Democrat Wendy Davis promised a more populist and bipartisan state government in Texas as she declared her long-anticipated candidacy for governor Thursday, but she didn't mention abortion rights, the subject that brought her to national attention. 
 
 Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, speaks to supporter at a rally Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, in Haltom City, Texas. Davis formally announced her campaign to run for Texas governor (AP Photo/LM Otero) (Associated Press) 
 
 Davonia Leach of Burleson, Texas, holds a sign protesting against State Sen. Wendy Davis outside the venue hosting a rally Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, in Haltom City, Texas. Davis was expected to formally... (Associated Press) 
 
 Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, poses for photos with supporters after a rally Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, in Haltom City, Texas. Davis formally announced her campaign to run for Texas governor. (AP Photo/LM... (Associated Press) 
 
 Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, speaks to supporters at a rally Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, in Haltom City, Texas. Davis formally announced her campaign to run for Texas governor. (AP Photo/LM Otero) (Associated Press) 
 
 Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, shakes hands with a supporter after a rally Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, in Haltom City, Texas. Davis formally announced her campaign to run for Texas governor (AP Photo/LM... (Associated Press) 
 
 A supporter holds a "Wendy Davis for Governor" sticker during an announcement watch party for State Sen. Wendy Davis, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, in San Antonio. Davis formally announced her campaign for... (Associated Press) 
 
 People hold signs protesting against State Sen. Wendy Davis as her supporters line up in the background outside the venue hosting a rally Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, in Haltom City, Texas. Davis was expected... (Associated Press) 
 
 Madeleine Dewar sells political buttons to supporters gathered for an announcement watch party for State Sen. Wendy Davis, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, in San Antonio. Davis formally announced her campaign... (Associated Press) 
 
 Speaking before a hometown crowd where she received her high school diploma, the Fort Worth state senator tried to stake out the middle ground, vowing to represent the working class and improve public education, economic development and health care to Texas. 
 
 "Texans don't want to sit back and watch Austin turn into Washington, D.C.," Davis said. "State leaders in power keep forcing people to opposite corners to prepare for a fight instead of coming together to get things done." 
 
 Davis has said that her experience going from being a single teen mother living in a trailer to a successful Harvard-trained attorney in the Texas Senate informed her political views. She said Texas needed to be "a lot less lone and a lot more star." 
 
 "Until the families who are burning the candle at both ends can finally make ends meet, we will keep going. Until the amazing health care advances being pioneered in this state reach everyone who needs them, we will keep going," she said to about 1,500 people at the Wiley G. Thomas Coliseum. 
 
 Davis then blasted "the current leadership" in Austin for creating a partisan atmosphere and appealing to the right wing of the Republican party. 
 
 "Texans deserve better than failed leaders who dole out favors to friends and cronies behind closed doors," she said. "It's time for a governor who believes that you don't have to buy a place in Texas' future. It's time for a governor who believes that the future of Texas belongs to all of us." 
 
 Republican Gov. Rick Perry has chosen not to seek re-election next year. The front-runner for the GOP nomination is Attorney General Greg Abbott, who said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday that Davis is too liberal for Texas. 
 
 Davis rose to national prominence in June for her nearly 13-hour filibuster against new abortion restrictions in Texas, but she didn't mention the subject Thursday. Instead, she talked about her 2011 filibuster to block passage of the state budget after the Republican majority cut $5 billion for public schools. 
 
 Davis' opponents plan to use her support for abortion rights to rally conservative Christian voters next fall. About 40 anti-abortion demonstrators marched outside the venue where Davis was speaking Thursday, and Texas Right to Life plans to begin airing an ad over the weekend that calls her an "abortion zealot." 
 
 Abbott called her filibuster "inconsequential" and sought to tie her to President Barack Obama. 
 
 "Obama's political operation is the muscle behind Wendy Davis' political operation," Abbott said. "She is an extremist with regards to imposing the kind of spending and regulation that's reckless for government." 
 
 If her defense of abortion rights angered the right, it inspired Democrats who urged her to run for governor in 2014 and reinvigorate a party that hasn't won statewide office since 1994. Her speech in the Legislature also added to her donor list, both in Texas and across the country. 
 
 "I thought the filibuster was inspiring and it seems like she really cares about people," said Amanda Fisher, a 24-year-old from Dallas. Fisher said she was considering volunteering for a political campaign for the first time. 
 
 At a watch party in McAllen, a city along the border with Mexico, retired hospice chaplain Elizabeth Gearhart said Davis could help Democrats. 
 
 "She's going to inspire everyone. She's especially going to inspire women," Gearhart said. "And there's a lot of us." 
 
 Davis must raise money quickly to compete with Abbott, He has already raised $25 million to her more than $1 million. 
 
 Experts say Davis and the political action committees supporting her will need to spend about $40 million to make it a competitive campaign in Texas, where Democrats have not won more than 42 percent of the vote in the last three elections. 
 
 But national Democratic support and changing state demographics give Davis a chance to end the party's 20-year losing streak in Texas, Democratic consultants say. 
 
 Davis' personal story _ from a trailer park to Texas Christian University to the Harvard Law School _ has captured the imagination of many of her supporters. 
 
 She was a successful attorney when she decided to enter politics by challenging a veteran Republican state senator in Tarrant County in 2008. She narrowly won that race and a tough re-election bid in 2012, when most voters in her district cast ballots for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. 
 
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 Associated Press reporter Paul J. Weber and Chris Sherman contributed to this story from McAllen, Texas. 
 
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 Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/cltomlinson ||||| Eric Gay / AP Senator Wendy Davis listens as the Texas Senate debate an abortion bill before the final vote, on July 12, 2013, in Austin. 
 
 A Wendy Davis run for Texas governor may be just what the Democratic party needs as it gears up for the 2014 midterm elections. 
 
 And that’s not just because the pro-choice state senator’s June filibuster –11 hours of talk in which she couldn’t lean on her desk, have a drink of water, cede the microphone or change the subject (she was penalized just for putting on a back brace) — was so much more hardcore than Republican Ted Cruz’s recent “Green Eggs and Ham” reading gabfest in the U.S. Senate. 
 
 It’s not just because her own personal story – an absent father, a sixth-grade-educated mother, a teen pregnancy, followed by life as a single mom in a mobile home, then community college and, at last, Harvard Law School – gives the party that backs her impeccable “real people” credibility. 
 
 It’s a whole lot more simple than that. 
 
 MORE: Wendy Davis Eyes Texas Governor Run 
 
 Blonde, strikingly pretty, outspoken and female, Davis is, to put it bluntly, invaluable as bait. In her short tenure on the national scene, she has elicited an almost Pavlovian response from anti-woman blowhards. 
 
 First, Fox News commentator Erick Erickson called Davis “Abortion Barbie.” Then, a twitter poster, @jefflegal, expressed his support for a gubernatorial bid by the Republican Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott by dismissing Davis as “Retard Barbie”—a rather artless insult that might not have gotten much attention, had the attorney general not tweeted back, “Jeff, thanks for your support.” And just last month, Abbott’s top political advisor, Dave Carney, stepped into the Davis-bashing fray again by tweeting an article from a conservative Texas blog that promised in its headline to explain “why Wendy Davis is too Stupid to be Governor.” 
 
 There’s every reason to expect that, as a misogyny magnet, Davis, whom The New York Times has described as an Austin “fashion icon,” will be the gift that keeps on giving all through the upcoming campaign season. Her hair, her clothes, her pink sneakers; the fact that she’s unmarried; the fact that abortion is the issue that brought her to national prominence—all these things sexualize her to a degree that’s unusual for female politicians (as it any accident that Sarah Palin was always dripping with kids?) and they open her up to a very specific, and very ugly, form of woman-hate. 
 
 The more hits Davis takes, the better is will be for the Democrats. It was, after all, a consistent pattern of gender-based disrespect that helped land Democrats their 2012 election victories in the U.S. Senate and the presidency. A long pile-up of Republican insults to women’s dignity, particularly in the area of reproductive rights, led President Obama to win the women’s vote by a 12-point margin. Women don’t always vote as a unified block; they’re by no means unanimous in their support for abortion rights, or for any of the pro-family social policies that tend, unhelpfully, to be classed together as “women’s issues.” But they have, in recent years, tended to come together in a common understanding when the “yuck factor” in politics – the macho posturing, the questionable remarks that cut away at women’s hard-won public dignity – just gets to be too much. 
 
 Abbott, sensitized by outrage that followed his Twitter thank-you, has tried to backpedal, tweeting his supporters to “Stay positive. ” The admonition, however @Barbie-worthy, hasn’t done much to mollify his critics. The Republican party’s effort to rebrand itself to women doesn’t seem to be working out too well, either. A new United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection poll just this week found that 33 percent of the women surveyed felt that the party had drifted even further away from them since the 2012 election. Only 14 percent of women—and just 11 percent of women younger than 50—said that Republicans had moved closer in perspective to them. 
 
 Message: we Barbies are no dummies. You can’t change a legacy of policies that insult and hurt women through the power of positive thinking. ||||| Politics 
 
 The summer’s Democratic hero, Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis — whose 13-hour filibuster against a Texas abortion-restricting bill catapulted her into the national spotlight — is set to be featured in the September issue of Vogue. 
 
 The gushy profile, published online Thursday, details Davis’ personal story from a single teen mom to political star. 
 
 “Looking back, I don’t know if I could do it again. But somehow you just have the energy to do what you have to do,�? she told Vogue of being a single mom and attending community college classes in the morning while she worked as a paralegal. “And the great thing was, after a year, I realized that college wasn’t only for other people.�? 
 
 Davis’ hair struggles (she admitted to having “super-supercurly hair�?), clothing (“She loves to put on something nice, dresses by Chloé and Victoria Beckham, and Miu Miu heels or Louboutins�?), home life (she lives in a “Spanish-style town house�?) and speculation about a potential run for Texas governor are also prominently featured. 
 
 In the profile, Davis revealed that she was not always interested in politics, finding such conversations boring when out with her second husband Jeff Davis, a lawyer and the youngest person to be elected to the Fort Worth city council. 
 
 “I remember we’d go into restaurants and everyone wanted to talk politics, and I thought, God, this is soooo boring,�? she said. 
 
 From bored with politics to Harvard law, law career to city council seat, and State Senate to household name, the profile delves into her potential run for governor. 
 
 “I feel confident that the next campaign will sort itself out in due time,�? Davis wrote Vogue in an email after Republican Gov. Rick Perry announced he would not seek reelection. “For now my priorities remain the same—focusing on the work at hand and fighting to make Texas a great place for all families.�? 
 
 The word “abortion�? — the practice she fought to protect after 20-weeks of pregnancy in her multi-hour filibuster — does not appear a single time in the nearly 3,000 word essay. The word “antiabortion�? appears three times. 
 
 Since the Perry announcement, Davis has remained coy about her future plans. At the National Press Club last week, Davis said Texas needed a change, but would not reveal if she will run. 
 
 “I can say with absolute certainty that I will run for one of two offices: Either my state Senate seat or the governor,�? she said at the Press Club. 
 
 This week, a lawyer and lobbyist Robert Miller published a report claiming that “credible sources�? have told him Davis will run for governor in 2014. 
 
 Davis posed in the Texas Capitol for her Vogue spread, titled “Stand and Deliver: After Her 12-Hour Filibuster, How Far Will Texas Senator Wendy Davis Run.�? 
 
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– Wendy Davis officially announced her candidacy for governor of Texas yesterday, and Judith Warner thinks she's exactly what Democrats need—and not just because of her filibuster-generated fame. "Blonde, strikingly pretty, outspoken, and female, Davis is, to put it bluntly, invaluable as bait," Warner writes at Time. "In her short tenure on the national scene, she has elicited an almost Pavlovian response from anti-woman blowhards." Erick Erickson, for example, once called her "Abortion Barbie." "As a misogyny magnet," Warner thinks Davis will be "the gift that keeps on giving." Her hair, clothes, and pink sneakers, coupled with her abortion stance and unmarried status, "sexualize her to a degree that's unusual for female politician" and "open her up to a very specific, very ugly form of woman-hate." And that's great for Democrats, who rode "a consistent pattern of gender-based disrespect" to victory last year. Barack Obama won among women by 12 points. "Message: we Barbies are no dummies." Click for the full column.