Filibuster puts Texas Sen. Wendy Davis on the map

AUSTIN, Texas -- As she spoke late into the night railing against proposed abortion restrictions, a former Texas teen mom catapulted from little-known junior state senator to national political superstar in pink running shoes.

Wendy Davis needed last-minute help from shrieking supporters to run out the clock on the special session of the State Legislature and kill the contentious bill, but she did. Her old-fashioned filibuster earned her praise from fellow abortion-rights supporters -- including a salute from President Barack Obama.

The victory may be short-lived, though. Gov. Rick Perry Wednesday called a second special session beginning Monday, giving the Republican majority in the statehouse another 30 days to finish the job.

Davis was on her feet for more than 12 hours Tuesday -- actively speaking most of that time -- as Democrats hoped her one-woman marathon speech would derail a measure that would have closed nearly every abortion clinic in the nation's second most populous state.

As a midnight deadline loomed and Davis continued to talk, political junkies from coast-to-coast tuned in via the Internet, and the senator's followers on Twitter ballooned from around 1,200 to more than 79,000.

Obama's official Twitter account posted: "Something special is happening in Austin tonight."

All this for a 50-year-old Harvard-trained attorney and one-time single mother from Fort Worth, who was once dismissed by Perry, a Republican, as a "show horse."

But Davis' sudden surge in popularity came as no surprise to Texas Democrats, who chose her as the face of the battle to block the bill. "She's a total fighter," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

Davis' filibuster lasted about 11 hours before Republicans complained she had strayed off topic and cut her off. But that action prompted a lengthy debate with Democrats and deafening protests from hundreds of orange-clad abortion-rights activists in the gallery that spilled past the midnight deadline to kill all pending legislation.