Tweet

I like the colorful, behind-the-scenes style of the ad. It gets to the heart of her message -- that we're all responsible for Texas's better future -- and I think Linda's warm personality also has an opportunity to shine through.

Make a donation or become a fan of Linda Chavez-Thompson on Facebook today. You can also now follow the Linda Chavez-Thompson campaign on Twitter.

Tweet

At first check-in, I found it totally pointless. It seemed a bit self-aggrandizing to constantly be telling everyone where I was ("Yum - oysters! - I'm @ Perla's" or "Love this bar! - I'm @Lustre Pearl"). But over the last few years I've learned to live by the school of thought that eventually, everything comes back into fashion (leggings, anyone?), so I've stuck with the app.

And now - shocker - I'm hooked. I've totally bought into the importance of mobile everything. We now all have a billboard in our pockets. For politicians and political candidates, this is the equivalent of a digital push-card that costs nothing. Foursquare and other "You are here" social apps will prove to be very useful to politicians whose strategists are smart enough to use them. Why?

Tweet

Tweet

---

Nine years ago, when I made the decision to graduate from high school a year early and not go to college, I was told -- not once, but several times; sometimes daily and often by strangers -- that I was making a terrible mistake. One person told me, “Have fun flipping burgers the rest of your life.”

If someone had thought at the time that I was taking the easy way out, then they would have been wrong. In fact, I’ve spent the last nine years finding out for myself just how difficult the path of most resistance can be. Five of them were spent freezing cold, literally shoveling horse’s manure, getting bitten and stepped on, thrown to the ground, injured, on the road, and earning a crash course in what it really means to work in the horse business. The last four have been about shaking off insecurities and proving to myself -- and other -- that what is worth learning in this world is rarely found in a classroom but in real life. Every morning when I wake up and go to work, the expectations someone else might have had for me cease to be important. What’s important are the expectations I have for myself.

When Linda Chavez-Thompson, a Democrat running for Lieutenant Governor of Texas, dropped out of high school to work full time in the cotton fields because her family needed the additional income, she wasn’t making a choice. There are millions of people in this state who drop out of high school and miss out on college not because of some desire to pursue their passions, or to prove a point, but because they simply didn’t get the opportunity to choose otherwise.

But the expectations our state has for those people -- those who never got an opportunity to seek higher education -- aren’t any different than the expectations were for me when I decided I wouldn’t be going to college. Dropping out of high school, in this day and age, is a career death sentence. “Have fun flipping burgers the rest of your life.”

Linda Chavez-Thompson, however, doesn’t buy into those expectations. She has spent her lifetime expecting more for herself and others. When she was forced to drop out of high school, she could have stopped expecting a better life right then and there. But she didn't. She was hired as a secretary at a laborer's union and she spent the next 28 years working in the labor movement, putting her bilingual skills to work in Texas on behalf of working people.

She expected fair wages for those who had resigned themselves to getting nothing. She expected opportunities where there had ceased to be any. And she expected open doors when others shut them in her face. Through those expectations, Linda Chavez-Thompson opened them all.

She saved the jobs of 33 community college workers when they blew the whistle on financial abuses being made by three trustees. She found emergency drivers to provide cover for workers on a wildcat strike, driving one of the trucks herself. And she continued to learn, taking organizational classes in her spare time and speaking on behalf of Spanish-speaking members at union meetings. She became so well-versed on labor related issues that she was mistaken for a lawyer at one hearing. And in 1995, she was elected and served for 12 years as Executive Vice President of the National AFL-CIO, becoming the first woman in that position and attaining the highest position ever achieved by a Hispanic in the labor movement.

As tuition costs soar, Texas students are expected to fend for themselves. Linda will expand financial aid to ensure that students from middle class families aren't being priced out of a college education and push for incentives to place more math and science teachers in the classroom. Too many Texas children are still without health insurance. Linda will expand CHIP enrollment criteria to allow the maximum number of families under federal law. And while Republicans expect Texans to look away while our economy suffers, Linda understands that jobs are critical to our economic development, and will strengthen teacher-training programs to capitalize on the fact that 9 of the top 25 fastest-growing jobs in the state are in education.

Tweet

Instead, the White campaign has pushed ahead and focused on what matters. Not petty arguing between candidates, not party infighting, but instead the real issues facing real Texans each day: soaring education costs, a struggling economy and the growing number of children in Texas who don’t have access to healthcare because of our current leadership’s inaction.

White's campaign has been running efficiently and smartly since they made the switch to the Governor's race. White himself has been a fundraising machine, often a make-or-break quality in a statewide candidate, and has been doing some outreach of his own on social networks like Twitter. White's communications team continues to be patient and careful, not allowing themselves to get sucked into childish Shami sniping.

Through all of this, White has refocused voters on the experience White brings with him to the Governor's race. No, you certainly won’t be emailing a link of White’s latest speech to your friends (unless you're a blogger). But perhaps the reason White doesn’t turn on any sort of John Edwards-ian charm is because he doesn’t need it. White’s strong -- dare I say inspiring? -- record as the two-time Mayor of Houston and as former Deputy Secretary of Energy under President Clinton far outweighs any flowery rhetoric that can be written into a speech. As Mayor, White wasted no time organizing over 100,000 volunteers in response to Hurricane Katrina, an effort which was later nationally recognized. He put his extensive knowledge of energy issues to work by helping Houston become the top purchaser in the nation of renewable energy. White’s Returning Veteran’s Initiative helped cut through the all-too predominant red tape veterans face when redeploying and offered employment opportunities to veterans returning to the Houston area, a program that he would like to scale to the rest of Texas if elected. And jobs? Bill White's got 'em. During his time as Mayor, he brought more jobs to the Houston area than 34 states combined.

I don’t completely agree with everything Bill White has to say. I’d like to see White support a moratorium on the death penalty in Texas, particularly considering the current situation with regard to Cameron Todd Willingham and Rick Perry’s potential involvement (or lack thereof). But I also believe that as Governor, Bill White would work to fix our criminal justice system from the politicized, discriminatory cycle it currently is.

Ultimately, Bill White offers Texas voters a greater chance for beating Rick Perry in the fall and, if elected, a greater chance for a better Texas in the future.

Tweet