You Got To Dance With Them What Brung You

**** by Molly Ivins.

This was my first experience reading Molly Ivins. She is a widely-syndicated political columnist, one of the rare breed of bleeding-heart liberals from Texas. This book is a collection of recent columns, mostly covering the Clinton years through 1998 or so.

She writes about federal and Texas politics, but overall she has one message: campaign finance reform must happen, now. Almost every problem with our political system can be traced to soft money and the special interest groups that have bought most of our representatives. She mentions this thesis in the introduction, and the title is (according to her) the attitude of many Texas legislators—you have to represent the interests of those that fund you, or you got to dance with them what brung you. Not every essay deals with campaign finance reform, but I certainly came away frothing at the mouth about that issue, and will be try to do what I can to help make it happen.

Molly Ivins is at times hilariously funny, but always lucid and informative. This is yet another highly-recommended read. And it's short and fast, at about 200 pages. Go get it.

Posted by Joe on August 3, 2002 10:00 PM