The Fantastic Farce — Grassroots Texas Democrats See Through Candidate Forums

Grassroots Texas Democrats See Through Candidate Forums

Bedford, Texas might seem like an unlikely place to start a rebellion.

It lacks a harbor for tea-dumping purposes, for one.

It lacks a “Bastille” for storming.

And it also lacks Russian tsars for overthrowing.

Yet tucked in the northeast corner of Tarrant County, this Fort Worth suburb has become a center for some of most active grassroots Democrats in North Texas.

In fact, around 23 of these “Mid-Cities Democrats” watched the fourth Democratic presidential forum on CNN at Esparza’s Tequila Factory & Grill last Monday.

The turn-out was lower than the three previous forum-watching parties, said Kathleen Thompson, 30, city group leader for the Colleyville, Grapevine, and Southlake area.

“But it’s Monday,” recollected Thompson, noting that the club with members spread among 11 cities usually packs the back room of the Tex-Mex restaurant off State Highway 121.

Indeed, the viewing party was a ho-hum affair, especially for a venue that feels more bourgeois for proletariat tastes.

The Tequila “Must Try!” Sampler for $9.50, for example, could hardly be called affordable to the average minimum-wage earner.

Still, the tiny crowd of students, managers, and retirees drank their margaritas, ate their “cheeken salad,” and understood the Democratic Party’s hierarchy:

The $250 price tag to eat dinner with Sen. Barack Obama in Dallas the following Monday is just too much for many, if any, of them to pay.

“I like [Obama], but I’d pay $25 if he came to Trinity Park,” said Nick Cofey, a 28-year-old manager of a product manufacturer in Ennis, Texas.

But it isn’t as if the club’s executive committee hasn’t tried to organize events with the presidential hopefuls.

“It’s hard to get in contact with the candidates,” said Patt Dreyer, 63, club treasurer and co-leader of the city group containing Hurst, Bedford, and Euless. “I don’t hear back from anybody. See, they don’t like Texas.”

What she means is that national party candidates tend to treat Texas like their own personal ATM machine; they take campaign dollars yet give next to nothing back.

As such, the mid-cities group sat in near-silent contempt of the Democratic candidates, who barked sound bites as the two-hour “dog-and-pony show” ran its course on the widescreen.

“They call it a debate, but it’s not a debate,” said Miki Hawkins, 63, club president, of Bedford. “They’re appealing to people’s emotional gut reaction: ‘Do you think he looked good?’ ‘Was his hair done nicely?’ ‘Oh, I didn’t like what she wore.’ It’s very, very superficial.”

What’s worse is that the candidates dodged even th