support-us\/donors-and-members\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Interviews with Texas Republican female consultants, lobbyists, activists and aspiring politicians reveal a common sentiment: They no longer feel welcome in their own party. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72372,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[708,3307,226,194,2260,292],"class_list":["post-210265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2016-election","tag-donald-trump","tag-presidential-race","tag-republican-party","tag-texas","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}