We Spoke To The TFRW In Dallas Last Week, And It Was KIND OF A BIG DEAL.

Some of you may be aware that Daisy and I traveled to Dallas, TX this past week to attend the Texas Federation of Republican Women’s Convention. We were asked to speak at the event a few months ago, and we’d been looking forward to it!

Ahead of the event, we’d tried looking up information about who else might be speaking at the convention, as well as information about the number of expected attendees, but didn’t have much luck. We figured though, that just like other events we’ve spoken at, there’d be a modest crowd of 70-80 folks there – the hardcore GOPers – and we’d have a lovely time, as we always do, meeting other like-minded folks.

Plus, Daisy’s gonna eventually retire in Texas, so she always appreciates a chance to visit! And I was excited to meet my doppelganger from Oklahoma, who drove out to meet us, and who I hadn’t yet met in person but had only seen in pictures. It’s SO MUCH FUN to have a doppelganger!

ANYWAY, we decided we’d keep it pretty casual, dress comfortably but not particularly dressy, and just kinda wing it, which is what we usually do. We knew we were scheduled to speak at 10.30am, and that the convention was being held at the Dallas Omni downtown, but that is literally the extent of what we knew.

Fast forward to Thursday night when we reached the hotel. We were greeted by two representatives from TFRW, who informed us that this is a convention that’s held every two years, and that everyone who’s anyone in Texas politics is there. Other speakers would include a whole bunch of state reps, plus Gov. Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz. In fact, one of the reps told us, we’d be FOLLOWING Ted Cruz. There was a beautiful booklet/convention program in which the Friday line-up was posted:

See that?  We were gonna FOLLOW TED CRUZ.  Who’s all “Honorable” and whatnot. Oh yeah, and we’d be following him in front of an audience of around 600 people.

That’s about when we started to panic, but you should have seen us with the reps who were prepping us – we were all, “GREAT! PERFECT! NO WORRIES! TOTALLY WHAT WE WERE EXPECTING!” as if this is just completely normal for us and that we make it a standard practice to follow high profile national senators at giant speaking engagements.

We were also panicked because we could see various convention attendees all decked out in suits and dresses and pearls, and we knew we were going to be in leggings and a simple top (me) and a dress from Target with tights (Daisy). And there wasn’t time to change outfits, because it was already like 9pm on Thursday night.

After getting to our room, writing a couple of bullet points on a couple of note cards, we decided all we could do was just be ourselves and hope for the best, and we went to bed.

Friday morning was crazy! I took this picture of Daisy on our way to find the registration desk to show that she wasn’t completely under-dressed compared to other conference attendees:

And she took this one of me when we made it to the convention hall.

We found the VIP “Green Room” in which we were supposed to wait until it was our time to speak. One of the convention folks in charge asked to speak with us outside the room, all serious like, and explained very gravely that Sen Cruz would soon be arriving with his entourage, and that they were planning on clearing out the Green Room of EVERYONE EXCEPT US. She said we should plan to sit in a corner of the room and wait to be approached, that Sen. Cruz would be absolutely lovely to us, but that his entourage was highly protective and that basically we shouldn’t make any sudden moves.

I found this entire conversation to be HILARIOUS, and I asked, “Does that mean I can’t grab his butt?”

Daisy immediately started apologizing for me.

Happily, the woman didn’t even flinch. It’s like she expected that level of immaturity from me, and I gotta tell you – I loved that about her. I promised her that we’d behave, that we wouldn’t let her down, and by golly, we were determined to be perfect church mice in that Green Room, because we knew that she was trusting us to be on our best behavior and that it was a privilege to be allowed to stay in the room once Cruz arrived.

Anyway, we went back inside the room and waited quietly in the corner, as instructed.

In walked Rafael Cruz, Ted Cruz’s father. He introduced himself quickly, and then grabbed a drink of water and started taking/making phone calls. We felt sort of aggressively ignored momentarily (which you may recall we have experience with) but shortly thereafter, Cruz’s cousin came into the room and was absolutely darling. He engaged all of us in a delightful conversation about Rafael Cruz’s experience coming to America from Cuba, how he learned English by watching American movies, how he came to be a professor in TX – it was all very interesting and lovely and Sen. Cruz’s father seemed happy to participate.

A few minutes later, the woman in charge came back in looking kinda frazzled, and informed us all that Sen. Cruz was running a little late, and instead of following him, we’d be speaking first. This was a bit of a relief, because that’s a tough act to follow, but it also meant that we were to go on stage RIGHT THAT SECOND.

And so we did. And we told our story – the history of the Chicks – we talked about community building and activism, and then we opened up the room for Q&A, and the crowd seemed extremely responsive and engaged, and it was just a blast as these things almost always are. When we headed back stage after our 45 minutes were up, Sen. Cruz was there, we introduced ourselves quickly, got a photo with him (which I think we’ll snag a copy of later this week), and headed to a different part of the convention center to get ready for our book signing. Since we hadn’t anticipated such a large crowd, we only brought 100 books with us, and you guys – they were sold out in about an hour.

Daisy’s husband took a picture of the line at one point:

That was AFTER we spoke in front of all of those people, which we took as a sign that they enjoyed our talk.  We HATE that we left people hanging who were hoping to get a copy of Right for a Reason, because it’s an absolutely awesome book if we do say so ourselves.

And we do. 🙂

Anyway, after the convention, Daisy headed to her cabin about an hour and a half away for the rest of the weekend with Mr. Daisy and her youngest daughter, and I headed back to Indy.  It was a whirlwind trip, and now we’re looking forward to speaking again in Brown County, Indiana on November 3rd (the Chicklets will be there too!) and then in Bullhead, AZ on February 17th.  Probably one of our most favorite things to do EVER is meet people who read our site and/or listen to our show, so if you belong to a local/state organization and you’d like us to visit, please send us an email!

But you should probably know in advance, like we should’ve, that everything is bigger in Texas! Including audiences. 🙂