INTO THE GREAT BLUE WONDER
Wed, 11 May 2011 15:50:33
That President Obama would ruminate publicly about spending time and treasure in Texas highlights two political realities, one structural, one accidental.
Structurally, the entire chunk of the Southwest that the Lone Star rebels and the U.S. Army wrenched from Mexico has become an increasingly solid Hispanic enclave, worth a whopping 118 electoral votes. Add those to the 126 that the Northeast and Illinois consistently deliver, and the Democrats are a mere 28 votes away from grabbing the Big Enchilada.
The accidental factor that puts Texas in play is the total disarray of the Republican Party. Their leader in the House is bemoaning the lackluster quality of the gang singing up for the primaries. Their wagon is hitched to the unpredictable, uninformed and unrelenting Tea Party, that requires total submission to its nativist dogma from any candidate who doesn't what to see their votes drained away by a well funded insurgent, campaigning on their right.
If the GOP pick a thoroughly unelectable candidate with the coattails of a Speedo, and run on a platform that only a dyed in the wool Social Darwinist could love, they will drive independents and moderate Republicans out of the Big Tent and into Obama's arms; and then, maybe, perhaps, the state that has seen red for twenty years will cross the purple divide into the great blue wonder.