Hillary tries to claim a Texas endorsement from the other side. (Part 5: what would Ann think of Hillary's use of race?)

In the previous post, I linked to two pieces about Ann Richards by Molly Ivins. Now I will quote from those writings.

In "Remembering Ann Richards," Ivins told the following story that took place in the '70's:

At a long-ago political do at Scholz Garten in Austin, everybody who was anybody was there meetin' and greetin' at a furious pace. A group of us got the tired feet and went to lean our butts against a table at the back wall of the bar. Perched like birds in a row were Bob Bullock, then state comptroller, moi, Charles Miles, the head of Bullock's personnel department, and Ms. Ann Richards. Bullock, 20 years in Texas politics, knew every sorry, no good sumbitch in the entire state. Some old racist judge from East Texas came up to him, "Bob, my boy, how are you?"

Bullock said, "Judge, I'd like you to meet my friends: This is Molly Ivins with the Texas Observer."

The judge peered up at me and said, "How yew, little lady?"

Bullock, "And this is Charles Miles, the head of my personnel department." Miles, who is black, stuck out his hand, and the judge got an expression on his face as though he had just stepped into a fresh cowpie. He reached out and touched Charlie's palm with one finger, while turning eagerly to the pretty, blonde, blue-eyed Ann Richards. "And who is this lovely lady?"

Ann beamed and replied, "I am Mrs. Miles."

And then there is this excerpt from "A-men. A-women. A-Ann."

One thing Ann delivered on (as governor) was opening government to all the people. Her record of naming blacks and Hispanics to state boards and commissions, of working them into the bureaucracy so they rise at their own pace, has not been equaled since--not that Bush or Perry tried much. It was wonderful to see her appointees standing in line to see her as she lay in state at the Capitol.

In other words, Ann Richards did not tolerate racism, and she worked to overcome it.

Now, let's review what Hillary--and Bill--have done in this campaign concerning race. Hillary brought race into the campaign with her statements about MLK/LBJ/Obama, and Bill just took that ball and ran with it. Here are some posts about those statements:

• Hillary's biggest gaffe involving MLK, LBJ, and Obama (January 8, 2008)
• A little background and context for the preceding post (January 8, 2008)
• John Kerry endorses Obama. (January 10, 2008)
• Obama gets another interesting endorsement. (January 10, 2008)
• Hillary's Obama/MLK/LBJ comments could hurt her in SC. (January 11, 2008)
• What others are saying about Hillary's--and Bill's--comments related to Obama and MLK (January 11, 2008)
• And here's another of those comments about Hillary. (January 11, 2008)
• Hillary tries a new response regarding her MLK/LBJ remarks, and shows once again that she is just like Bush. (January 14, 2008)

And then came Bill's statements about Jesse Jackson on the day of the South Carolina primary in which Bill basically said that the results in South Carolina would not matter because the vote would be "a black thing" and no other state primary would be like that.

And then Hillary brought up race as a dismissive reason why Obama did so well in Louisiana ("These are caucus states by and large, or in the case of Louisiana, you know, a very strong and very proud African-American electorate, which I totally respect and understand.").

So what would Ann Richards think about this? I don't know for sure, but based on her record, I'd say there is a far greater than zero chance she would not approve, and if I am correct, that would mean there is a chance that Ann would not endorse Hillary.