Elephants never forget. Except, seemingly, which party they're supposed to belong to.

Has the Republican Party of Texas just inadvertently come out for Sen. Hillary Clinton? Sure looks that way.

In a press release entitled “Ciro Rodriguez Should Step Up to the Plate: Time for Democratic Superdelegate to Say Whom He Supports”, Texas GOP spokesman Hans Klingler tries to make more hay out of the Sen. Barack Obama ‘bitter’ comments by pressuring the Congressional Democrat. In it, the GOP flack said “Congressman Rodriguez can either choose to uphold the very ideals his fellow Texans believe in or he can continue to cater to Obama’s elitist attitude.”

If Klingler is saying that Rodriguez should dump Obama, then isn’t he saying that he should go with Clinton? Doubt she’s going to be too happy about that implied endorsement.

What’s really funny is that, in his ‘edited highlights’ of Obama’s speech, Klingler adds on another little-reported paragraph, where Obama said that American voters increasingly “take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington.” Erm. Isn’t that the platform that most of the GOP has been running on since Nixon?

This article appears in April 11 • 2008.

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The Chronicle's first Culture Desk editor, Richard has reported on Austin's growing film production and appreciation scene for over a decade. A graduate of the universities of York, Stirling, and UT-Austin, a Rotten Tomatoes certified critic, and eight-time Best of Austin winner, he's currently at work on two books and a play.