Wendy Davis, the Texas state representative who stood up for 11 hours and spoke about how much she supports abortion, is now running for governor of the Lone Star State.  The problem with this—aside from the part where she’s a pro-babykilling harpy—is that when you run for office, people dig into your past.  Turns out that the beautiful success story of a Harvard-educated lawyer who fought her way from single motherhood and trailer park living wasn’t really the whole story.

“I had a baby. I got divorced by the time I was 19 years old,” she testified in a recent federal lawsuit over redistricting. “After I got divorced, I lived in a mobile home park in southeast Fort Worth.”

Except, she didn’t.  She divorced at 21, and in that settlement she received three vehicles.  She lived a few months in a trailer, but soon moved into an apartment with her little girl.

While waiting tables at her father’s dinner theater, she met a friend of her dad’s…and her dad hooked them up.  She leaves out of the narrative that her new husband not only paid for her last two years of Harvard by draining his 401(k) and taking out a loan, but also raised their two children in Texas while Wendy went off to school at Harvard.  As a single mother for years who did the school/job thing, I can attest that things would have been far easier for me if I had someone to dump my child on while I went off to school for a few years.

Her husband Jeff also got her name out to the right people when Wendy decided she wanted to run for office.  Then things got interesting.  Jeff mentioned that the same day he made the final payment on the loan for Wendy’s school, his wife moved out.  Wendy had something to say about all that.

“I was a vibrant part of contributing to our family finances from the time I graduated to the time we separated in 2003,” she said. “The idea that suddenly there was this instantaneous departure after Jeff had partnered so beautifully with me in putting me through school is just absurd.”

Let’s turn again to our handy tool called statement analysis.  Wendy uses the word “vibrant,” which sounds odd in this context.  People often use words in that way when they are scrambling to fill a hole in their story.  She also mentions that “the idea that suddenly there was this instantaneous departure…is just absurd.”  There are several things going on here.

1) “The idea that suddenly there was..” She is making distance.  She is ensuring that she is nowhere near this idea; the idea was just a random thing not attached to any one person, and certainly not attached to her.  Passive voice is being used here (see what I just did there?).  If she was truly denying it, she would have probably used a sentence more like “The reason for my leaving Jeff was not about his payment of my school loans.”  See the difference?  Innocent people make staunch, simple, clear denials, and they want to make very sure that you know exactly what they’re denying.

2) The idea is “absurd.”  Absurd does not mean untrue or false.  She may now find her past actions absurd.  She may know that you and I would find those actions absurd.  But she does not at any time say that her husband’s assertion is untrue.

In his initial divorce filing, Jeff Davis said the marriage had failed, citing adultery on her part and conflicts that the couple could not overcome. The final court decree makes no mention of infidelity, granting the divorce solely “on the ground of insupportability.”

The plot thickens.  Why would Wendy leave the day Jeff paid off her school loans?  It sounds like she had some greener pastures going on.  She also ended up paying child support to Jeff, who got custody of the kids.  But before we assume things, let’s get Wendy’s own words on that.

“She said, ‘I think you’re right; you’ll make a good, nurturing father. While I’ve been a good mother, it’s not a good time for me right now.’”

Must be nice to drop and pick up the mantle of motherhood when it’s convenient.  No wonder she’s pro-abortion.  “It’s not a good time for me right now, baby of mine.  You need to die and go away.”

Here’s the money quote, though.

“When I decided to run for governor, I promised my girls we would not revisit a time that was terribly difficult for them,” she said. “I will tell you it was very important to me that Dru stay in her childhood home. It was a very difficult time in our life.”

This statement is highly important.  She’s putting the onus on her daughters as justification for her actions.  It was difficult for them, so I promised we wouldn’t talk about that.  Divorce is painful for any child, but let’s be realistic.  These are two daughters who lived without their mother for quite some time while Wendy was off at Harvard.  What could make a divorce that much more painful?  Allegations of adultery…which she does not deny, at all.  (By the way, both her daughters currently support her campaign.  Is it because she promised they wouldn’t talk about all the pain?  Or because Wendy was the only person who stood to be hurt by the truth coming out?)

Also, the phrase “I will tell you” is actually evidence of deception.  People say things like “I want you to know I had nothing to do with this” because sure, they want you to know that, but they can’t tell you that without lying.  So they preface it.  I want you to know.  I want to tell you (OJ Simpson’s book title).  Let me be clear (Obama).  When you hear set up phrases like this, rest assured that whatever comes after them is probably a lie, and you are being set up to swallow it.  So when Wendy Davis says that she will tell us that it was very important that her daughter stay in her childhood home, and that she promised her daughters not to revisit painful things for them, what Wendy Davis is actually saying is, Yeah, I cheated on my husband, I left him the day he finished paying off my school loans, and my daughter’s childhood home is a fantastic way to spin all of that so you don’t think I’m a soulless, selfish piece of ambitious trash.

Before you yell that I’m somehow just jealous of Wendy Davis’ amazing success, well, you’ll have to take my word for it that I can hold my own in the resume department.  Allow me to leave you with this, from someone who worked closely with her.

Wendy is tremendously ambitious,” he said, speaking only on condition of anonymity in order to give what he called an honest assessment. “She’s not going to let family or raising children or anything else get in her way.”

He said: “She’s going to find a way, and she’s going to figure out a way to spin herself in a way that grabs at the heart strings. A lot of it isn’t true about her, but that’s just us who knew her. But she’d be a good governor.”

But never mind those facts.  Stick to the narrative.  It sells votes.