Democrats set sights on Texas

[babylonsister]

Democrats set sights on Texas

Some believe Latinos can help change the state from red to blue.
By Peter Wallsten
November 9, 2008


Reporting from Washington -- As they review the results of Tuesday's election victories and begin looking toward future campaigns, some Democrats have settled on a rallying cry: Texas is next.

It sounds improbable for the Republican bastion that produced President Bush and served as an early laboratory for Karl Rove's hard-nosed tactics. But Texas is one of several reliably red states that are now in Democrats' sights as party strategists begin to analyze a victorious 2008 campaign that they believe showed the contours of a new movement that could grow and prove long-lasting.

A multiethnic bloc of Latinos, blacks, young people and suburban whites helped to broaden the party's reach Tuesday well beyond its traditional base in the Northeast and the West Coast -- carrying Barack Obama into the White House and expanding the party's majorities in Congress.

That new formula was evident in state exit polls and county-level election results showing that Democrats scored gains from a voting base that is growing progressively less white than the population that helped forge Republican advantages in past elections. In state after state, from GOP strongholds like North Carolina, Indiana and Colorado, minorities made up a larger share of the vote than in the past, and in each case they helped turn states from red to blue.

more...

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-assess9-2008nov09,0,1152266.story

[Katidid]

1. YES! Thank you for the post.

Rumor has it that Kay Baily Hutchison will be running against Perry for Governor. Who will be the Democrat contender??? That is the question... hopefully Hightower.

[PDittie]

5. Likely Bill White, mayor of Houston

My HO is that he's closer to being a Republican than he is a Democrat, despite what you may read elsewhere. Conservative, very pro-business, filthy rich, doesn't think DREs are a problem ... the list goes on.

Kinky Friedman apparently intends to run in the Democratic primary for governor this go-round, I also hear.

We need a progressive option, and I don't see at the moment where that person may come from.

[ananda]

8. Bill White would be great!

I hope he runs for governor or the Senate.

[PDittie]

12. Bill White would be shit

The Bluest Dog you can imagine. Only thing worse would be Kinky, quite obviously.

So ... I wonder who Markos Moulitsos is going to pick for us to run for Governor?

[crispini]

9. Good lord. Kinky Friedman vs. Bill White?

Ye cats.

I have no idea what to think.

[Gman]

2. Texas will be nothing more than an ATM for the party

for the foreseeable future. One thing, though... Bill White is a former chair of the TDP. Maybe that status will get TX more attention in 2 years. However, after looking at the percentages in many of the red counties in TX, I don't see them paying much more than minimal attention to us. There aren't enough people in South and West Texas to make a difference right now. Even counties with large Hispanic populations went heavy for McCain: Wilson County 2-1 McCain, Karnes County 1.5 - 1 McCain, Goliad County, just about 2-1 McCain, Karnes County 60-40 McCain, Live Oak County 3-1 McCain, Victoria County 2-1 McCain and I could go on and on... Nueces County (Corpus) did best of all of them where McCain only won 55-45.

OTOH, where there was a large GOTV effort such as for Ciro Rodriguez in Bexar Count, Obama won. Back to the first hand... Nueces County also lost a Democratic Hispanic State Representative in a race where over $1 million was spent. So the GOTV was there to a large degree.

[PDittie]

13. Obama drew off volunteers to swing states this time

setting a new record in withdrawing resources from Texas to deployment elsewhere. Can't blame him for doing so, however. If the Texas Democratic Party isn't going to ask people to volunteer to help elect Democrats in Texas, then why shouldn't Obama take them out?

[Vincardog]

22. If the Texas Democratic Party isn't going to help Democratic candidates like David Van Os why have

them? There is a lot to clean up in Texas politics.

[sonias]

3. Yes we can!

The "multiethnic bloc of Latinos, blacks, young people and suburban whites" is America. This is exactly who should be voting their strength.

:kick:


Sonia

[Stop Cornyn]

4. Believe it! Texas Democrats have traditionally done much better in non-presidential elections, and

if you add that factor on top of how well we did last week, we should win statewide in 2010 and also take the Texas House!

[Lisa0825]

6. YEAH, Baby!!! To the Greatest with thee!!!

:woohoo:

[unblock]

7. it would be delicious irony if displaced dems from new orleans made the difference

shrub's cruel indifference to new orleans was supposedly based in wanting to drive the democrats out of the state in order to keep louisiana red, and move them to texas where they could be easily absorbed.

if true, i really hope this turns out to be a very short-sighted ploy that backfires BIGtime!

[RedCloud]

10. Great news! I was thinking the same.

Large populations should be kept blue!

[LiberalTexan]

11. TEXAS IS NEXT

I live in what was RED Collin County. Here was the breakdown of the last few elections for my precinct alone:

2000 Gore 25%
2004 Kerry 33%
2008 Obama 44%

With 268 more votes, our staunchly conservative precinct in Collin County would have turned BLUE. A beautiful, bright blue.
We are going to take this place over in a couple elections and the Repubs won't know WHAT hit them.
Can you imagine this country when Texas is BLUE again?

[Larry L. Burks]

14. Talk Radio is the key to Winning

If Obama is going to fix the election laws so that we have free and fair election Country wide. In ever state.

This would help.

What we need to do is introduce the fairness doctrine. In the area of T.V. And radio.

It not nectary to shut their's radio stations down to do so.

We can fire ours up. Balance is what is needed. Level the playing field. Fairness.

What we need is a Fox News T.V. like Station in Texas. For Democrats.

Where are our Anti-Trust laws at? When you need them the most? They have a monopoly on the Texas Public Broadcasting System. The public air waves. The FCC?

What they are doing is illegal.

We need Texas Air America radio station so that all of Texas could hear our voice.

A lot of the new cars have satellite radio in them.

If they make a law that all new cars have to have satellite radio in them.

And if it had a Texas Air America Radio station on one of the channels of the satellite radio.( 167 ) We could reach more people in Texas.

You could blanket Texas with the voice of Texas Democrats.

Most cars are older cars. You would have to have radio stations to reach them.

In 98% of all of Texas. The only radio station that you can find on the radio. Are Right wing Republican radio stations. If you are only hearing one side of the story. This gives them the luxury to lie to the high heavens. Unchecked. And they do. And they get a way with it. Their lies go on the record with out question

They need to be checked. Stoped. This could be done if you could come right a long behind them and point out ever lie that they tell.

Their lies could be counseled out with the truth.

Who is there to tell them other wise? No One. No wonder they think the way that they do. They have been totally brained washed. They have the right wing talking points burnt in to their brains.

The Republicans have total control of American's public air waves.

And they are using this tool ( silence all opposition )like a battle ax to beat the stuffing out of us with it.

They are using it to under mine our ever move.

I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any longer. Nor should you.

With radio. You get the biggest bang for the buck.

Now days. People spend about 4 hours in their cars a day. Going to and from work. Are running around town. A lot of them listen to talk radio. If their is no progressive radio station to be found. They are denied their right of chose. And are forces to listen to right wing radio talking points. It's the same old right wing talking points ever day. Over and over and over again. Day after day Week after week. It's called brain washing. We know what it is that their doing.

In order to win the next election. We have to find a way to get progressive radio into the cars of the people that live in Texas. State wide.

Give Texans a chose. For once. Let them hear the truth. For once.

I'm sick and tired of listen to one lie after another all day long.

No wonder we keep losing.

This problem has to be fixed. This one way B.S has got to be stoped.

Fix this little problem. And Texas will go Blue.

Larry L. Burks

[ooga booga]

15. I still see a long road ahead......

Yes, Barak Obama carried Dallas, Harris, Travis, Bexar, and El Paso counties. It's a hopeful sign, but there are 254 counties in Texas. Go to www.uselectionatlas.org and look at some of those other counties. You'll find that Obama lost a lot of those by 3 to 1 or so. Also, there were those other populous counties like Tarrant, Denton, Collin (DFW area), Lubbock, Potter (Amarillo), Taylor (Abilene), MacLennan (Waco), etc. that are still strongly Republican.

[unlegendary]

16. Why not just point of the wasted money here?

Surely republican voters are against wasting tax payer money of frivolous things!

Take for instance in Irving (and probably many other R districts) they have bought and paid for all the bronze (or they look like bronze anyway) statues of horses all over town and erected them on many street corners. I'm sure they have a legitimate function as school children obviously have to get to school somehow so they ride the stationary horses to school.. right?
OK, so we NEED bronze horses on every corner..Visitors would just turn around and leave without them..

How about watering the streets? Drive down Belt Line road in south Irving and you'll notice they have spent untold gobs of cash to install sprinkler systems in median strips all up and down the road. Gawd forbid the grass there turn brown while the grass everywhere else does the same during the hot summer months! About half of those sprinklers are aimed directly into the street. Are we trying to get roads to grow instead of hiring contractors to actually build new roads?
OK, concrete won't grow if you don't water it..

What about the above ground elevated brand new freeways that run across wide swaths of town that could have been much more easily been build at ground level instead, but instead we have monuments to "progress" with nothing but wasted land below them all, but it's a toll road so we couldn't have all those good republicans driving down with the common folk now can we?

As long s the tax money is wasted on THEIR pet projects it's GREAT! But spend a nickel on anyone less fortunate or for that matter something to benefit everyone and GAWD will strike us dead!

[unlegendary]

17. Point to blatant discrimination

The Latino vote is TX is a potential gold mine for Democrats as well. They know that many red districts blatantly discriminate against Latinos so the simple solution..massive voter registration drives in Latino communities and inform all Latinos of the tactics used against the underrepresented districts such as Irving where we recently won court cases against the goppers for intentionally keeping Latinos out off the election process and intentionally keeping all Latinos off the ballots. Information and questions as to why heavily Latino areas have been basically bulldozed to make way for up scale housing for the well-to-do leaving entire families with no place to go. Voter registration drives will kill the republicans and fundies quicker than anything.

[Aragorn]

18. funny

I use some of the same jokes. Unfortunately pointing out the hypocrisy has made almost no difference IMO. Not sayin' "Don't even try" of course.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[crispini]

20. I would really like to know

why you think Democrats want to abandon the Constitution? Why do you seem to think that black and Latino Texans are not good Americans?

[sonias]

21. Who is abadoning the constitution - get a grip

Where were you when the bush administration was shredding the constitution through a paper shredder? Violating every kind of civil right we have - warrantless wiretapping on citizens and pretty much gutting Habeas Corpus. Lying and cherry picking information to "justify" going to war with Iraq. The list is endless on the attacks of the U.S. constitution during the bush administration.

Abandon our free speech rights - who are you kidding? We're in here expressing them in full force. If you happen to be a teabagger who wandered in from the street, you are obviously expressing your right to free speech right now.

And the rest of us will use our free speech right back at ya! Enjoy your brief stay. :P

Sonia