Well, Mayor Whitmire is speculating, anyway.
Judge Lina Hidalgo
County Judge Lina Hidalgo said she hasn’t decided whether to run for office in 2026 in response to a claim made Thursday by Mayor John Whitmire that she will not pursue another term as county judge.
Whitmire, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, said he had heard that Hidalgo was “fixing to announce that she’s not going to run.” He alluded to the judge’s personal struggle with depression and the pressures that accompany the job as county judge.
“She’s not enjoying her work,” Whitmire said. “And she’s happy now. I saw on social media she got back this weekend from her wedding destination. But let me tell you what, this is a tough job at any level. You definitely lose your privacy. She’s obviously documented some of her emotional issues, which, this is a terrible profession to be in if you’re struggling with pressure.”
In a statement to the Chronicle, Hidalgo said she is “fully focused on serving the people of Harris County” but didn’t directly say whether Whitmire’s comments about her political future were accurate.
“At this time, we have no announcement to make regarding future elections,” her office said.
[…]
Hidalgo already has one potential challenger for the position, former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who may run for county judge as a Democrat. Parker told the Chronicle in April she hadn’t decided any plans for the future.
“I think Annise would make a great county judge,” Whitmire said Thursday. “But I’m also smart enough to know to wait and see if Hidalgo does what supposedly is supposed to happen.”
Parker told the Chronicle Thursday she was “leaning strongly” toward entering the race.
For what it’s worth, Judge Hidalgo said in May that she was planning to run again. It’s possible she could be thinking differently today – people do change their minds – but if she is I doubt she’s shared that with Mayor Whitmire, and I doubt she’s all that interested in his views on the subject. As for former Mayor Parker, we’ll see. I will restate my position that I would prefer to avoid a big nasty primary fight. It’s out of my hands from here. Campos has more.
If Parker is the nominee for county judge, I will give my vote to very few, if any, Democrats.
Parker is Ogg on steroids.
Mayor Whitmire’s passive-aggressive snark was unnecessary.
Whitmire and Ogg are giving me a much better appreciation of the sentiment behind “OK boomer.”
SPECULATION GALORE
Readers should be able to tell from the headline alone that this is inane.
If you are an incumbent considering the next election, you obviously consider running as well as not running. You look at the pros and cons, including the toll it will take on you personally and your family (your marriage if any, maybe kids.)
Not to mention the toll it has already taken. Politics is not for the faint of heart.
But why should Witmeister be poking into her brain, and why does the media even consider this a story?
Kuff too took the bait, so why not waste a few minutes of remaining life time as well? … From the comfort of the couch.
***
I NO WHADSHA THINKIN
It’s like … have you ever thought about suicide?
Wolfie (innocently): Well yah, hasn’t everybody?
COMPULSORY CONTEMPLATION
On a biographical note (narcissistic or otherwise), we (being inclusive of my erstwhile self) couldn’t even avoid the self-extinction topic when we were young.
Seriously! “Der Schüler Gerber” was on the curriculum and he was one of us. At least to some extent. You got to identify with him and what he was going through.
Could hardly help it.
Confrontation with human problems in the guise of high-brow literature (Humanities and encompassed inhumanities) was mandatory, followed by equally nonoptional essay assignments or at least class discussion. No trigger warnings, y-all! Not even for Shakespeare or Tolstoy (visualize Anna Karenina under the wheels of a steam locomotive).
YOUNG GERBER (English version) is a novel is about a teenager in a German high school (more like a military academy) with a sadistic professor that is out to break him, or “steel” him, depending on viewpoint. You know … can’t have wimps in the military or other positions of authority and leadership. Old-style way of forging boys into men.
So Gerber is under a lot if stress and ends up killing himself thinking he has failed his university-qualifying exams, but then it turns out he has passed. Post-mortem. Nice plot line and resolution, you might say, as far as novels go, but – and that’s of relevance – it’s also autobiographical. Taken from life.
Ditto with Goethe’s YOUNG WERTHER. That’s the story of a young woman juggling two suitors (now you would say boyfriends). She opts for the boring guy that offers security, while Werther, to guy that tickled her fancy and triggered the butterflies, takes himself out of the triangle with a gun. Romance didn’t win in the end.
But the author didn’t off himself and instead became famous. (Some distractors blamed him for causing copycat suicides by other young men suffering from unrequited or thwarted love).
***
Now it’s time to offer my own speculation or at least a plot for a short fiction project.
I hereby speculate and insinuate that the clock is ticking and Lina Hidalgo is thinking about motherhood. Will she be admired and applauded? Will the clamoring plebes be mollified?
Think Elisabeth of Habsburg opening the gates at Schönbrunn Castle and greeting the discontented masses with the fecundity news (“Die Kaiserin”, currently on Netflix multilingually).
Or will the young heroine be vilified for giving life after having been derailed or derided as a mental wreck by innuendo, or even worse.
Other women in high places have shown that having a baby can be combined with wielding power. Does’t mean it’s easy. What is?
Taking a sabattical and writing her memoirs while nursing a little half-Hidalgo may be another worthwhile speculation scenario.
Or fodder for a novel inspired by real life in the alternative.
This is so stupid. The GOPers in state government are looking to screw over Houston, and we have infighting in the local government.
CL Whitmire is a Democrat in name only, and Parker, like Ogg, seems to think that the grass is greener on the MAGA side.
Manny, you trying to tag me in a post I didn’t comment on ?
CL, I guess I need to start paying rent.