Hillary Could Win Texas

Stunning Texas Poll Shows Hillary Clinton Is Close To Turning Lone Star State Blue, reads a headline at Pliticus USA, and the story proceeds: "The bedrock Republican state of Texas could go for Hillary Clinton as Donald Trump's Lone Star state lead has shrunk to within the margin of error [...]"

Back in 2013 in my blog post Texas Is Purple, I tried to spread the word that Texas is not as solidly Republican as many people outside of Texas believe it is. So although I'm very happy that Hillary is now making it close in Texas, I'm not nearly as stunned as some people are.

Besides the fact this story may help to correct the widespread erroneous assumption that Texas is a deep-red Republican stronghold, I'm very happy about it because Texas has 38 electoral votes, and because, of its 36 US Representatives up for re-election next month, 25 are Republicans, and it would be nice to flip a lot of those House seats.

I first became aware of this story today, not from news headlines, but because every day I take a look at a few websites with electoral-vote maps, and today, on one of those sites, , I saw that Texas had gone from pink, "Likely GOP," to white outlined in pink, "Barely GOP." Red means "Strongly GOP," and ElectoralVote has just 81 electoral votes marked red right now. Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Utah and Alaska are currently pink on their map, and besides Texas, the states in white outlined in pink, "Barely GOP," are Iowa, South Carolina and Mississippi.

I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, and put those 38 electoral votes from Texas, or the 6 each from Iowa or Mississippi or the 9 from South Carolina, into Hillary's column prematurely. The most I can say, objectively, is that, right now, Trump's support is plummeting all across the country.

Idiots And Democracy

An idiot holds up a sign reading, "Not Hillary, Not Trump," illustrating one of the most exasperating aspects of politics, one for which I thus far have shown no talent: dealing with idiots. It's not just that some people are too dumb to see a difference between Trump and Hillary big enough to justify voting for one or the other, which is already pretty damn dumb. Beyond that, a significant number of people actually believe that Jill Stein or Gary Johnson or Bernie Sanders actually has a chance to win. (Who knows how many idiots didn't believe that, until they read the last sentence and completely misunderstood it, and have now switched from campaigning for Hillary or Trump to campaigning for Stein or Johnson or Sanders.)

Pollsters are saying that up to 20% of registered voters now plan to vote for Stein or Johnson, with about 40% each left over for Hillary and Trump. That means that, although in reality perhaps every election is completely about winning the idiot vote, there's no doubt that this Presidential election is.

Of course, beyond the 20% Stein-or-Johnson-no-doubt-they're-idiots-bloc, some of the Trump and Hillary supporters are idiots too. It's harder to tell how big this voting bloc is, and it may also be much harder to campaign to this bloc, because who knows many idiots are voting for either Trump or Hillary only because they completely misunderstand where the candidate stands on the issues about which they care most? For example, people supporting Trump because they think he's pro-union, or supporting Hillary because they think she's against a woman's right to choose. I think it's pretty safe to say that the percentage of voters who are that confused or worse about every Presidential campaign is bigger than that of those who voted for Nader in 2004, and possibly comparable to those who voted for him in 2000.

In any case, the number is too high to be safely ignored.

So how do we deal with those voters, how do we lure as many as possible over to the Democratic side?

Like I said at the beginning of this post: I have no flippin' idea. I have no practical suggestions to offer, other than to urge those of you who are skilled at persuading idiots to keep in mind that there are a huge number of them out there, and to do whatever you can. Thank you.

Anyhow: although it's very, very early, the first post-Democratic-Convention polls are encouraging. One poll says that Missouri has gone from safely in Trump's column to a tossup. Wouldn't it be sweet if that poll turns out to be accurate, not an outlier, and if it stays that way, and we win Missouri? Don't laugh: it was awfully close in 2008. McCain only won by 3903 votes, 1,445,814 to 1,441,911

And I'd really like to win Texas too. I know everybody considers Texas to be deep-red Presidentially, but I look at the same data that's out there for everybody else to see, and it looks kinda purple to me. (And I'm way above average at math.)

I repeat: it's early. Almost every Presidential candidate gets a post-convention bump, we shouldn't overvalue Trump's bump, too many people have been panicking about that. And we shouldn't get carried away if Hillary gets a big bump too.

But it would be so nice if we just mopped the floor with those suckers this time...

Texas Is Purple

I'm taking this opportunity to tell you that Texas is purple -- that is, neither overwhelmingly Republican nor overwhelmingly Democratic -- because I've heard so many Democrats, most of whom, I just betcha, haven't ever been in Texas, saying things like "Texas is just hopeless" and "Texans are all morons" and "Can Texas secede now? Please?" and so forth.

I have no problem with people saying that W and Tom DeLay and Rick Perry and Ted Cruz are all morons. They are. And unfortunately they're also the Texas politicians who have garnered the most nationwide attention since Ann Richards died. The thing is, though, neither Perry nor Cruz gained his current office by a landslide, and there are signs of buyer's remorse from some of the good folks who did vote for them, and furthermore, 12 out of Texas' 36 US Representatives are Democrats. That's exactly 1/3 of Texas' US House delegation, and 1/3 is more than Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.

Purple.

And those 12 are mostly very liberal Democrats, too. And liberal Democrats aren't just a recent phenomenon in Texas. Take Henry B Gonzalez, who represented Texas's 20th congressional district from 1961 to by-God 1999. According to Wikipedia,

González became known for his liberal views. In 1963, Republican congressman Ed Foreman called González a "communist" and a "pinko" and González confronted him. González was referred to as a "communist" in 1986 by a man at Earl Abel's restaurant, a popular San Antonio eatery. The 70-year-old representative responded by punching him in the face. González was acquitted of assault for this incident.

Yessir, that's a Texas Democrat for you: liberal and mean, and well-loved by his fellow Texans for both. Can you say Lyndon B Johnson? I know that you can. Yes, currently the most well-known Texas politicians outside of Texas are some Republican yahoos, but it might not be long before the most prominent politician from Texas in the US is someone like 39-year-old Joaquin Castro, who is now the Congressman from the 20th district, the same 20th district earlier represented by the 70-year-old who punched a yahoo in the face for callin' him a Commie and was aquitted of charges for it, or maybe Joaquin's twin brother Julián, currently the mayor of San Antonio, a little over half of which is in the 20th district. Whether they go nationwide or not, I'd say it probably couldn't hurt to be on good terms with the Castro family if you want to be a big shot in San Antonio. I'm just guessing. I'm also guessing that Texas will get a lot more blue in the next few years, but that's not just me, that's also most folks who know something about Texas politics and aren't so unbelievably stupid that they consider Ted Cruz to be a hero. People who can count past 10 without takin' off their socks. So brace yrselves, America! This'll be good!