AP: Texas Democrats have fallen a long way in 40 years

[rainbow4321]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8782PUG0.html


It is recalled as a glorious year for Texas Democrats, who reasserted their long-held dominance by heading off GOP challengers and delaying the lofty aspirations of a Republican named George H.W. Bush.

That was 1964. This is 2004, which might be remembered as the year the donkey finally vanished in Texas after 40 years of slow decline.

"If you use the animal analogy, they're in deep hibernation and spring is not yet near," said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University. "Salvation is on the way for the Democrats. It's still two decades out, and it's demographics."

Hope for the Democrats to be competitive again in Texas seems to be rooted in the state's changing demographics. Though Texas will become a majority minority state in a few years, it may take as long as two decades for the Democrats to benefit at the voting booth, according to Jillson. "They have to do everything they can to support the demographic shifts. They have to do grass-roots organizing," he said. "They have to have neighborhood drives, particularly in Hispanic parts of the state, not just South Texas but in the urban areas of the state."

[Warpy]

1. Yeah, do everything the opposite from the DLC

who have disdained grassroots organizing for the past 2 decades in favor of whoring after corporate cash and squabbling over yuppies.

That's the way to succeed nationwide, and why the DFA movement is so very important. Change will come from the grassroots. It never comes from the top.

[jandrok]

2. Absolutely true....

Texas CAN go Democratic again, but it will take a lot of time and a strong commitment to grassroots organization and fundraising, especially out here in the "redder" rural counties. That's a prime reason why I ain't goin' anywhere anytime soon. I like it here. This is MY state, too, dammit. Change comes by being visible and vocal. We have to get out and WIN the elections for dogcatcher and the school boards......

[jobycom]

3. Frankly, it's not the state but the party that changed

The Democrats used to be a conservative party in the south, and more labor than issues driven. During the 60s the Democrats began to change, becoming more liberal, backing civil rights, the ERA, abortion rights, etc.

Ralph Yarborough was an old school populist. He supported civil rights and LBJ's Great Society (actually, LBJ stole the phrase from Yarborough), but he came across as an honest, people's politician. He was known as "the people's Senator."

With the Republican move away from Eisenhower's moderate right influence to the more radical right of Goldwater, Nixon, and eventually Reagan, the Democrats should have been left standing in the middle, but the Democrats in the South were associated with forced desegregation, military invasion (with the National Gaurd) and, paradoxically, an increasing anti-war stance. All of these issues were personal to the South, so the South turned against the Democrats-- not because they were "liberals," (there was nothing particularly liberal about sending armed troops into a state to force compliance to federal law, no matter how much it had to be done), but because the South felt it was under attack. Sure, it was wrong and deserved to be attacked, but that's still how it felt.

So the South sided with the Republicans, who were becoming more conservative, and thus they became more conservative. With the conservative Democrats fading from the party, the Democrats moved to the left, and that's when they started losing. Nationally, Carter and Clinton won by being southern and pretending to be moderates.

I'm not blaming liberalism. If the Democrats moved to the middle, they still wouldn't attract the South back. We have to win it back the old fashioned way, by convincing labor that we are better for them, by convincing the majority of Americans that our views are right. All this demographics politics is dividing this nation too much-- each party panders to whatever group they thing they can add to their column, and no one is looking at the whole picture, showing the voters what they have in common, rather than what they want that's different. That was Reagan's legacy: divide and conquer, villify the other party, make it personal, make a person's allegiance to party first, country second, and to humanity last if at all.

We need an anti-Reagan, not a Democrat Reagan. Maybe Gore will run again, he's one of the few that sees the big picture.

[dolstein]

4. Sorry, but demography is not destiny

They assume that racial minorities will continue voting Democratic at their current rates. But there is no reason to make this assumption, especially now that Texas has become largely a one-party state.

[txaslftist]

5. All politics is local....

Some famous political guy once said and was oft repeated.

If you look at the local houses and offices in Texas, you will be surprised to find that dems are making gains. Slow and steady gains, but gains nonetheless.