Maggie Shayne--What's Going On in Fred's Head?

I’ll bet you’ve all heard about Fred Head, the Texas politician running for state Comptroller against Susan Combs, a woman Fred refers to as a “pornographic book writer” on his website because she penned a Kismet romance novel some 19 years ago. (No, I am not making this up.) Naturally, Fred, being a Texan (and a Democrat, believe it or not) should not have been quite so clueless about the power of romance fiction, the women who read it, the women who write it, or our connection with the great state of Texas, home of the headquarters of Romance Writers of America. But he was clueless about all of that, and apparently, about a lot of other things.

His demeaning remarks about the books we love inspired an immediate and heated response from romance authors and readers all over the world, including a great many of those who make their homes (and cast their ballots) in Texas. They flooded Fred and his head with emails, and when his reaction seemed to be one of defiance (he insists romance novels are pornographic and unfit for the young people to see, which is why he posted excerpts, which he refers to as “extraxt” of Susan Combs’ love scenes on his website) the authors turned their fury into support for his opponent, Susan Combs.

This poor guy has no clue what he’s up against. Romance novels make more money in this country than baseball. Really, Fred, I swear, you could have done better by insulting baseball, calling it a communist plot to mislead our youth. And maybe tossed in a piece about the health risks of hot dogs and apple pie for good measure. And you STILL wouldn’t have been in this much trouble.

Maybe, if you had apologized, groveled a bit, admitted your mistake, and used spellcheck before posting all of the above, you might have had a chance. But instead you poked a hornet’s nest with a big ugly stick—the stick the hornets hate most, as a matter of fact—and you are getting stung. Or to put it another way, I fear your head, dear Fred, is going to roll.

After romance authors began spit roasting Fred in their blogs, someone who couldn’t spell posted the same anonymous post to several of those blogs, claiming they were missing the entire point. Susan had written a pornographic novel and then run for office backing a campaign of sex education based on “absence.” It wasn’t hard to figure out that it was Fred himself doing the posting.

But I’m worried too. Everyone knows absence only makes the heart grow fonder, so that’s clearly not going to work. Ahem.

To make it worse, the man has probably never read a book, evidenced by his condemnation of Susan Combs’ ego, because the woman has the nerve to have her name at the top of every other page of her book. (Open any book Fred. That’s pretty universal.) So he’s showing his voters, clearly, that their choice is between a woman who once wrote and published a novel, and a man who doesn’t even know what one looks like.

If you click on the title of this piece, it’ll link you to an article about this that’s a lot of fun, and that article includes tons of other links to blogs and pieces about this matter:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/008100.html

You can also visit www.votefredhead.com

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/14/2261/0029

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/fred_head_vs_romance_novels_aka_head_v_porn/

And a google search will turn up tons more. And if you get bored, fire a note off to Fred, though I think it’s kind of like talking to a wall. He just doesn’t get it.

But it’s a fun election to follow, anyway.

Until next time,
Maggie