Tag Archives: Battleground Texas

political news, State news

Battleground Texas: They're back … or are they?

Battleground Texas — remember that outfit? — says it’s back in the game.

And the game is its goal of turning Texas from a reliably Red Republican state to a Blue Democratic one.

From my perch here in the heart of the most Republican region of this most Republican state, well, Battleground Texas has some work to do. Lots of work, as a matter of fact.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/02/21/battleground-texas-optimistic-it-licks-its-wounds/

Battleground Texas seriously oversold its impact on the 2014 midterm election in Texas. As one BT official noted rather pithily, “We got the s*** kicked out of us.”

Yeah. Do ya think? Democrats came nowhere close to winning any of the race they hoped would be competitive. The races for governor and lieutenant governor? They each went Republican by more than 20 percentage points. The Legislature’s GOP majority became even more GOP after the ballots were counted.

Democrats keep saying the demographic trends in Texas are working in their favor, with Hispanics comprising an increasing portion of the state’s population. And, yes, Hispanic voters are much kinder to Democrats than they are to Republicans. The problem, though, is that Hispanic voters, um, don’t turn out in numbers that enable Democrats to turn back the Republican tide.

I’m one who is pulling for Battleground Texas to get its act together. I’ve long wanted Texas to become more competitive. I know what you’re thinking: Sure he does, as he’s one of those lefty types who just cannot stand Republican control over all things political in Texas. Perhaps there’s some truth there.

A more competitive environment builds a bit more honesty, though, in both political parties. It deters the kind of arrogance of power one finds when one party holds such dominance over the other one. What’s more, such deterrence is more conducive to the kind of “good government” that should flourish.

That, I submit, is the result when the parties learn to work together rather than have one party trample the other one in the halls of government, which is exactly what I fear is going to happen with the current session of the Texas Legislature.

So, go for it, Battleground Texas. Here’s a word of advice: Be humble as you seek to rebuild and don’t over-promise what you can’t deliver.

 

political news, State news

Battleground Texas left for dead

Battleground Texas is phony.

You might remember this pseudo-organization. It came into being around 2012 intending to turn Texas from Republican Red to Democratic Blue.

Turns out it failed. In so doing, it bruised the credibility of what used to be a great political party.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/losing-battleground

As Texas Monthly blogger/editor Paul Burka notes, Battleground Texas put out phony numbers on the voters it supposedly was registering. The organization proclaimed great success where none existed. It was, as Burka notes, a “mirage.”

So what happens now? Immediately, we’re going to see Texas Republicans tighten their grip on the levers of government after the Tuesday election.

How does the once-great Texas Democratic Party get back into the game? Well, it might start by fielding candidates up and down the ballot who’ve got more than a prayer of winning.

There are some good candidates on the ballot. Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte head the state ballot for the party. They’re both solid public servants. They’re both going to lose Tuesday — maybe by big margins.

As for Battleground Texas, my guess is that the organization needs to disband, pack it in and let someone else do some actual work to make Texas a legitimate two-party state.

 

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Texas not yet a battleground

Forgive my skepticism here.

The young man who founded Battleground Texas needs a dose of reality. Jeremy Bird says he remains optimistic that Texas is on the way to becoming a battleground state, where the two major parties will compete head to head for votes.

Um, not yet, Mr. Bird.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/01/28/almost-year-battleground-founder-optimistic/

At one level, I’m with him. I too wish the state wasn’t dominated by a single party. Republicans have held every statewide office since 1994. Recently, though, a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge, Larry Meyers, switched from Republican to Democrat — and now he’s running for a spot on the Texas Supreme Court as a Democrat. Good luck with that, Judge Meyers.

My preference, believe it or not, is based on the notion that the parties need to be contested to keep them more honest than they are when they dominate the landscape. Democrats used to hold that position in Texas. It slipped away from them arguably with the election in 1961 of Republican John Tower to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Lyndon Johnson, who became vice president of the United States. Seventeen years later, the state elected its first Republican governor since Reconstruction, Bill Clements.

The GOP has been on an upward trajectory ever since.

Bird founded Battleground Texas with the hope of knocking Republicans down a few pegs. I don’t think it’s going to happen this election cycle, or perhaps even the next one in 2016.

The group has pinned its hopes on state Sen. Wendy Davis’s campaign for governor. But that effort has hit a serious bump over revelations about her personal story, some of which doesn’t add up. Her poll numbers are slipping.

Maybe one day the state will return to some form of competitiveness between the parties. I’m not convinced we’ve arrived at that moment.