Matthew Dowd has ended his campaign for lieutenant governor of Texas. The self-proclaimed "thought leader" said Tuesday he had "made the decision from a place of integrity," citing a 2018 column he wrote for ABC News urging "white male Christians" like himself to "take it upon ourselves to step back and give more people who don't look like us access to the levers of power."
"A diverse field is now emerging in the Democratic primary for this office," said Dowd, who announced his campaign in late September. "I do not want to be the one who stands in the way of the greater diversity we need in politics." Like much of the content in Dowd's recently published memoir, Revelations on the River: Healing a Nation, Healing Ourselves, the statement reeks of bullshit.
Dowd's exit means that only two candidates remain in the Democratic primary for Texas lieutenant governor: Mike Collier, a white man, and Michelle Beckley, a white woman. Dowd has previously argued that electing a woman for the sake of diversity is not necessarily a good thing. The announcement is perhaps best viewed as a thinly veiled attack on Beto O'Rourke, who is favored to win the Democratic nomination for Texas governor, but is also a white male Christian running in an even more diverse primary field.
O'Rourke is attempting to achieve a rare trifecta of political failure after mounting an unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Senate and president of the United States. The failed candidate, who previously claimed he was "born to be" in politics, believes he can persuade Texans to vote Democratic by promising to take away their f—ing guns. But first he'll have to win the party's nomination, which will involve destroying the hopes and dreams of two qualified BIPOC candidates: Michael Cooper, a black man, and Deirdre Dickson-Gilbert, a black woman.
It remains to be seen if O'Rourke—and Joe Biden, for that matter—will step aside in the name of "greater diversity" and personal "integrity." In fairness, there are few individuals on the planet as humble and principled as Dowd, who once wrote that he sometimes imagines himself as "having the soul of a prophet."