Good Satirical Journalism

Texas Cows Demand Recount


Democrats take Austin as cattle question the franchise


AUSTIN, Texas — Texas has survived hurricanes, droughts, oil busts, rattlesnakes and several decades of politicians who couldn't explain a property-tax appraisal without a lie-down. It was not ready for James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa.

Talarico beat Republican Ken Paxton for the US Senate. Hinojosa beat Governor Greg Abbott. Democrats called it historic, Republicans called for a lie-down of their own, and large parts of the state discovered that the colour blue had slipped out of Austin city limits. The official totals sit with the Texas Secretary of State.

The shock wasn't the result. It was that voters sat through several hundred million dollars of political advertising and still found the polling station.

Political scientists call this democracy. Ranchers have another word for it. The paper's livestock editor wouldn't print it.

- Texas is the first place where the cows understand capitalism better than the voters. A cow gives you milk, beef or calves. A socialist gives you a working group to discuss whether the cow has been properly thanked.


- James Talarico spent enough money to buy a small country and settled for a Senate seat. Over $136 million. That's a lot of cash to lose a lot of sleep over, and he ran the adverts during every single American football game, the one with the helmets and the long pauses.


- Gina Hinojosa turned Texas blue without adding a drop of water. Farmers are now wondering whether socialism can survive a drought or whether somebody has to bring it a bucket.


- The Democratic recipe for winning in Texas: spend a fortune explaining why other people have too much money. Billionaires are the root of all evil, right up until the cheque clears.


- Talarico used to teach school and has now found a room where nobody can send him to the headmaster. Unfortunately for the taxpayer, that room is the US Senate.

James Talarico and the $136 Million Sunday School

James Talarico is a former public-school teacher who campaigns in the language of faith and progressive politics, and he has found a way to make government sound like a sermon without ever having to pass round the collection plate. He is the sort of man who could make a council tax bill sound like the Sermon on the Mount.

His campaign raised roughly $146.3 million and spent $136.4 million by its latest filing, according to Federal Election Commission records. That is a lot of money to spend telling Texans that money has too much influence over their politics.

For $136 million, most Texans would expect a senator, a spare senator, two backup senators and enough free brisket to see Waco through to Boxing Day.

Talarico persuaded voters that religious language, progressive policy and a real enthusiasm for government added up to a fresh start in Washington. It's a bold pitch in a city that already has thousands of people promising compassion with somebody else's money.

A rancher outside Lampasas gave his view over the bonnet of a pickup. “I always figured when a man started preaching about the poor, he'd eventually ask me for twenty dollars,” he said. “This fella raised a hundred and forty-six million before he even got to Washington.”

Talarico's real achievement is proving a Democrat can campaign in Texas without dressing up as a Republican. He now gets six years in Washington to learn that the federal government runs with roughly the efficiency of a dairy cow trying to use a fax machine.


Gina Hinojosa Beats Abbott and Finds Texas Is Blue Under the Dirt


Hinojosa's win over Abbott is the bigger story. Texas Republicans have treated the governor's mansion like an inheritance for generations. Hinojosa has shown that the tenants can, in fact, be evicted.

Austin Democrats haven't been this excited since someone pointed out that the city has enough coffee shops to run its own economy.

Hinojosa spent about $36.8 million over the period covered by the latest reporting, according to The Texas Tribune's analysis of the governor's race. Abbott spent about $281 million over the same stretch. Full state filings are public through the Texas Ethics Commission.

Read that again. Abbott spent close to $300 million trying to keep his job, and Hinojosa took it off him for a fraction of that.

Campaign consultants will find this hard to hear. Money turns out not to buy an election every time. It will, however, buy enough television adverts to make every Texan consider hurling the telly into a stock tank.

Hinojosa now has to govern a state where half the population thinks every government programme is socialism and the other half thinks every government programme should come with free parking. Campaigning and running Texas are different jobs, and she's about to learn how different.

On the trail you can promise affordable housing. In office, someone eventually asks where the houses are. Houses need land, lumber, planning permission, plumbers and builders who actually pick up the phone. Britain has been waiting on that last one since the war.


Why Texas Cows Want a Recount


Texas has around 12.1 million cattle and calves, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Until election night the herd held a comfortable lead in the category of creatures easily persuaded to follow a crowd. Now there are doubts.

A survey of 1,200 Texas adults by the Panhandle Institute for Rural Opinion found that 58 per cent couldn't say what a county appraisal district does. A control group of 400 cattle was asked the same thing in the form of a bucket of feed and a campaign leaflet. Every animal chose the feed and knew where the lorry parks. The margin of error was 3.1 points for the humans and zero for the cattle, who have never once been wrong about lunch.

Wade Hollis, spokesman for the Lone Star Livestock Council, said the group has asked the Secretary of State's office to confirm the rankings. “We're not disputing the totals,” Hollis said. “We're disputing the category. For a hundred and fifty years that title was ours.”

The Hereford contingent is taking it hardest. The breed left Herefordshire generations ago in search of a better life and a bigger sky, and it finds itself sharing a state with voters who watched seventeen political adverts in a row and concluded Washington needed one more politician.

A steer will spend an afternoon inspecting a fence before it tries to cross. A voter will watch the same advert four hundred times and conclude it must be true.

It's an unfair comparison, really. Cattle have a lot of practical experience of spotting bull. Farmers on this side of the Atlantic, who know a thing or two about being ignored by Westminster, may recognise the mood. The National Farmers' Union will no doubt have a view.


Campaign Finance: Democrats Find Billionaires Are Useful

Modern progressive politics has a long-running comedy in the relationship between politicians who criticise the rich and the rich who fund politicians. Democrats warn constantly about billionaires and their influence. Then a billionaire hands over a very large cheque and becomes a concerned citizen taking part in democracy.

Republicans do the same routine in reverse. Their billionaires are patriotic job creators.

By this point American fundraising resembles a livestock auction where the cattle give speeches about the dangers of being bought.

Britain's own general elections are capped and policed by the Electoral Commission, which is why they get by on a rosette, a bit of drizzle and a leaflet that ends up in the recycling. In Texas, hundreds of millions moved through campaigns, committees, ad agencies and consultants. The consultants may be the only people in America who can lose an election and still afford a villa.

A farmer who loses £100,000 on a bad herd spends the winter worrying about feed bills. A consultant who loses $100 million announces that the campaign generated valuable voter-engagement data.

On a farm that's called losing the farm. In politics it's called building infrastructure for the next cycle.


The Texas Economic Plan: Tax the Cow, Subsidise the Milk


Nobody yet knows what the Democratic wins mean for the Texas economy. That hasn't stopped analysts predicting everything from a boom to the nationalisation of barbecue.

One draft budget doing the rounds, attributed to a Department of Progressive Agriculture, lists a Department of Cattle Equity, a Bureau of Inclusive Branding Irons and an Office of Emotional Support for Disappointed Donors.

Every Holstein would get a social worker. Every Hereford would go on a diversity course. Every Longhorn would be told that its horns give it an unfair advantage over less fortunate livestock.

No legislation creates any of these bodies. The draft already runs a billion dollars over, and the Legislature hasn't found the kettle yet.


What Texas Actually Needs: Power, Water and Lower Property Taxes


The real problem isn't which party can make the better speech about prosperity. It's whether either can deliver affordable electricity from a grid run by ERCOT, dependable water planning through the Texas Water Development Board, roads that don't fall apart, and property taxes that don't have homeowners eyeing up a horsebox. Anyone who has queued for a water company helpline will sympathise.

None of it gets fixed by campaign advertising. Advertising is what Washington does best.


Texas Republicans Find Losing Is Expensive Too

The Republican Party now faces a long look at its own strategy. It spent heavily. It warned voters about Democrats, about taxes, about socialism. Then Democrats won.

That's a poor return on investment. If a rancher spent $281 million on feed and then found the cattle had moved to the next farm, somebody would call the police.

A strategy memo that went round Texas Republican consultants the morning after the vote, a copy of which reached this newsroom, puts the result down to “unprecedented voter participation.” Page four recommends that future campaigns “increase the volume of the existing message.” Page five is a catering invoice.

Abbott's loss hurts most because it shows Republicans can't simply buy enough advertising to make voters forget they're fed up. Paxton's loss makes the same point. When voters want something different, saying the same thing louder doesn't help.

One defeated consultant, who asked not to be named, summed it up on the phone. “Our research was perfect,” he said. “Our messaging was perfect. Our advertising was perfect. Unfortunately the voters insisted on taking part.”

The party now faces the frightening prospect of listening to ordinary Texans between elections. Several consultants are understood to regard this as a breach of procedure.


The Verdict: Never Underestimate a Cow


Texas has changed. Talarico is off to Washington. Hinojosa is off to the governor's mansion. Republicans are off to a long strategic retreat, where well-paid consultants will explain why their well-paid advice failed.

The ranchers will get up tomorrow and do what they did yesterday. Feed the cattle. Check the fences. Pay the bills. And wonder why politicians need hundreds of millions of dollars for jobs most people are expected to do for a good deal less.

The cattle remain unimpressed. They don't care if Texas is red or blue. They care whether the trough is full, the feed arrives on time and somebody remembers to open the gate.

Texas politicians spent a fortune persuading humans to pick their leaders. A cow can find the best grass in the field without hiring a single consultant. After this election, she's starting to look overqualified for office.


10 Humorous Observations on the Texas Election

- Hinojosa promised change, and Texas decided thirty years of Republican rule was plenty. Political consultants were last seen swapping their cowboy boots for sensible shoes, the sort you want for standing in a queue at the Jobcentre.


- The cattle want the vote now. Their legal case is simple. They've got four stomachs, and they still show better judgment than the average planning committee.


- Nearly $300 million on one governor's race proves democracy is alive and well, as long as democracy has a platinum card. For less than that, a cowboy could buy the whole herd and a lorry to move it.


- Talarico has fused religion and progressive politics into one handy package. You can now get a sermon, a tax proposal and a request for more donations without getting off the sofa.


- Hinojosa's win has confused the cows. For decades they thought the governor's main job was looking after ranchers. Now they're checking whether their field qualifies as affordable housing.


- Texas Democrats say the election proves voters want change. Of course it does. Everyone wants change until it shows up on the property-tax bill.


- Republican consultants spent a fortune warning Texas about Democrats, and Texas elected Democrats anyway. The consultants stand by the strategy. Warning voters about something forty-seven million times, they point out, pays better than winning.


- The cattle have asked for an independent intelligence assessment. One Hereford is said to have wondered whether humans could be trained to recognise an electric fence.


- Talarico and Hinojosa did what generations of consultants thought impossible and made Texas Democrats competitive. The next trick is the one nobody has ever pulled off: governing without blaming the last lot.


- The Texas economy has entered a new era. Ranchers raise cattle, farmers raise crops, politicians raise taxes, and consultants raise enough to buy a house in a postcode none of the above can afford. https://prat.uk/texas-morons-outnumber-cows/