To quote Stephen Colbert, the host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, “The Democrats are messing with Texas.”
For the Dems, Texas has been a giant void in the electoral map since the Carter administration. Democratic victories, even in small local elections, are about as rare as getting pandas to mate. But now a new organization plans to make Texas a political battleground state once again. Battleground Texas is staffed with veterans of President Barack Obama’s successful grassroots efforts, who plan to implement some of those same strategies here in the Lone Star State.
The formula for infusing a blue hue in our red horizons includes reaching out to women and registering Latino, African-American, and other minority voters who make up a majority of the state’s population. Among the ten states with the largest percentage of Latino voters, only Texas and Arizona voted Republican in 2012. Battleground Texas is modeled on “voter engagement” projects that helped President Obama carry swing states including Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada and Colorado.
The last Democratic president to take Texas was Jimmy Carter in 1976; and in 1990 Ann Richards was the last Democrat to be elected governor.
Governor Rick Perry doesn’t seem too worried about the group’s efforts. He recently told the Wall Street Journal, “The University of Texas will change its colors to maroon and white before Texas goes purple, much less blue,” he said.
Of course if Perry had his way Texas would be an independent country, and science classes would be replaced by Pentecostal snake handling ceremonies in public schools.
On a recent appearance on the Colbert Report, Jeremy Bird, the field director for Obama 2012 and founder of Battleground Texas, told Colbert, “If you look at the state it’s not about the demographics, it’s about the turn out,” he said. “What I want to do in Texas is make the people who are already there part of the democratic process.”
“Anybody that wants to be the commander-in-chief, they’ll have to fight for Texas,” he continued.
The organization hopes to expand the number of states that determine national elections to three, joining Ohio and Florida. Local news stations are no doubt licking their chops at the prospect of getting a cut of campaign money ad checks. More than $896 million was spent on television ads over the course of the 2012 presidential election campaign.
Actually, Arizona is a useful bellwether in this case. When you see the Latino voters turn that state blue, you’ll know that Texas is headed that way, too.