The Dallas Morning News carries a story about the current circumstances of the Texas Democratic Party. They of course are not alone in analyzing the current state of affairs for Texas Democrats.
To make this examination allow me to quote the article:
"Democrats running for governor have reached a new low: Should they mail fliers to voters or print up yard signs? In the thicket of signs near an early voting poll in Oak Cliff, none is from the Democratic candidates for governor. With less than two weeks to go until party primaries, gubernatorial candidates Chris Bell and Bob Gammage can't afford both, let alone radio or television ads. And both candidates are nearly invisible to voters, according to a recent Dallas Morning News poll."
It is hard to escape the reality that Texas Democrats are experiencing their wilderness period and this reality may be disheartening to some. I am not one of those persons.
Democrats in Texas are living and participating in one of the most important and critical moments in their party's development, as potentially the dominant party in Texas for the foreseeable future. Impossible you say! How can this be when political analysist after political analysist calls for the final funeral oration of the once dominant party.
Let me take you back a few years to the great state of California, the land of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. From the end of World War II through the mid-1990s alone, five of the seven governors were Republicans, starting with Earl Warren (1943-53). Ronald Reagan, a former movie actor and a leading conservative Republican, was elected governor in 1966 and reelected in 1970; he later served two terms as U.S president.
During the 1970s and 80s California continued to grow rapidly, with a major shift of population to the state's interior. Much of the state's population growth was a result of demographic changes within the state. This change in demographics help to elect Democrats Edmund G. (Pat) Brown (1959-67), his son Jerry Brown (1975-83) and Gray Davis (Arnold Schwarzenegger, a moderate and at times liberal Republican, was elected only because of events surrounding the unpopular Gray Davis.) Today most observers would call California a largely Democratic state.
Similar trends are afoot in Texas.
If we look to the growth of the modern Texas Republican Party, prior to 1950 Republicans in Texas were almost non-existent. Republican gubernatorial candidates rose from a low of 10 percent of the vote in 1954 to a high with John Cox's 45.8 percent in his 1962 race against John B. Connally, Jr. The pivotal event in Texas for Republicans came with the election in 1961 of John Tower to the United States Senate when Lyndon B. Johnson left the Senate. The transitional era for Texas Republicans after 1950 lasted until 1978. During this period, the party's urban and geographic bases remained strong. In addition, urban centers sent more Republicans to the state legislature.
The party's growing strength was partly a natural result of the shifting demography of Texas. As late as 1940 the majority of Texans lived in rural areas, but by 1980 urban dwellers accounted for 79.6 percent of the total. Residents of the Austin, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, and San Antonio metropolitan areas represented by themselves nearly half of all Texans. As these regular Republican strongholds expanded, the party's power in state elections rose as well.
Despite gains made by Texas Republicans between 1950 and 1978, these years were unsettled ones in state politics were voters demonstrated increasing independence from their traditional ties to the Democratic party, they did not firmly identify with the Republicans. This may sound familiar as today Texas voters increasingly demonstrate their independence from their ties to the Texas Republican Party, but still do not identify with Democrats. Hence the rise of the so called "independent" candidates.
The fact remains that after a hundred years as a minority party, the Republicans had become the majority. But like California, New Mexico, Nevada and some other Western states could the pendulum be trending back to Texas Democrats? Is the wilderness period simply a state of existence prior to the rebirth of a once dominant party. From my perspective, it could be if Texas Democrats do something they haven't done a whole lot of lately, make some good choices. At the same time they had better hope the Republicans make some bad ones.
The same demographic changes that occurred in California are occurring in Texas. Increasingly our larger cities are becoming Democratic enclaves. Slowly each election cycle Democrats are electing more and more of their candidates to legislative positions. So is the shift that I foretell inevitable in Texas? No it is not! Texas is not California. Although we have some "minutemen" running around claiming the sky is falling, pragmatic Texans unlike Californians do not have a Proposition 187. In 1994 California voters approved Proposition 187, an initiative barring the state from providing most services, including welfare, education, and nonemergency medical care to illegal immigrants. The proposal galvanized and accelerated a changing demographic into political action.
The burgeoning Hispanic population in Texas is more conservative than their California counterparts, perhaps an advantage to Texas Republicans and Texas Democrats in the past have seemingly done everything in their power to disassociate themselves from the coming change. Republicans although more likely to seek out, groom and rapidly promote candidates from diverse populations, at the moment they do not endear themselves to these demographics by their latest war on the moderate wing of their party, where the growing upper and middle classes from these growing groups might feel comfortable.
One thing can be said for certain, change is coming. Will that change be in the form of a Democratic dominant state that lasts 50 years or will Republicans seek the initiative Democrats have repeatedly neglected at the expense of accepting more moderates within their ranks. These are the questions we begin to answer today as thousands of voters take to the polls at this, our moment at the crossroads.
5 comments:
I tend to be fairly conservative and think that incremental change is better than a complete 180 degree change, but when it comes to the welfare of my home state, something radical needs to be done. It breaks my heart that legislators in Austin seem to have neglected what they're job is-to see and listen to what we (Texans) need, and then make the needed changes so that our state will no longer be the laughing stock of the nation. I moved to the DC area almost a year ago and just being a Texan around here is difficult. Everyone assumes that I'm a diehard Bush and DeLay fan when nothing could be further from the truth! I left state employment in Texas b/c I couldn't knowingly work for agency directors who didn't have the best of intentions for my state...and most of their decisions were driven by what legislators passed w/o even understanding the ramifications.
Enough of my ranting-I don't know what your position is on any topic, but whatever your position is I hope it is with keeping in mind with what the state needs and not based on who could line the political pocket book.
God bless-Mara
I have to thank you for that Rep. Very good analysis of a possible future for a better Texas. Why is it though Rep. that our current leadership does not respond when the future is right in front of their noses.
While the analysis is passionate, it prematurely tracks change in urban enclaves. If urban centers tended to convert into Democratic bastions and urban centers have more money than rural or suburban areas, then why cannot Democrats garner votes and money from urban centers, at least enough to make a significant impact. I think the analysis assumes the election of the few urban Democratics tracks phantom changes in political demographics. In fact, it is likely the opposite.
Redistricting exposed the wonders of the politics of polarization. Democrats are being forced into "safe" electorates, whether municipal, regional, or state jurisdictions. There may have been a sudden increase in Democrats, but they're the result of these safe districts. This shows that there exists no real increase in the Democratic base. The only thing that will bring about a swelling of Democratic voters will be a swing in the general electorate of Texas.
Good post, Rep. I agree that Dems are in a wilderness period, but even when they were in power it was because the conservatives who are now Rs all voted D. I'm not sure the state's ideological center shifted much when the Rs took over.
That said, the recent change in urban districts, jb, is real - ask Donna Howard - just slow and incremental, not sudden. The suburban areas are shifting, too, with the old white flight demographics rapidly changing to include more diversity. (That's what makes HD 106 in Grand Prairie competitive when it used to be solid R.) Plus it'll be interesting to see what change in voting demographics the New Orleans voters have, in Houston especially.
My concern is that Ds as a party appear to have no agenda or vision, just critiques of what the Rs are doing. Rs won by throwing molotov cocktails at their enemies but when they got in power had no plan for where they wanted to take the state. If Ds won today, I'm afraid, they'd have little concrete vision, either. In that sense maybe it's good to have a wilderness period - in my heart of hearts, I don't see the Ds ready to reclaim power and do anything constructive with it.
Forged by fire, tempered by adversity a pure heart burns with love for his fellow man. The blade of leadership will rise when we are ready to receive the knowledge already within us.
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