{"id":8297,"date":"2015-02-22T20:23:03","date_gmt":"2015-02-22T20:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8297"},"modified":"2015-02-22T20:23:03","modified_gmt":"2015-02-22T20:23:03","slug":"battleground-texas-theyre-back-or-are-they","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8297","title":{"rendered":"Battleground Texas: They're back … or are they?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

Battleground Texas — remember that outfit? — says it’s back in the game.<\/p>\n

And the game is its goal of turning Texas from a reliably Red Republican state to a Blue Democratic one.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2015\/02\/21\/battleground-texas-optimistic-it-licks-its-wounds\/<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

Yeah. Do ya think? Democrats came nowhere close to winning any of the race they\u00a0hoped<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading Battleground Texas: They're back … or are they?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,18],"tags":[560,4603,4653,4693],"class_list":["post-8297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-news","category-state-news","tag-battleground-texas","tag-texas-democrats","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}