Instead of trashing Texas, here's what the rest of you can do

[derby378]

For starters, we had some really good candidates running in 2006, from Chris Bell to Barbara Ann Radnofsky, from Nick Lampson to Dan Dodd, from John Courage to Ted Ankrum. At least we managed to get Lampson in the House to replace DeLay.

But let's face it. Our state Democratic Party organization is apparently in disarray. Instead of a strong state party organization, we have a handful of strong county party organizations. It helped Dallas County replace almost all of its Republican judges with Democratic judges, but that's still not good enough.

If you want Texas to turn Democratic (and believe me, you do), the first thing you can do is stop writing off Texas just because George W. Bush turned it into his adopted home.

The second thing you can do is convince Charles Schumer and Rahm Emanuel to actually provide logistical and financial support for more of our candidates. A $50,000 contribution from John Kerry to the Lampson campaign? That's great, but it doesn't help too many folks outside of Houston.

The third thing you can help us with is reorganizing the state party structure so that our Congressional and state legislature candidates can get the backing they need. Our party platform needs some heavy editing and revising, and I'll be more than happy to help along those lines so the state party can present a clear and easy-to-understand vision for Texas.

The last thing I can think of that we need is even more support for Texas Democratic grassroots, whether bloggers or neophyte precinct chairs or whatever.

Once again, take a good look at how many electoral votes we've got. You want Texas as a friend come 2008.

I speak as a lifelong Texan and a committed Democrat. Better Dead Than Red.

[WolverineDG]

1. You can also phonebank for Ciro

& help unseat a Republican with close ties to Tom DeLay:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=180x40351

dg

[Catherine Vincent]

2. Great post!

:thumbsup:

[RubyDuby in GA]

3. Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

It's like this all over the South. GA's state party is in a shambles right now and won't improve because the rest of the country has written us off (meaning the well has run dry with moola).

[ashling]

4. Thank you, derby

I would remind some folks that it wasn't always thus. In 1976, Texas put Carter over the top in electoral votes.

[wryter2000]

5. Amen to that

It's called a 50 state strategy.

[kwyjibo]

6. Also... move to Texas!

Texas is a wonderful state with a very undeserved bad reputation because of GWB. We have several incredible cities, forests in the east, mountains in the west, beaches in the south, Big Bend, a rich infusion of southern and Mexican culture, the best barbecue in the world and sincerely friendly people (even if some of them do vote Republican).

[Stevepol]

7. But let's face it, the electronic voting machines, have the state

wrapped up. Hart Intercivic and ES&S and Diebold have a stranglehold on the state and it won't matter how good the candidates, they won't win because they can't win.

If the machines are watched closely so no late shenanigans can take place, an overwhelming vote in favor of the Dem could swing an election (as happened nationally in Nov, even tho the exit polls showed a 6-8% skew in favor of the Repubs).

If the machines are forced to produce a paper ballot print-out that is kept for required audits, the Dems will win.

Barring these two possibilities, I don't see any way a Dem can win in TX any time soon.

Actually, having lived in TX for many years, I can say that I believe TX is very likely really a blue state. There are a lot of Hispanic residents and alot of Dems thru-out the state. No way to know at present since the votes are not counted transparently, i.e., we don't have a democracy.

[Warpy]

8. I think most people trash Texas for the big hair, arrogant

fundies than for Stupid. After all, Stupid was born in Connecticut and was educated there and in Massachusetts. He's a fake Texan, as anyone who has ever met the real thing knows.

Unfortunately, the arrogant and ignorant fundies elected Stupid governor. Twice. That is what gave them and Texas such a bad reputation.

If the rest of you manage to march them back to the lunatic fringe again, Texas will regain its reputation as a state full of rugged individuals who know bullshit when they smell it.

Any state that can produce Phil Ochs, Jim Hightower and Molly Ivins certainly can't be all bad.

[theoldman]

9. I believe that the tide will turn after Bush is no longer president.

Many people voted for Bush just because he came from Texas. It was also good for business to keep federal money coming into the state. There are a lot of Democrats in Texas that will come out from the woods.

[derby378]

12. Correction: Bush didn't COME from Texas...

He's a native of Connecticut. Not trashing the CT Dems, here, but I had to point that out. Texas Dems, by and large, do not consider Nero to be "one of us."

[madfloridian]

10. I think you are wrong...no one was trashing Texas.

I think many are just realizing that the Texas Republican Party was the beginning of why we are where we are today, the dominionism, the theocratic notions, the divisiveness.

I don't think it is trashing Texas so much as being aware that it was the source of Rovian politics.

And I think you are right, your state organization reminds me of Florida. Our party is not so much in disarray as just stuck in the same ways. They want to control the state from HQ. They resent those of us who are activists. We insult them because we question them.

At least you have strong grassroots groups there. We have a few in Florida as well.

[Clark2008]

13. Yeah - well you trash the South on a regular basis.

Doesn't matter that you're in Florida (which isn't really Southern except for the panhandle).

[madfloridian]

14. No, I don't trash any place or anyone.

I do say often that the South tends to think it is so special that some like Dean are not welcome there.

I do say that often, but I never trash anyone. I quote their own words.

[Lochloosa]

11. I agree derby378. My parents are very involved in Fredericksburg, Texas

They have to scratch and spit to raise money.

[Maestro]

15. As a Texan. I couldn't agree more. Kicked and Recommended.

:thumbsup: The Democratic Party could have supported David Harris much more against that fool Joe Barton, but I am not sure the national Democratic party supported him at all and the Texas Democratic party, like you said, is in disarray. There are many good people here that need financial help and media exposure.

[Maestro]

16. And don't forget about our own DUer David Van Os

who ran for State Attorney General.

[JNelson6563]

17. Great post. Some comments.

For starters, we had some really good candidates running in 2006, from Chris Bell to Barbara Ann Radnofsky, from Nick Lampson to Dan Dodd, from John Courage to Ted Ankrum. At least we managed to get Lampson in the House to replace DeLay.

You are very fortunate. Getting a nice list of good candidates to run can be very tough, downright impossible at times to even get any!

But let's face it. Our state Democratic Party organization is apparently in disarray. Instead of a strong state party organization, we have a handful of strong county party organizations.

Ok, here's a point of real interest to me! I am in Michigan and we have just the opposite situation. We have a strong state party with a great chair (IMO) but so many of the county parties are practically non-existant. When I first became Cong. Dist. chair I was shocked to discover the sense of entitlement among some of the former beneficiaries of the generous largesse that used to flow into their counties primarily thanks to strong labor here. As labor has weakened and the MI economy with it, that flow has slowed to a trickle.

Up here closer to the top of the mitten we'd never gotten a ride on that gravy train cause it's been so red for so long. We got busy aggressively marketing, fundraising and growing our party. We raised a boatload of money, had tons of paying members.

When I went to preach this gospel (as it were) to the former state/labor fund recipients they didn't quite seem to grasp the situation, some still don't. They wait for entitlements that will never come. During the first workshop I held on party building for the 14 counties in this District one of the chairs told us this: His county just sent all memberships to the state party and at the end of the season the state party sent them a check for $6000. He was quite pleased about this. I then told him that we never sent a dime to the state party and promoted only our local membership and we had raised $60,000 that year. Guess who started taking notes on the workshop after that? ;-)

Anyhow, my point is, you have won about half of the battle so be encouraged. Your strong foundation of roots will give needed support to that which you will build on top of it.

If you want Texas to turn Democratic (and believe me, you do), the first thing you can do is stop writing off Texas just because George W. Bush turned it into his adopted home.

I agree. I should think with Dean's 50 state strategy Texas will not be written off. Regardless of whether you got the help you needed in 06 I think you are right to expect more for 08. Remember, the strategy has only been in the works a short time.

The second thing you can do is convince Charles Schumer and Rahm Emanuel to actually provide logistical and financial support for more of our candidates. A $50,000 contribution from John Kerry to the Lampson campaign? That's great, but it doesn't help too many folks outside of Houston.

Good luck with that. Really, the only way that will happen is if the candidate comes up with buckets of money. Those guys are kind of like banks, they like to give money to those who don't need it as badly.

The third thing you can help us with is reorganizing the state party structure so that our Congressional and state legislature candidates can get the backing they need. Our party platform needs some heavy editing and revising, and I'll be more than happy to help along those lines so the state party can present a clear and easy-to-understand vision for Texas.

That will have to come from within Texas.

I commend you for your enthusiasm and strategic thinking. You are a credit to your homestate.

Julie

[blogslut]

18. Hear hear

A bit of attention from the money at the top could have put Bell into the governor's office. I believe that with all my heart.

Rick Perry won with barely, barely 40% of the vote. If Bell had been able to hit more cities and buy more television ads, he could have easily liberated half of Friedman and Strayhorn's votes. Up where I live, folks hardly knew Chris Bell was a real candidate, much less the man that brought down Tom Delay.

I gave my money directly to Bell's campaign. I recommend everyone do that - direct contributing. The Internet enables an individual to fundraise as effectively and profitably as any big money-backed candidate.

Think of it this way:

BIG MONEY Holds a fundraiser. The cost is $100.00 a plate. One hundred people pay to go to the dinner for BIG MONEY. Coincidentally, one hundred percent of those people paying/attending the dinner are employed by CORPOCO. At the end of the dinner, BIG MONEY is $10,000 richer and new, best friends with CORPOCO.

Now, think of it this way:

JOHN Q Announces a fundraiser on his website and attentive folks (like those on DU) bang the tubes to spread the message. On the same day that BIG MONEY makes ten grand off basically, a single donation, JOHN Q's website gets 100,000 hits and raises $10,000.00 from the donations of 2000 individuals at five dollars a pop.

It's beautiful, I tells ya!

[warrens]

19. Taking Texas would be sweet

Watching all the big hat, no cattle THUGS in Dallas chewing their arms off in frustration would be WONDERFUL.

[Zan_of_Texas]

20. Comments.

I've lived in Texas my entire adult life, but have lived in the Midwest, East Coast, and Florida too.

Texas has the second largest bucket of electoral votes in the US, behind only California.

Texas has had two consecutive worse than useless Secretaries of State, appointed by Rick Perry. The current one was selling cars when he got the call to come and run our elections. Both have been blind apologists for DREs.

I believe the corruption and unaccountable election systems steal the elections of TX top offices, such as US Rep, Senate, and Governor. That's my belief, I can't prove it. I would also bet money that Bush's popular votes were plumped up in places like Texas in 2004.

But, some of the lower offices CAN be won or maintained by Dems. We got a great new State Rep. in Houston, Ellen Cohen. She won back the seat that used to be held by one of the most liberal members of the Statehouse, Debra Danburg. Danburg had lost previously to a Bush clone, Martha Wong. Ellen Cohen, with strong support from the feminist and glbt community, ran a great grassroots campaign and won against incumbent Wong.

I have spoken with Tx Dem State Reps, with Houston City Council people, and with the chair of the Dems for Harris County about election mechanism vulnerabilities. So far, not one has gotten their hair on fire about it. They should, but they don't. They listen, and then they go about their lives as if elections are valid and honest and recountable and accurate and reliable.

I am not spending one dime on campaigns of anyone unless they get fired up about honest clean election counts. Just sayin'.