Straus Lieutenants Heart Dan Branch

No comment necessary:

Majority of Texas House Republican Caucus Endorses Dan Branch

AUSTIN – A majority of the Republican Caucus in the Texas House of Representatives has endorsed Dan Branch for Texas Attorney General.

The 53 current legislators who stand with Texans for Dan Branch represent not only the majority of the Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives but also the backbone of the Texas House GOP.

These members represent a wide geographic cross-section of Texas, from the Panhandle and West Texas to the Piney Woods of East Texas and the Gulf Coast, as well millions of Texans from rural, suburban, and urban communities throughout the state. Texans for Dan Branch has support from some of the most senior members of the Texas House as well as members in their first and second terms.

“For the past 10 years, the Republican members of the Texas House of Representatives have led the way in passing conservative legislation that has been a model for our nation,” Branch said. “I have been proud to work alongside so many strong conservatives to support an environment that has helped foster the Texas Miracle while protecting limited government and traditional values. I am grateful for and honored by the generous support of my peers, and I look forward to continuing to work with them as the next Attorney General of Texas.”

The current list of Texas House Republicans who have endorsed Dan Branch for Attorney General is included in this release.

1. Representative Jimmie Don Aycock (Killeen)
2. Representative Cecil Bell (Magnolia)
3. Representative Dwayne Bohac (Houston)
4. Representative Greg Bonnen (League City)
5. Representative Cindy Burkett (Garland)
6. Representative Angie Chen Button (Richardson)
7. Representative Bill Callegari (Houston)
8. Representative Travis Clardy (Nacogdoches)
9. Representative Byron Cook (Corsicana)
10. Representative Drew Darby (San Angelo)
11. Representative John Davis (Houston)
12. Representative Sarah Davis (Houston)
13. Representative Gary Elkins (Houston)
14. Representative Marsha Farney (Georgetown)
15. Representative Allen Fletcher (Cypress)
16. Representative John Frullo (Lubbock)
17. Representative Charlie Geren (River Oaks)
18. Representative Lance Gooden (Athens)
19. Representative Patricia Harless (Spring)
20. Representative Linda Harper-Brown (Irving)
21. Representative Dan Huberty (Kingwood)
22. Representative Todd Hunter (Corpus Christi)
23. Representative Jason Isaac (Dripping Springs)
24. Representative Kyle Kacal (Bryan)
25. Representative Jim Keffer (Granbury)
26. Representative Ken King (Canadian)
27. Representative Susan King (Abilene)
28. Representative Tim Kleinschmidt (Lexington)
29. Representative Lois Kolkhorst (Brenham)
30. Representative John Kuempel (Seguin)
31. Representative Lyle Larson (San Antonio)
32. Representative George Lavender (Texarkana)
33. Representative JM Lozano (Kingsville)
34. Representative Doug Miller (New Braunfels)
35. Representative Jim Murphy (Houston)
36. Representative John Otto (Dayton)
37. Representative Chris Paddie (Marshall)
38. Representative Diane Patrick (Arlington)
39. Representative Larry Phillips (Sherman)
40. Representative Jim Pitts (Waxahachie)
41. Representative Four Price (Amarillo)
42. Representative John Raney (College Station)
43. Representative Bennett Ratliff (Coppell)
44. Representative Debbie Riddle (Tomball)
45. Representative Allan Ritter (Nederland)
46. Representative Kenneth Sheets (Dallas)
47. Representative J.D. Sheffield (Gatesville)
48. Representative Ralph Sheffield (Temple)
49. Representative Wayne Smith (Baytown)
50. Representative Phil Stephenson (Wharton)
51. Representative Jason Villalba (Dallas)
52. Representative Paul Workman (Austin)
53. Representative John Zerwas (Simonton)

 If Dan Branch wants to base his AG campaign on the support of Charlie Geren, Bennett Ratliff, and (Mr. Medicaid Expansion himself!) Jason Villalba, he can be our guest; is Tommy Williams next?!?

Captain Renault said it best:



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Update: Agendawise has more:

This self-generated publicity is a good snapshot for primary voters who get to see the liberal Branch’s concept of “conservative” – a Republican endorsement list with a D+ average on the 2011 scorecards of Empower Texans and Young Conservatives of Texas.

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Will the Texas Ethics Comission Stand for Justice or Joe Straus?!?

The Republican "leadership" of the Texas House's Obamaesque persecution of Michael Quinn Sullivan comes to a head today:

About 15 months ago two of House Speaker Joe Straus’ committee chairs filed unfounded “ethics complaints” against me and my organization, seeking to silence us from keeping you informed about state government. This week we learned that the complaints were actually concocted by a lead lobbyist for the Texas Trial Lawyers Association on behalf of Straus’ lieutenants.

State Rep. Jim Keffer imposed the business tax on Texas

The complaints filed against us by those committee chairs – moderate State Reps. Jim Keffer (R-Eastland) and Vicki Truitt (R-“defeated by Tarrant County voters in May 2012”) – will finally get a preliminary review hearing today in front of the Ethics Commission. That’s a commission to which Speaker Straus makes appointments and for which the legislature sets the budget. How cozy…

....

Depending on how this hearing goes, you can expect moderates to use the Ethics Commission to start prosecuting similarly frivolous against every Republican club president, tea party activist, blogger or social media user whose voice a legislator finds inconvenient. Unethical lawmakers will use Ethics Commission complaints like duct tape over the mouths of anyone who calls out their voting records.

When Jim and Vicki filed their complaints, they swore that these were their complaints. So when the Ethics Commission finally set the hearing – more than a year after I asked for an expedited hearing! – my legal team did the unthinkable: they subpoenaed Jim and Vicki to appear and explain themselves under oath.

Well, Vicki Truitt refused to accept the subpoena. The deposed former legislator told the process server that she wanted to have nothing to do with the complaint! (Funny how getting her hat handed to her by voters can have such an effect.) I say, good for Vicki; I guess she’s admitting her’s was a political stunt trying to mask the odor of an anti-taxpayer voting record.

....

Jim Keffer, meanwhile, wrote a letter to the Commission basically admitting that he knew nothing about the allegations in his own complaint and attached a statement from trial lawyer lobbyist Steve Bresnen saying it was Steve who did it. (The folks at AgendaWise.com have a great write up about Mr. Bresnan’s crusade for bloated government, besides his work shilling for trial lawyers.)

I’m sure attorneys will have other ways to say it, but it looks to me like Mr. Keffer’s admission highlights the abusiveness of his complaint and the process.

Put another way: Straus’ committee chairs were abusing the state’s Ethics process to pursue a political vendetta against us – and doing so with the assistance of (or at the direction of?) a lobbyist for the Trial Lawyers Association!

Read the whole thing here.

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Texas Politics Over the Next Few Months

There are several events in Texas that are either ongoing or coming up quickly; keep them in mind:

• Current Special Session (Until August 28) - The Texas Legislature is currently in session with Transportation funding the only item on the agenda.  Multiple well-informed sources have told us they doubt Governor Perry will add anything to the call, but since we're talking about Rick Perry one never knows.  Since legislators obviously haven't learned their lesson, the objective on Transportation funding remains to deny House Republican leadership the 100 votes they need to pass this boondoggle.

• State Board of Education Meeting (Sept. 17 - 20) - On the one hand, CSCOPE shenanigans continue.  On the other, this will be the only meeting during the ongoing science review.  On both hands, the Texas "Freedom" Network (aka. the mob) will be there; Cahnman's Musings actually found out about this event from their website....

• Voter Ratification of SJR 1 (Nov. 5; Early Voting - Oct. 21 - 31) - The water boondoggle passed during the general session still needs voter approval; just say no.

 This is a partial list, and other events will pop up, but keep these three on your radar screen at all times.

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Greg Abbott (plus free Beer) draws ENORMOUS Crowd in Austin

Cahnman's Musings attended Greg Abbott's Austin campaign kickoff event earlier tonight in Austin.  We didn't take notes or pictures.  We thus write from memory.

We were impressed.

Between Rick Perry's various campaigns and Ted Cruz's race last year, we've attended A LOT of campaign events in Austin.  Tonight was unique.  We've never seen this many people at an event for a Republican candidate.

There were easily 500  to 750 people present.  This wasn't just tea party folks.  Everyone was there.

General Abbott stated his opposition to having government pick winners and losers in the economy.  The implicit rebuke was obvious if subtle.  He made his opposition to crony capitalism in Austin clear.  Although he "didn't want to look backwards" regarding the current budget, General Abbott stated his opposition to future spending.  Cahnman's Musings looks forward to hearing General Abbott address these questions in detail.

The most impressive aspect of the event, however, was the size and energy of the crowd.  It packed out the side room at Scholz Garten.  Heading into Election 2014, Cahnman's Musings is VERY happy with the enthusiasm we will likely see at the top of the Republican ticket.

Time will tell, tonight's Abbott campaign event in Austin deserves an A+.

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With Pro-Life Legislation Passed; Texas House Republicans Return to Old Tricks

Having passed the pro-life legislation, Texas House Republicans are doing what they do best and hoping the voters won't notice; a must-read piece from Empower Texans, money quote:

To no one’s surprise, the Texas House choose easier spending over common sense protections for the state’s Economic Stabilization Fund. When given an opportunity to put a “floor” for the ESF into the transportation funding bill debated yesterday, 20 moderate Republicans sided with Democrats instead of conservatives. 

During the 1st special session, House and Senate leaders tentatively agreed to a transportation-funding bill SJR 2 that would have diverted half of the oil and gas severance taxes that fill the ESF into the State Highway Fund. To ensure that the would still maintain a healthy balance despite half the revenue, the Senate added a provision to stop the funding diversion if the balance fell below a minimum threshold.

This time around, House leadership caved to Democrats and passed out of the Appropriations committee without the same constitutional protection for the ESF that was present in SJR 2. With reasonable protections on the ESF, reports say, Democrats would withdraw their support of the bill – which would have made it much more difficult to meet the 100 vote threshold needed to pass a constitutional amendment.

Freshman State Rep.Ron Simmons offered an amendment to add the safeguard provision back in, requiring the ESF to have balance equal to 1/3 of its capacity before oil & gas taxes could be funneled off. Of course, moderates seeking more sources of revenue sided with Democrats and supported a motion to table the amendment on unofficial count of
70 – 49.   

One positive to take away from yesterday is that only 92 members voted to pass HJR 2 on 2^ndreading. Because it amends the state constitution, it will require a hard 100 votes on 3^rd;reading in order to be submitted to the voters in November. Though with more than 20 members absent, House leadership will be whipping hard for eight more votes by the time they reconvene on Thursday.

 This is disappointing, but not surprising; read the whole piece here.

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Freedomworks Talks Battleground Texas

This is a few weeks old, but we didn't see it during the abortion debate:



Highlights:

•  Activists are getting turned off by the GOP's shenaningans.
• Personal Note: DUH 

•  The state GOP has yet to reveal their plan.

• 9.5 million Latinos in Texas but only 2.3 million voted last year

• A clear, consistent message of limited government and economic opportunity appeals to all demographic groups.

• For the Record: Colorado was NEVER a solidly red state

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Pro-Abortion Left's Valiant Stand for ... Tampons?!?

About an hour and fifteen minutes ago (6:25 pm CDT) the pro-abortion mob re-assembled in the Texas Capitol rotunda. They were chanting about tampons. Seriously:



Of course, when those mean old Republicans are trying to take away your tampons, there's only ONE response...TAMPON TRAMPOLINE!!!

Or tampoline?!?



Cahnman's Musings urges readers to pray for these morons poor lost souls.

Update: A friend snapped this picture of the pro-abortion people handing out tampons to the crowd:

 

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History Lesson: Joe Straus and Planned Parenthood

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice;
But when a wicked man rules, the people groan.
Proverbs 29:2

Heading into the second special session of the 83rd Texas Legislature, Cahnman's Musings is thrilled to see how many ideologically sympathetic Christians are paying detailed attention for the first time.  This type of civic stewardship has been missing in America for a long time.  Welcome.

Cahnman's Musings feels led to warn you about the political games that get played in the Texas Legislature.  The Texas Legislature, especially the Republican leadership of the Texas House, loves to talk a big game while working behind the scenes to maintain the status quo.  Behind most of the shenanigans, you find Texas House Speaker Joe Straus (R - Lobbyists San Antonio).

And Joe Straus has a long history with Planned Parenthood.

During the 1990's, Straus' wife served on the board for the San Antonio chapter of Planned Parenthood.  In 2007, Straus co-authored sex-ed legislation that was supported by Planned Parenthood.  In 2008, Planned Parenthood donated money to Straus' re-election campaign.  In 2009, Planned Parenthood thanked Straus for his efforts (after he had become speaker).  Just yesterday, Straus sided with Wendy Davis over Governor Perry.

During the first special session, there was speculation that Straus was working to delay the bill.  Who knows?!?  But it does seem strange that a shrewd legislative tactician like Joe Straus would mismanage the calendar by accident.

As a Christian, we believe in grace.  But as a Reaganite, we also believe in 'trust but verify.'  It is time for the Republican leadership in the Texas House to verify.

Babies lives are at stake.  This is no time for political games from the Republican leadership of the Texas House. Cahnman's Musings will be watching.

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Texas GOP History: When John Cornyn Replaced Phil Gramm

Cahnman's Musings just had an epiphany about when the GOP descended from the (relatively) principles-based party of the 1980's and 90's to the rudderless mess it is today.  We think it came during the midterm election of 2002.  In Texas, that was the year John Cornyn replaced Phil Gramm.

(Author's note: 2002 was also the year Bob Dole's wife replaced Reaganite Jesse Helms in North Carolina.)

First elected to the United States Senate in 1984 (following three colorful (party switching) terms in the U.S. House), Phil Gramm was a key Congressional Lieutenant for President Reagan.  Over his quarter century career, Phil Gramm helped launch and maintain the quarter century Reagan boom.  In 2002, he retired from public service.

John Cornyn, by contrast, was a close confidant of Karl Rove.  Rove helped launch Cornyn's career in the 1990's.  Over his decade in Congress, John Cornyn's record speaks for itself.

The mess in today's Republican party has many origins, but replacing a principled Reganite like Phil Gramm with a Rovian jellyfish like John Cornyn explains a lot.

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Would Wayne Christian Challenge Senator John Cornyn?!?

It's not a secret that Cahnman's Musings would like to see a primary challenge to Senator John Cornyn; the question is who will do it.  We've proposed having Senator Ted Cruz's father Rafael and Tea Party Superstar Katrina Pierson take this challenge.  Today, we have another idea.

How about former Texas State Rep. Wayne Christian?!?

The most important thing for grassroots Texans to understand about Wayne Christian is that the leadership of the Texas State House hates his guts; in fact, they hate him so much that they redistricted him out of his seat in 2011.

In other words, Wayne Christian already has a long record of confronting clowns on the Republican side of the aisle; willingness to confront Republican 'leadership' is one of the biggest things we need more of in Washington.

Similar to Katrina, Wayne Christian would enter this race with credibility and name recognition.  He's been through the ringer before, so he knows how to run a general election campaign.  If Wayne Christian had skeletons in his closet, Joe Straus would have dug them up by now.

As we wrote back in April:

John Cornyn is a nice guy.  That's the problem.  Nice guys like John Cornyn, who lack the internal fortitude to defeat this President (or any potential 2016 successor), are why the Republican party keeps finishing last.  John Cornyn voted for TARP.  John Cornyn voted for the 2011 Debt Ceiling deal.  John Cornyn voted for the Fiscal Cliff Senators never improve in third terms.

 Someone needs to step up, preferably someone with campaign experience; Wayne Christian would be a darn good choice.

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Status of the #TXLEGE Special Session

Today's Austin American-Statesman has an update on the special session:

The special session started May 27 with predictions from legislative leaders that they could wrap up their one piece of business -- redistricting -- in as little as three days.  But rather than simply approve court-drawn maps for Congress and the Texas House, legislators decided to consider changes to the district boundaries and to solicit input from Texans in hearings across the state.  Now, the initial optimism has given way to grumbling about the slow pace and predictions that the session could drag out for most, if not all, of its maximum 30 days.

And we don't know if the Governor will add anything:

 [Lt. Gov. David] Dewhurst has asked Gov. Rick Perry to include guns [sic] laws, tougher abortion restrictions, windstorm insurance changes, and other topics to the agenda.  Conservative House Republicans have asked for other items.  And prosecutors are asking that a new loophole in the state's death penalty law covering 17-year-olds be plugged.

 Only Perry can add subjects to the agenda.  So far, he has remained non-committal, although he hinted to reporters last week that he would want some indication there is consensus on an issue before he added it.

So far, there appears to be no consensus on much of anything.  And, with the clock ticking, an increasing number of lawmakers are openly doubting that bills on other subjects could go through the process -- filing, public hearings, and floor votes in both chambers -- by the time the session ends.

Cahnman's Musings will have more to say on this topic next week

 

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Can Obama's Organizing Army Take Texas?!?

New information on Battleground Texas from the American Prospect

• Why Democrats should be extremely cautious:

 Republicans have continued to gain congressional and legislative seats over the past decade, even as Texas’s Latino population has swelled....Bird and Brown cite Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada as models for turning out Latinos. But none of those states has more than 516,000 Latino citizens total—which is fewer than the number of Latino citizens in Houston’s Harris County alone.

•  Then, we get into nuts and bolts:

The initial focus will be to create a massive network of Democratic organizers and volunteers across the state....A full-scale plan for “getting that started” won’t be rolled out until this summer. But Jeremy Bird offers a few more details. In the next couple of election cycles, Battleground Texas will target “battleground zones”—races that organizers believe could either be winnable or could help Democrats build infrastructure by training new candidates and registering voters. A battleground zone could be a city council race with a promising young Latino candidate in Waco or a state House race in a heavily minority district in Houston. The idea is to seize every viable opportunity to build new Democratic networks around the state, creating new voters along the way.

•  Recent examples of when this sort of thing has worked(*):

The leaders of Battleground Texas say there’s reason for optimism—partly because there is some recent history of grassroots politics working in Texas. During the 2010 midterm elections, Austin Democratic Party Chair Andy Brown selected 21 largely black and Latino precincts where turnout had traditionally been low and pledged to run the type of hardcore turnout campaigns usually reserved for the wealthier, whiter parts of town. With a paid field staff organizing volunteers, the Travis County Democrats knocked on every registered voter’s door in those precincts two or three times and called each one at least twice. The effort paid off: Although 2010 was the worst year in history for Texas Democrats, 18 percent more ballots were cast in Travis County and the number of straight-ticket Democratic voters went up 54 percent. “There was nothing fancy about it,” Brown says. “It was a really well-run field program.”

A similar strategy has also worked wonders in Dallas. In 2006, Democrats in Texas’s oldest Republican stronghold bucked convention by spending as much on phone-banking and door-to-door campaigning as on media ads and mailers. The results were stunning: Democrats swept all 47 local offices, including 40 judgeships that had previously belonged to Republicans.

 (Author's Note: We were lived in Travis County during the 2010 election and it was not clean.)

• The Bottom Line for both parties:

If Democrats can galvanize Houston’s nonvoters, they will [Author's Note: could] be well on their way to turning Texas blue. But all those years of ignoring minorities will make it a formidable task. 

 The whole article is worth a read, but it doesn't change anything.  Conservatives across the state of Texas need to build up from the local level.  And we've already had some successes.

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Update (6/11/2013): Agendawise calls this a bluff.

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Austin Chronicle Mischaracterizes Travis County Taxpayers Union

Those also who seek my life lay snares for me;
Those who seek my hurt speak of destruction,
And plan deception all the day long.

Psalm 38:12 

Perusing this story in the Austin Chronicle, by Richard Whittaker, about the strange timing of certain AISD personnel moves, Cahnman's Musings noticed this paragraph:

But opposition to the school bond cannot be written off solely to posturing by Repub­lican front groups. [Emphasis Mine] Last November's board elections became a community referendum on Carstarphen, and the 2013 bond election is shaping up the same way. If voters have too little faith in her ability to manage their funds, that could endanger dollars for essential investments.

 The antecedent to which the phrase "Republican front groups" refers is the Travis County Taxpayers Union, a local watchdog group (Full disclosure: Cahnman's Musings is loosely working with TCTU on the bond issue).  While Whittaker doesn't explain this designation, our educated guess is that is that Whittaker based his claim on the fact that TCTU president Don Zimmerman is a former member of the Texas State Republican Executive Committee.  Unfortunately, for Richard Whittaker, recent history belies the "Republican Front Group" allegation.

Last fall, the Travis County Taxpayers Union opposed Prop. 1, a hospital bond that Rick Perry supported; does Richard Whittaker honestly believe a "Republican front group" would oppose an initiative supported by Rick Perry?!?

This low-turnout May election deserves honest coverage, without reckless charges being thrown in the press; this sort of media coverage is yet another reason voters should slow this process down and vote AGAINST AISD props 1-4.

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Texas U.S. Senate 2014: Draft Rafael Cruz

John Cornyn needs a primary challenge; Rafael Cruz is the strongest candidate Texas conservatives can field.

If you were involved with Senator Cruz's campaign last year, you probably met his father.  If so, you know why he's the strongest candidate.  If you've never met him, just understand that Rafael Cruz is the man who taught Senator Cruz to cherish freedom.

In 1957, Rafael Cruz was an 18 year old in Batista's Cuba.  After being arrested and brutally tortured, Rafael Cruz fled to Texas with with $100 pinned to his underwear.  Unable to speak English, he took a job washing dishes at the University of Texas for fifty cents an hour.  From UT, Rafael Cruz founded a successful data processing company for the energy industry.  He is also a Baptist pastor!

As he lived the American dream, Rafael Cruz outgrew the fantasies of his Castro-supporting youth.  As he explained:

"The people are allowed to buy a pound of meat per month," he said.  "If you violate the rules, you get thrown in a prison cell for years."  He told us of a friend from Cuba who visited Texas and went to dinner at a restaurant.  "When he saw the size of the steak on his plate, he broke down crying," Rafael said.  "'This would feed my family for a month.'"

 Texans deserve that kind of representation in the United States Senate.

When something works well, you keep doing it.  The lessons taught in the Cruz household three decades ago have blessed Texas.  Texas voters should leverage those lessons for maximum return.

John Cornyn is a nice guy.  That's the problem.  Nice guys like John Cornyn, who lack the internal fortitude to defeat this President (or any potential 2016 successor), are why the Republican party keeps finishing last.  John Cornyn voted for TARP.  John Cornyn voted for the 2011 Debt Ceiling deal.  John Cornyn voted for the Fiscal Cliff.  Senators never improve in third terms.

The best way to replace John Cornyn is to draft Rafael Cruz; it's that simple.

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Don't Overreact to Texas House Medicaid Shenanigans

Sigh, of course they did.

Last night, during the budget debate, Texas House Republicans played a dangerous game with Medicaid expansion.  Thankfully, they backed down before they did any damage.  The true colors of the Republican caucus in the Texas State House are, yet again, on display to anyone paying attention.

That being said, there is too much doom and gloom today; while many are guilty, this hysterical post from Erick Erickson at Redstate takes the cake:

Late Thursday afternoon, the Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives took the first step toward capitulation on the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. A few hours later, the amendment directing the Texas state healthcare bureaucracy to start preparing for the expansion was reconsidered and rescinded after a handful of conservatives scrambled to rescue the situation — but the fact that it passed at all is a wake-up call.

Here’s the bottom line: Texas is closer to caving on the Obamacare Medicaid expansion than people realize. It’s no surprise that Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, elected with the votes of Democrats and liberal Republicans, would let this happen.

.....

There’s no excuse for this happening in Texas. It’s time for Texas conservatives — and their conservative Governor — to wake up and take the reins before the 83rd Texas Legislative session spirals completely out of control.

Everyone needs to calm down.  Nothing new happened last night.  We've known that Joe Straus sucks for quite some time.  That Texas House Republicans are a bunch of cowards also isn't news.  While the Texas Senate and the Governor leave us cautiously optimistic, conservatives have known we would have to fight tooth and nail in the House since the beginning of the session.

So what, pray tell, is new here?!?

Also, for the record, Rick Perry outlined his Medicaid alternative at CPAC.

People need to pace themselves.  The real work of the session happens in May.  Wasting energy on a tempest in an April teapot won't accomplish anything.  It's a beautiful day in Austin.  Enjoy your weekend.

Update: Erickson has backed off from the Ledge.

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Texas Tribune: Battleground Texas Reveals Their Weaknesses

The Texas Tribune had an interview yesterday with Jeremy Bird, the director of Battleground Texas.  In the interview, Bird tips his hand on strategy.  Some highlights:

Dems plan to boost turnout (and, even though they don't say it out loud, fraud):

Bird contends that Republicans' confidence is based on elections in which only about half of the state has turned out to vote. “We’ll see what happens when we start to get 60 or 65 or 70 percent turnout. It’s going to look very different,”

 This is a point conservatives would do well to heed.  The Obama campaign made it a priority to register marginal voters and get them to the polls.  There's no reason to believe they couldn't make headway with a similar effort in Texas.  The caution to Democrats, however, is that this is a double-edged sword.  There are dozens (if not hundreds) of people who don't vote in every Church across this state.

Bird reveals their timetable:

Part of the reason that [the Obama campaign] won Florida in 2012 is that we had had a grassroots program running for six years with all the components — digital, communications, field, data, analytics — all of them put together into a 21st century modern campaign that worked for people's votes.

Six years from today would mean that Democrats intend to compete statewide around 2018.  That's not impossible, but it does mean there's plenty of time between now and then for events to intervene.  Personally, we think the global economy will collapse before Battleground Texas has time to execute this plan; when that happens, it will reshuffle the deck of domestic politics in a way Battleground Texas doesn't anticipate.

The specifics of how they plan to boost turnout:

We have to do that here. And it can’t just happen in one part of the state; it has to happen across the state. We need to touch places where we’re getting 25 percent of the vote and get 32 percent of the vote. It’s not necessarily about winning all those places, but we have to compete there. And then we have to have higher turnout in places that have already gone blue.

The point about going from 25 percent to 32 percent in hostile territory is an interesting one Cahnman's Musings had not thought about.  That's a good strategy in a vacuum.  However, like we said earlier, it's a strategy that cuts both ways.  We live in Austin, and there is an untapped pool of potential conservative voters right here.  Both sides are going to work overtime to boost turnout.

Then, almost as an afterthought, Bird lets the cat out of the bag:

In order to do this right, we’re going to have to raise the money, the grassroots money to do it and then ultimately transition that into a 21st century campaign with real organizers in neighborhoods working for every single vote.

If you only take one point away from this post, make it this one: the left doesn't (yet) have the money to pull this off.  The ONLY WAY they will get the money they need is if Republicans expand state government for them.  That's how the left took over Colorado.  That's why School Choice and Medicaid are such important fights.  The left will only acquire the resources necessary to swing Texas if Republicans give them a bigger government from which to siphon money.

Finally, Bird closes out with a cryptic (and bizarre) statement:

There are millions of kids in this state who are currently being denied access to health insurance because of the current governor.

We have no idea what Bird's talking about, but our educated guess is that he's talking about Rick Perry's refusal to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. That's bizarre; Medicaid is a failed program that exploits the vulnerable.  If Battleground Texas wants to make expanding substandard Health Care their central argument, go for it!

Bottom line: The Left intends to get more of their people to the polls than they have in the past (which will also make fraud easier).  Cahnman's Musings expects them to pull that off.  What the left cannot control, however, is turnout on our side.  There are plenty of untapped potential Conservative voters in this state; Cahnman's Musings goes to Church with hundreds of them.  The challenge for conservatives in Texas will be to increase engagement among folks who already agree with us but don't necessarily vote.

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Why Colorado Turned Blue (and the future of Texas) -- The Missing Link

"Colorado, what kind of pansy girls have you become?!?....We need some MEN in Texas."  Glenn Beck, Radio, March 5 2013, Bottom of the First Hour.

Last night, this diary on Redstate made the rounds.  It is a warning to Texans that Democrats can turn Texas blue the same way they turned Colorado blue in the mid-2000's.  There is another aspect of this story, however, that Texas Republicans would be well served to remember.

In 2002, National Review named (then) Colorado Governor Bill Owens America's Best Governor.  At the time, Owens had established a track record as a conservative reformer and he was re-elected by the largest margin in Colorado history.  At the time, Colorado had a strict spending cap known called the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR); more on that in a minute. Then came the budget battle of 2003 and, specifically, a fight over school finance.  During that battle, the left savaged Governor Owens.

Following that budget fight, Bill Owens lost his nerve.  In 2005, Bill Owens sold his soul to the Democrats and backed Prop. C, which gutted TABOR.  Gutting TABOR opened the floodgates of big government, and Colorado has since been hopelessly blue.

So, what does this mean for Republicans in Texas in 2013?!?

It means that money matters.  Beyond the obvious flaws, big government is also a money laundering scheme for the Democrat party.  When Colorado Republicans caved to the grow-government crowd, they signed their death warrant.

Ten days ago, we outlined big-ticket items for the 83rd Legislature: Texas Budget Compact, School Choice, Medicaid, Transparency, and Margins Tax Elimination.  The reason these five reforms are big ticket items is that, over they long-run, each keeps money in the hands of citizens and out of the hands of government.  Credit where its due, Texas Republicans had a good start to the week.

The key is to stay on public-policy offense.  If Texas Republicans do that, they'll be fine.  If they don't, they'll deserve what they get.

Update: A longtime Texas Political Observer writes in to add:

It's good to have outsiders such as the folks from Labor Union Report writing  articles, if only to create a sense of urgency for action. However:

 1) Unlike previous Democratic efforts in Texas that were built around remnants of Martin Frost’s congressional operation, Battleground Texas is almost entirely  out-of-state talent. Texas’ political culture is unlike DC or virtually any other state. If you don't understand the history and the nuances, you're going to make a fool of yourself. Even a couple of weeks in, it's obvious that these folks don't get Texas.

2) The Right already has the seven capacities in place in Texas. In fact, once we saw what the Left had done in Colorado, our side immediately moved to ensure that those seven capacities existed in Texas. Colorado was their proof of  concept, Texas is ours.

3) Texas Republicans have done far better with Hispanic voters than the party in most other states. If we can hang on to 35-40% of the Hispanic vote going forward, we'll be fine. Plus we're beginning to develop a good bench of Hispanic Republican officeholders throughout the state, including in heavily Hispanic regions.
 
4) To become the majority, Democrats have to make up 17 points at the statewide level, pick up 4 Senate seats when the only vulnerable one is theirs, and flip 21 House seats when their only real opportunities are in the cities of Dallas and Houston, which are declining in influence compared to their suburbs which are heavily Republican. They’ve maxed out in Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso, and the rural areas north of IH-10 are wholly conservative.
 
5) The Democrats have won zero statewide races since 1994 and have zero infrastructure outside the urban counties. Heck, there were close to 20 counties last year where they didn't conduct a primary because they couldn't find anyone willing to have their name listed as a county chairman. (The Republicans had primaries in all 254.) And the potentially viable statewide candidates in the Democrats’ pipeline can be counted on one hand.

6) The latest survey data indicates that 47 percent of Texans have “strongly unfavorable” opinions of the President.
 
If conservatives totally mess things up, Texas could turn purple in 2022. But it would have to be total. 

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Texas House Republicans do the right thing (for now) on Medicaid

Phew; Texas House Republicans voted overwhelmingly to support Governor Perry and not expand Medicaid.

This should take Medicaid expansion under Obamacare off the table until after the next election. (Update: No, it won't).

I'll (still) take it.

Update II: Sunshine State Sarah (of Texas) reports more good news out of Florida.

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ACTION ALERT: Texas House Republicans Cave on Obamacare?!?

Wow; according to RedState, Texas House Republicans are going wobbly on Obamacare:

Republican Texas State Representatives will [meet] at 1pm CT today consider caving on Obamacare.

According to our sources, both inside and outside the legislature, that's not going to happen.  Texas House Republicans seem to understand the folly of Medicaid expansion.  Still, it never hurts to remind them how you feel.

First, contact YOUR legislator via the link above; also, we recommend you also contact House Speaker Joe Straus; the Texas House Speaker website doesn't give the number to his Capital Office, but you can reach his district office at (210) 828-4411.

Update: You can also reach the Speaker on Twitter: @speakerstraus

Empower Texans has more here.

Update II (7 pm): Texas House Republicans did the right thing.

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