Leaving it Up to Texas? Again? Seriously?

The state that gave the planet George W. Bush is poised to play a historic role in the selection of the Democratic presidential candidate. Oh irony of ironies. We always manage to stumble into destiny's crossroads and force detours. March 4th, a date that wasn't supposed to mean much in the Democratic primary process, may give Texas further undue influence over this nation's democracy.

Before I indulge in further analytical posturing, I need to point out that I was not born here and therefore I am not a true Texan. You have to have entered the world over this sacred soil to be considered a Texan. I was not, but I have been writing and reporting on politics in Texas since 1975 and I was here when Jimmy Carter tried out his non-Tex-Mex Spanish in the Rio Grande Valley and I was here when the Bushes wrongly decided they were fit to lead. Hell, I even bought a cowboy hat to wear in a jacket cover photo for Bush's Brain, a complete marketing ploy to sell cowboy politics.

Even though I am not a Texan, except by choice, I know something about how things both work and fail under the Lone Star skies. And they often fail. We are historically 49th in categories like Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Medicaid, and any kind of social service. An estimated 5 million people, almost a quarter of the population, are without health insurance. Our unofficial state motto is "Thank God for Mississippi."

So fate gives us political power again in the Democratic primary? Perfectly understandable, eh? Let me make one of my consistently inaccurate predictions on the outcome.

First, Senator Clinton can be expected to overwhelmingly win the Mexican-American vote. The Clintons have been coming to Texas almost from the outset of their political rise and have frequently visited the border regions where the population is well over 90 percent Hispanic. In fact, Mrs. Clinton is tentatively scheduled to speak Wednesday night at Pan American University in Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley. McAllen businessman Alonzo Cantu has raised large amounts of money for her and her husband through the years. Senator Obama has a great challenge to make meaningful inroads into that support.

But it isn't that simple.

There is a historical antipathy between African-American and Mexican American voters in Texas. And it will not be easily overcome. A friend, who is an African-American legislator from Houston, explained it to me by suggesting that "blacks and browns have spent too damned many years fighting each other over the crumbs left by the white folks in this state."

Gross oversimplifications often contain a germ of truth.

For most of its existence, the Texas legislature has been dominated by rural influences. White men were elected and controlled the powerful committees. Even in the cow counties and along the border where the Hispanic population often outnumbered the Anglo, white candidates won by intimidation and other less than democratic tactics. When the state began its transition from being a part of the South to becoming a centerpiece of the Sunbelt, growth boomed in the urban areas and they took control of the legislative and political processes. African-Americans in Dallas and Houston appeared to Mexican-Americans, who were concentrated more in South Texas, to have a disproportionate political influence. Many Hispanic voters felt disconnected from the processes and once more marginalized.

In spite of the heroic efforts of the Southwest Voter Registration Project to increase the numbers of Mexican-Americans in the polling places on Election Day, they have tended to not turn out in anticipated numbers. Even when a Laredo businessman with a Hispanic surname became the first to run for governor, vote totals for Mexican-Americans remained at historically standard levels. Expect Mrs. Clinton to win their vote by a big margin but whether she inspires Mexican-American numbers to go beyond normal primary turnout levels is likely to determine whether she will win.

Senator Obama's candidacy, however, will dramatically increase the turnout of African-American voters in Texas, mostly in the cities and East Texas. His success is likely to hinge on the large black population in the piney woods of East Texas. Obama will handily carry the vote of urban black voters in Dallas and Houston and their turnout levels will be well beyond the historical norms. If he can do the same thing in East Texas, he has a chance of overwhelming Mrs. Clinton's overwhelming Hispanic support. (Conservative white male Democrats are not good prospects to vote for Mrs. Clinton in Texas and those who go to the polls will probably pick Obama.)

East Texas, a region that spans a distance from Dallas to Houston and up through Tyler and over to Beaumont-Port Arthur, has been a profound political influence in Texas and has decided many statewide elections. The electorate there has been overwhelmingly conservative and any East Texas Democrat caught north of the Red River was easily mistaken for a conservative Republican. In fact, during the 80s Ronald Reagan identified them precisely that way and courted their vote by calling them "Reagan Democrats." Eventually, they became Republicans and stopped identifying themselves with the Democratic Party of Texas. The African-American vote in East Texas, however, stayed with the Democrats and, sufficiently inspired, can help Obama to victory in Texas.

The open primary in Texas will also complicate the dynamics of the vote. John McCain will either be the presumptive or declared nominee on the date of the Texas primary and Republicans may not be that interested in casting meaningless votes. Those that think Hillary would be easy to beat in the general election might go help her March 4th by casting ballots in the Democratic Texas primary, though it is hard to believe these numbers will be significant enough to alter the outcome of final totals.

The truth is, however, this is still Texas and we elected George W. Bush governor, twice, and we voted by a 2-1 margin to make sure gay people don't get married and our current governor has just published a book that is largely a polemic about the threat gays pose to the Boy Scouts of America. We are still trying to figure out how to create a constitutional funding method for our schools even though the lawsuit that prompted the debate was won by the poor schools in 1968. Our property taxes are among the highest in the country because the legislature will never tax income on corporations or individuals and more and more people are unable to get into homes because of tax burdens...

Aw hell...you get the picture.

There are some forward-thinking, progressive people in Texas...lots of them, and they are excited about this election and both candidates but the progressive thinkers are not in control. The Democratic Party is presently trying to reconcile the interests of progressives and conservatives within its ranks. While there is optimism here about a viable Democratic presidential candidate, neither Clinton nor Obama is a choice many conservative Democrats want to make.

And the winner may be the candidate that conservative Democrats dislike the least.

Follow James Moore on Twitter: www.twitter.com/moorethink

Comments

[SubparDude]

"
I descend from one of the "Old 300" Texas pioneers, and I am inspired by Obama.

Let us hope we have the sense to elect him.
:

[BionicWoman]

I've lived in Texas. White friend of mine was driving us through east Texas. I saw some corrugated metal shacks in the fields and asked him what they were. He said they were "cow motels." Turns out they are old abandoned slave shacks the locals left up for the cows. There are still some places in Texas that blacks are afraid to drive through at night. I don't expect any white males to vote for Obama. A few will vote for Hillary. the rest will either vote for McCain or stay out of it. Texas is another country.

[raptor]

"Texas is another country." Sort of says it all. Non-Texans who live there temporarily come away with that thousand-yard stare. Marriages become at least troubled, as in "I'm never going back there!" Even Austin was not what they were hoping for or expecting.

[PortiaElizabeth]

uh huh.
Buh bye.

[UltraClassic]

That's bull corn. I can't believe the Huff people let this one by.

[Geoffreys]

I was Another Man for Ann back in the day. And now I'm a White man in Texas that plans on voting for Obama ... all we need a catchy moniker.

As Mr. Moore said, there are a lot of progressives in Texas - We're just not in charge.

[Redmom]

Beg pardon.Thr­ee white males: My husband and two sons. And they are not alone.

Texans for Obama

[BlueIslandInTexas]

As much as I hate to admit it, this is true. Vidor (and cities like it) is a racist cesspool and I truly hope that the idiots that live in these kind of areas in Texas are not represented in the overall vote.

Obama 2008!

[wolfgangmo]

Texas. As good an argument against unrestrained capitalism as ever I saw one.

[BeyondKen]

Give the man a break, James. Don't you know that when George W was guv 11.3% of Texas High School students graduated in the top ten of their class?

[jdm58]

The winner, if all the fundamentalists show up, and the secular conservatives remain disinterested or disappointed in McCain, may be Huckabee on the Republican side. Also, don't rule out Hispanics, who are fighting mad about the blatant job and housing discrimination being thrust down their throats in the anti-immigration movement. It's even illegal in Farmers Branch now to rent property or an apartment unless you have purchased a permit from the city, proving you're "legal".

[cynara]

I want to draw attention to a few (I think critical) lines in your blog:

"For most of its existence, the Texas legislature has been dominated by rural influences. White men were elected and controlled the powerful committees­."

Much ado has been made about the expectation that Obama will lose Texas due to the Latino Vote. Afterall, a huge factor in his losses in California, New York, New Jersey and Nevada was Latino voters.

That said, Obama does as well with rural white men as Hillary does with Latinos. (Kinda funny, since political analysts expected Obama, minority son of an immigrant, to be big with Latinos, and rural white men (often derisively called "rednecks") not to vote for a black dude. But this election has proved, if nothing else, not to trust political analysts. )

Obama creamed Hillary in Alaska, Idaho, Kansas and Nebraska winning well over 65% of the vote in all above listed states, due, according to exit polls to his appeal to rural white men.

California, New Jersey and New York do not have big rural white men constituencies. Texas does. And I think that these voters may make Obama competitive in Texas. Not to say that Obama doesn't need to make in-roads with Hispanics in order to win. He does, but I'm wondering if the rural white male vote is being overlooked in the upcoming Texas primary predictions.

That said, I don't live in Texas. Any Texas natives wanna support or debunk my theory?

[DeanieMills]

I'm a native-born Texan living in the reddest area of the state--about a hundred miles from where Bush likes to claim he grew up. I agree with much of your assessment but I think some of it is outdated.

In the last election, every single local office in Dallas county went Democratic, and Dallas is supposed to be one of the most conservative cities in the state, if not the country. This shows a trend to the left.

Austin has always been a liberal town, in spite of a Republican statehouse. San Marcos is too. I think we can count on Obama solidifying a great deal of support in urban areas such as Austin and Dallas, and hell, Houston's gotta have a Democrat somewhere around.

The conservatives who surround me out here despise Hillary with a hatred tilting toward the nutty, but they don't seem too threatened by Obama. To a person, they seem to think that, even though he is liberal, he would at least listen to their concerns and make reasonable compromises in governing. They like his inspirational messages and seem to think that, overall, he'd be good for the country if they can't have their own choice (though who knows who that would be.)

There is a caucus here as well as primary; a great mixture of votes, and Obama's going after them aggressively. Be interesting to see how it plays out.

[alkamm]

The caucus format allows people of every political stripe to discuss among themselves why they prefer various candidates. Texas has the best of both worlds having both a primary and a caucus.

Here in Nebraska, we have seen Obama surge with white men, white women, and people of color from both sexes. Republicans are also signing up and, unlike the cynics who would vote for Hillary in the primaries but not the election, these Republicans want to give Obama a chance and will vote for him in the general election.

Both conservatives and liberals have severe reservations about Hillary, and her nomination would thwart the potential for real, lasting change in our politics. She, like Bill, tells us she feels our pain, but she feels her own pain more than the country's.

I'm waiting for her to deliver an excellent concession speech which pledges to help Obama clean up our political morass.

[cincigal]

Dont hold your breath on that.