And Texans are often no less powerful than our wild weather. We grow historic characters who become presidents, religious cultists, artists, actors, athletes, inventors and innovators, and writers.
And occasionally some of them lose their sense of direction.
The latest? Austinite Matthew McConaughey, who is pondering a run for governor of Texas. The Academy Award winner recently told the Longview News-Journal, "I'm serious about the right leadership role but I'm not sure if that's in politics."
Let me offer him some friendly advice from someone who has spent decades reporting on my state's government: stay out of Texas politics. McConaughey is exactly what the state does not need — someone with great talent in his chosen profession and no known experience in public office or politics.
Texans are struggling with serious issues: busted energy infrastructure, rising housing costs, inadequate health care access for almost 20% of residents, and an influx of newcomers — many of whom may need state services which lawmakers have resisted funding adequately, including Medicaid and public schools.
Don't those problems just cry out for the insights of an actor?
And let's be honest. This script has already been written, and it hasn't always been a box office hit. The most recent US president was unquestionably a celebrity, with zero experience in public service, and Americans paid the price, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. Perhaps McConaughey has studied the career arc of actor-turned-President Ronald Reagan and thinks he can become the next great political communicator.
And, yes, other celebrities successfully made the leap to the governorship — Jesse Ventura in Minnesota and Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, for example. Though opponents threw shade when they announced their runs and pundits gave them mixed reviews once they left office, when Ventura and Schwarzenegger were elected, their personalities and policies met the moments in their respective states. Meanwhile, Texans can't even decipher what party — let alone what policy — McConaughey supports.
For now, the actor is only talking about the possibility of the governorship, not the White House. But Texas governors have a history of dreaming of the presidency.
Think about George W. Bush. He had never held public office when he became Texas governor, which he then used as a platform to launch his presidential run. And by the time he headed back to his ranch after eight years in Washington DC, he had taken Americans into two endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — each carrying $2 trillion price tags, bungled the federal response to Hurricane Katrina and led the country into the Great Recession.
We have had entertainers make Texas politics less boring, though. Musician and novelist Kinky Friedman ran for governor in 2006, hoping to unseat then-Gov. Rick Perry. He launched his campaign with an ironic, "Why the hell not?" and quickly followed it up with the slogan, "How hard can it be?"
Pretty hard, it would seem, when you are best remembered for cracking one-liners and knowing almost nothing about public policy. Friedman ran as an independent in the general election and only got slightly more than 500,000 votes. He is a gifted lyricist, who wrote what may be country music's most beautiful ballad, but that did not make him gubernatorial — and Texans knew it.
One performer did become Texas governor, but it's doubtful McConaughey is taking inspiration from W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel. A flour mill owner with a popular radio show, O'Daniel toured the state as a musician in the 1930s, singing with his group, the Light Crust Doughboys. His fans urged him to run for governor, which he did, and won. He later defeated a future president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, in a race for a Texas US Senate seat.
But you're no O'Daniel, McConaughey. I'd be careful about hanging your political hopes on the O'Daniel precedent.
Starring in "The Lincoln Lawyer," the 2011 legal thriller, for example, isn't exactly adequate training for how to craft and pass a bill in the Texas Legislature.
To make matters worse, the actor isn't even speaking coherently about his consideration of a political run. McConaughey told his hometown paper in Longview, Texas, "For me, I need politics to define its purpose before I would choose it as a possible lane for me to pursue."
You hear that, politics? You figure out your purpose, and McConaughey might grace you with his presence in your "lane."
Politics, Mr. McConaughey, is the process by which we build schools and roads and airports and even great universities, like that one you attended, the University of Texas, Austin, the campus where you have become a professor lecturing about film. That might be the role you were born to play.
But it's not governor. You are not prepared. Be kind to your state and yourself. Stick with what you know. Remember that time you showed up to start shooting a film and you had refused to read the script? You asked the director to just, "Tell me the character, tell me the situation, and I'll just show up and I'll just react." That didn't work so well, did it? If you ran for governor and were elected, you'd discover governing requires being pro-active — not reactive.
A lot of people will begin to encourage you to run for governor now that you've said it is a "true consideration." But you should politely ignore their advice and pay closer attention to those who insist you stay out of politics. Sure, you could probably be a better governor than Gov. Greg Abbott, but that doesn't take much.
McConaughey, just listen to the wise counsel you get when people say, "Don't run for governor." And give them the reassuring answer only you could offer.
Just say, "All right, all right, all right."
"Opinion" - Google News
March 13, 2021 at 05:12AM
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Matthew McConaughey, stay out of Texas politics - CNN
"Opinion" - Google News
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