Molly Ivins
Paul Stekler: What role does race play in the 2002 election
Molly Ivins: What would happen if everybody in Texas voted? What would it look like? And according to the demographers at A&M, this state becomes, I hate this phrase, majority-minority in 2008. If you add together all the blacks and browns, there'll be more of them than there'll be Anglos in Texas. The conventional wisdom is that that's not going to make any difference in the politics of the state for 20 years, in part because the Republicans now control the redistricting process and they'll draw the legislative district so that they stay Republican, and also because it is historically true that it's just harder to get poor people to vote. You know, they're working two jobs, they don't have transportation, they can't pay to watch the kids for an hour, it's just complicated to get poor people to vote. And it's also part of the fact is that they're not aware of how important government is in their lives. I think that's true across the board.
Molly Ivins was a syndicated columnist, writing mostly about Texas and national politics. She was also the author of several books including her most recent, Bushwacked: Life in George W. Bush's America. Ivins died in Austin, Texas on January 31, 2007. She was 62.