Here Comes Trouble
If you think dan patrick has made a lot of noise as a radio talk show host, wait until he gets to the Texas senate—and starts his campaign for governor against his new boss, David Dewhurst.
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Picture, if you will, David Dewhurst. Tall, assiduously groomed, rich, well mannered, infatuated with consensus and control, and dead set on being elected governor in 2010. Now picture Dan Patrick. Tall, assiduously groomed, rich—but not so well mannered, infatuated with controversy and chaos, and with his own eye on the Governor’s Mansion, using his radio program as a launching pad (sort of like Rush for Governor, if Rush weren’t addicted to painkillers). The upcoming conflict is a perfect setup for what psychiatrists call the “death struggle,” in which two people become locked in a contest to destroy in each other what they cannot stand in themselves, in this case with all conflict staged for public benefit on the Senate floor.
For instance, Patrick will come to the Senate passionate about lowering the cap on increases in property appraisals. He wants the rate at which home appraisals can increase annually slashed from the current 10 percent to 3 percent. Who stands in his way? The lieutenant governor, who, as the Senate’s presiding officer, will determine Patrick’s committee assignments, the fate of his bills, and even whether he is formally recognized to speak. So what happens now? In order to get what he wants, does Patrick make nice with Dewhurst, whom he has regularly attacked on the air as a faux conservative? How can he explain that turnaround to his base? And what about Dewhurst? Does he relegate Patrick to the backbench, burying him on committees like Intergovernmental Relations or Agriculture? Won’t that just rile the right wing he needs to win the Republican primary and prompt Patrick to play the martyr on the air? Or does Dewhurst get other senators to do his dirty work by proxy? (“He’s not getting anything out of my committee” at least one of them has already asserted of Patrick.)
Patrick’s success or failure also hinges on the clubby nature of the Senate, an exclusive group of 31 members who treasure their rites and rituals with the solemnity and seriousness of the Vatican. Rule number one, of course, is that freshmen senators are seen and not heard. That will be hard, if not impossible, for Patrick to adhere to; in the past, he has shown no inclination for go-along, get-along politics. Patrick has also been highly critical of the fundamental procedure by which the Senate operates; known as the two-thirds rule, it is a tradition in which the regular order for considering bills is routinely ignored, and instead a senator wishing to pass a bill must ask his colleagues to suspend the rules to allow his bill to be heard out of order. This requires a two-thirds vote, or 21 of the 31 senators. Thus, 11 of the 31 can block legislation by voting against suspending the rules, in which case the bill dies without the public’s knowing how senators would have voted. Senators who can’t build coalitions can’t succeed either way.
Patrick has attacked the two-thirds rule on the air, claiming that senators hide behind it to avoid casting controversial votes. Not coincidentally, this was the fate of the attempt in 2003 to lower appraisal caps. Dewhurst told him in an on-air interview that supporters of lowering the cap didn’t have even 10 votes, much less the 21 necessary to bring the legislation to the floor. Patrick asked Dewhurst for the names of the senators who did not want to debate the bill, but Dewhurst demurred, saying he didn’t have a list, and Patrick’s pet issue disappeared without senators’ going on record for or against. He has attacked Dewhurst and the other senators who opposed him on the air ever since.
In other words, Patrick has no intention of sitting idly by while legislation he cares about gets gutted, and his preemptive strike on the two-thirds rule was a shot across the bow. “The thing Austin hasn’t figured out about me is that I don’t care. I don’t care about committee assignments. I don’t care about getting my name on a bill. Austin doesn’t really have anything I want. That gives me great freedom.” But, he added, speaking of everyone and no one in particular in the Senate, “I’m not going to sit on my hands [as a freshman] just because that’s the way it’s always been.”
The best way to understand Dan Patrick is to listen to his radio show. He broadcasts from his studio in a nondescript high-rise off Interstate 10 every weekday afternoon from four to six , and the theme—the aggrieved, overlooked Republican right—pretty much remains the same, though the specifics might jump from the border to the failures of the Republicans to some weird riff on Bill, Hillary, and Viagra (don’t ask). It’s an odd amalgamation of Rush Limbaugh, Joel Osteen’s televised testimonials (Patrick once worked for him), Cranks Anonymous, and A Prairie Home Companion, where the ads sometimes clash hilariously with the content of the programming: A commercial for Gringo’s Tex-Mex restaurant—“Gringos, secure your Tex-Mex craving!”—follows calls demanding immediate deportation for illegal immigrants. Patrick off the air is no different from Patrick on the air; he’s rhetorical, theatrical, and hyperbolic, no matter where he is. Face-to-face, this makes him a difficult person to connect with.
Hence the contradiction that is Patrick: He loves getting paid to sit alone in a darkened room, wearing a thousand-mile stare, talking. And talking. He almost never stumbles, mumbles, or pauses to organize his thoughts. It’s stream of consciousness, and you can’t help but wonder if with all that talk he isn’t really trying to inspire, soothe, and defend himself. Yet he desperately needs the companionship and validation of his listeners. As one political consultant explained it: “Dan wants to mind-meld. Dan wants to become your metaphysical partner.” In fact, Patrick told me he is thinking about writing a book about loneliness. “I think it is one of the biggest topics in people’s lives,” he said.
Like all political talk shows, his is more about preaching to the choir than inspiring debate that might actually lead to consensus. Dissenters, if they magically sneak past Patrick’s screener, are accused on the air of being plants for the opposition or are simply cut off. You step into his world; he doesn’t step into yours.
On one particular day, around the time of the November election, Patrick began his show by telling a story: Senator John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who is the dean of the Senate, had launched an “unprovoked attack” on him at a recent fundraiser. According to Patrick, Whitmire had told the crowd that the Senate would have to stand up to demagogues this session and mentioned Patrick by name. Patrick responded typically: He made Whitmire the subject of his show that day.
Patrick didn’t raise his voice. Instead, he employed an injured, resigned tone, the kind people use when they say that nothing’s wrong but want everyone to know they don’t really mean it. Whitmire’s attack, he said, “was on me and you. Because when I’m attacked, you’re attacked. It’s not an attack on me, it’s an attack on you.” Before long he was turning Whitmire’s influence and seniority into a negative: “Apparently he’s one of those old-line politicians who is afraid of change … There are going to be a handful of people up there who are trying to deny your voice by denying me … If they want to force us to the outside, I know how to navigate from the outside. This type of behavior for Senator Whitmire is just unacceptable.” Patrick went up another octave before alluding to one of his heroes, the Jefferson Smith character played by Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: “Call it what you want, Senator Whitmire. I’m going to stand my ground!”
Even though it might have been time for a commercial break for the Pine Box or Hearing Aids of Texas, Patrick wasn’t done. “You the people are going to know what’s going on in your house. The Capitol is your house. They can beat me up, they can try to tarnish me”—here Patrick paused dramatically—“I forgive ’em all.” Then he jumped back into the fray: “They need to understand that business as usual in Austin is over. So, Senator Whitmire, I forgive you—but how ’bout returning my phone call?” (Whitmire admitted that he hasn’t been in a hurry to call him back. Patrick counters that Whitmire is “one senator” who hasn’t welcomed him to the Senate.) “And you know,” Patrick said, with a wistful chuckle, “look, I’m not mad with John. It’s … sad.” His emotions changed with each missive. Happy: “This is why the radio station gives us great leverage, folks! We have a platform. We have a seat at the table! The drawbridge has been lowered, Senator Whitmire, and thousands of people are coming to Austin!” Slowly, more reasoned: “I’m just going to be above it.” Righteous: “[Whitmire] doesn’t want you all to have a voice in Austin. He wants to be king.”
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