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The Decline of America’s Mayor
A dominant political personality like Rudy Giuliani does not always know when his reach exceeds his grasp.
I spent most of my time studying at the University of Texas knee deep in electoral politics, which was a worthwhile study in itself. There was the obvious comparison between the practicalities of campaigns and the political science theories about the same subject. Less obvious, there was fodder for the arts side of education in the people I got to see up close and almost personal.
Some folks speculate the outsized personalities that grow in Texas politics are peculiar to Texas — the largest state until Alaska came along and still more significant than Alaska in economic terms, the only state that used to be an independent nation in U.S. folklore, which has stuffed the U.S. role in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy down the memory hole next to the unsuccessful effort to break down the Five (later Six) nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy….oh, don’t get me started on the myths…the point is that Texas rides on a political/cultural high horse, where we understand that The Gay Place was a roman-à-clef but was not about the gay rights movement.
My opinion is that the more significant word in “Texas politician” is “politician” rather than “Texas”. I arrived at…
