The dreamers of Battleground Texas

Matt Mackowiak:

Spare me the well-timed media/left-wing celebration over the creation of Battleground Texas.

At its core, the organization was created to employ out-of-state Obama political operatives, in a slow campaign period, by selling to wealthy donors the dream of winning Texas and upending the electoral map.

Clever construct. But history is a useful guide.

The last time a Democrat won a statewide office in Texas was 1994. Since then, their record is 0-100.

In 2012, a moderate northeastern former governor, Mitt Romney, won Texas by 1.25 million votes, a nearly 16 percent margin. President Barack Obama won just 27 of 254 Texas counties, including the highly urban counties of Harris (by about 600 votes), Dallas, Bexar, Travis and El Paso and most of South Texas.

The political future of Texas will, however, be decided by the growing suburban counties like Denton, Collin, Fort Bend, Hays and Williamson counties, all of which Romney won.

It's been reported that Battleground Texas appears to have won over deep-pocketed trial lawyer and reliable Texas Democratic donor Steve Mostyn and wife, Amber, as well as Dallas fundraiser Naomi Aberly. I suspect they will succeed in raising some national money as well.

In the last few months, Battleground Texas has heralded volunteer sign-ups and organizational meetings.

But, if they are honest with themselves, storm clouds lurk.

First, we are approximately six months from the expected filing deadline for the 2014 election. Battleground Texas and its supplicant, the moribund Texas Democratic Party, have failed to recruit even one first-tier candidate for statewide office. A serious effort would yield candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, comptroller, agriculture commissioner, land commissioner and U.S. Senate.

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There is much more.

He makes the point that the organization was set up to support the Castro twins from San Antonio who are compromised by their family's ties to the racist organization La Raza.  The premise of the effort is that Hispanics are naturally drawn to Democrats, but in Texas that is not necessarily the case.  Ted Cruz is not the only Hispanic Republican office holder.   Democrats have been further burdened by being wrong on the issues in Texas.

For Democrats to get support from the trial lawyers is a low bar, pardon the pun.  Trial lawyers hate tort reform even though it has cured teh doctor shortage and brought thousands of jobs to Texas.  Their opposition to tort reform is less popular as it success becomes more evident.