Van Os addresses Progressive Populists

AUSTIN — His voice quavering with anger and resolve, former Judge David Van OS, who ran for Texas attorney general in 2006 and chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court twice, announced during the Progressive Populist Caucus Friday morning that he will fight Boyd Richie for the chairmanship of the Texas Democratic Party.

Van Os said in an interview after his announcement, which might have been made throughout the morning at various caucuses, that for the past eight or nine days, people across the state approached him to run because they are tired of the party leadership’s insider decision-making, limited vision and defeatist attitude. He said he decided Thursday to take on that leadership, because their handling of state party business has led to a steady decline in votes for the party.

“(T)he thousands and thousands of people who have come here to this great convention, not because they want more of these minimalist goals, not because they want more of this defeatist strategy, but they come here because they believe in themselves, you come here because you believe in yourself, and because you want to carry Texas.”
The job of leadership is to project the vision and the winning attitude.”

The caucus broke into chants, “David, David” standing and clapping.

Hector Nieto, press director for the Texas Democratic Party said that Richie was engaged in running a successful convention and probably had not commented on Van Os’ announcement.
“As you know this is a record-breaking convention and he is heavily focused on running the convention impartially and making sure that all Texas Democrats are having a good time,” Nieto said.

Van Os told the Progressive Populist Caucus, which he co-founded in 2002k he had received a conference call from activist Democrats May 22, asking him to run for state party chair.

“The insiders and the defenders of the status quo and highly paid insider consultants don’t like me at all because I’ve run for statewide office three times in the last 10 year … and they don’t like me because every time I told them, ‘No! I’m not interested in all your maps and your pretty charts where you exclude 90 percent of the people of the state from your campaign. … and this philosophy of ‘Oh No, we can’t carry the whole state of Texas; our goal is to pick up six seats in the Texas House of Representatives’. We can try to target and pick up about six seats. That’s defeatism and that defeatism started about 14 years ago. And the end result is that the Democratic percentage in the statewide vote has gone downward, every election.”

He laughed at the Richie and other leaders’ notion that they should be proud of picking up five legislative seats in the last election.

“They don’t want to mention that we are 0 for 29 in statewide executive and judicial offices. Now I’m glad that we picked up those five seats and I’ll be mighty glad is we pick up six more …

He decried Richie’s statement to the State Democratic Executive Committee that Texans should concentrate on down-ballot races “and let the presidential race take care of itself.”
“That’s not good enough, not just because it’s bad political strategy, but because it’s not enough. We are in a crisis in America. The people of America are struggling under the corporate jack boot, and the jack boot of the Constitution thieves and the robber barons and their greedy profiteers. The people need a fighting Democratic Party that will fight back for them, and not just in a few districts but for all the people in Texas in 234 counties.”