So lets just take the dam state back.

[txaslftist]

I grew up in San Antonio, moved to Waco for schoolin', lived in Italy (Texas) for a while...

Then I moved to a blue state for 10 years.

Now I'm back, ever since the summer. In Lubbock, of all places.

About the time I was in High School, you couldn't win a statewide election without being a democrat. Governor Richards shook my hand when I was a new prosecutor, about early 1992.

Then the elections come along and suddenly the Rebublicans have taken over the state, its as red as red gets, you can't win an election unless your a republican, democrats are as rare as hen's teeth...

Waaah.

There's nothing set in stone that says Texas is a red state. So they have more money than us. So what? They've always had more money than us.

They claim to have a lock on god...horse-shit. So a bunch of high dollar churches in Dallas and Houston are run by Republicans; who gives a tinker's dam?

Democrats have never been welcome in them churches anyway. You and I well know that god is on the side of the Democrats, and has been ever since the civil rights movement.

Farmers and ranchers have been voting red for a long time, and the reds have been ripping them off. That's the message they need to get. Oil field workers and blue collar workers have been getting ripped off, too. The republicans have gotten them to vote against their economic interest by scaring them with terror alerts, blacks stealing their jobs, homos seducing them out of their stetsons and into pink berets, all of that propaganda horse-shit.

Meanwhile, they've been taken to the cleaners and the reason no child has been left behind in Texas is that ALL the children aren't going anywhere in the Texas education system.

As Dr. Phil would ask, how's that workin' for you?

It's as simple as that. Call a shovel a shovel and shovel republican shit out of our way. The more we speak simple truth to power, the more the democrats will come out ahead.

In their heart of hearts, Texans are democrats. They just don't know it yet.

[eallen]

1. Well, you, Hightower, and Ivins make three. :evilgrin:

[eallen]

3. PS: I live in the bluest neighborhood of the bluest major city in Texas.

That tells you where I live, within a quarter mile or so. :hippie:

[pop goes the weasel]

5. hyde park, then? nt

[Gato Moteado]

8. you either live in south austin (78704)......

or in montrose district in houston.

[Wwagsthedog]

2. Maybe there is hope

David Sirota thinks so.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8956

As the Democratic Party goes through its quadrennial self-flagellation process, the same tired old consultants and insiders are once again complaining that Democratic elected officials have no national agenda and no message.

Yet encrypted within the 2004 election map is a clear national economic platform to build a lasting majority. You don’t need Fibonacci’s sequence, a decoder ring, or 3-D glasses to see it. You just need to start asking the right questions.

Where, for instance, does a Democrat get off using a progressive message to become governor of Montana? How does an economic populist Democrat keep winning a congressional seat in what is arguably America’s most Republican district? Why do culturally conservative rural Wisconsin voters keep sending a Vietnam-era anti-war Democrat back to Congress? What does a self-described socialist do to win support from conservative working-class voters in northern New England?

The answers to these and other questions are the Democrats' very own Da Vinci Code -- a road map to political divinity. It is the path Karl Rove fears. He knows his GOP is vulnerable to Democrats who finally follow leaders who have translated a populist economic agenda into powerful cultural and values messages. It also threatens groups like the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which has pushed the Democratic Party to give up on its working-class roots and embrace big business' agenda. These New Democrats, backed by huge corporate contributions, say that the party must reduce corporate regulation and embrace a free-trade policy that is wiping out local economies throughout the heartland. They have the nerve to call this agenda “centrist” even though poll after poll shows it is far out of the mainstream. Yet these centrists get slaughtered at the ballot box, and their counterparts -- the progressive economic populists -- are racking up wins and relegating the DLC argument to the scrap heap.

<more>, if you have the time...........

[txaslftist]

4. dam! Thanks for that link!

Hit that sucker right on the nose, he did.

[Gothmog]

6. There is hope

I hope that we can take the state back but it is going to take some work.

[crispini]

7. AMEN.

And we've got a *great* populist in David Van Os.

True story: I called up the people at www.winwithlanguage.com, which is the George Lakoff DVD, to order 10 copies to show at our parties in December. I informed them that we would be taking Texas back shortly.

They informed me that someone from Houston had called the day before, ordered 20 copies, and told them the same thing.

There's something out there at the grassroots -- I can feel it.

[Brazosboomer]

13. Well hell's bells -----

I also ordered 5 copies of each for Fort Bend County.

Note: Amazon has the book for $7.50 with no shipping if you order $25 worth. Great deal.

We're gonna change the face of Texas, yessirsee.

[txaslftist]

24. That's the Spirit!!

Let's get on it!

[Warpy]

9. Time to get the word out about that Village People cowboy

squatting in the people's house in Washington. He's a pretend cowboy, a TV Texan, a soap opera Texan. It's high time to get the word out that he's a Connecticut blueblood distantly related to the Queen of England and who wants a return of monarchy in this country with his family at the top.

Out the little bastard for what he is. Real Texans should hang their heads in shame for being fooled by this Ivy League fake.

[montieg]

10. Whoooeeee!!! , Warpy,

YOU FREAKIN' ROCK!!!! I been tryin every chance I get to call out the drugstore cowboy. But I never considered the term 'Village People Cowboy' Freakin Fantastic!

[Beyond]

11. It will be a long road...

...to travel to take the state back. Are you up for the challenge? I too remember Texas being a Democrate strong hold and the Democratic Party representing the people rather than Corporate America. Over time this has changed, the leadership has loss touch with it's base, is not addressing the needs, desires and wishes of the people it is suppose to be representing.

[txaslftist]

12. So we need a populist platform tailored to Texas.

What should it include?

[crispini]

14. Clean FUCKIN air.

I'm tired of breathing soup.

[txaslftist]

15. Okay...

Item 1: Clean Air.

Next?

[crispini]

16. I think we should do sort of a combo rural / urban thing.

For example, I live in a city, so I'm interested in:
- clean air
- better public transportation
- lower property taxes (this ties in with school finance reform, because that's where all of our property taxes went this month)

And then of course there's my pet issue: Voting reform -- no BBV! That's probably a real urban thing too.

Not sure what rural voters want, are there specific landowner and farmer issues? I bet they'd be into school finance reform too.

I just kind of think that if you look at the three ways we live: rural / urban / suburban -- that we urban Dems have more potential to hit a populist vein in common with the rurals rather than the suburbans. Maybe?

I'd like to see this state NOT be a right to work state anymore, for one thing. Lotta ol' union guys around here.

[txaslftist]

17. So let's do that:

URBAN PLATFORM:
Item 1: Clean Fuckin' Air.
Item 2: Better Public Transportation
Item 3: Lower Property Taxes
Item 4: Support for Unions


RURAL PLATFORM:

[crispini]

19. Ooooooo, oooh, I've got one for both!

REDISTRICTING REFORM!

Require redistricting to be done every 10 years by a bi-partisan committee. Require districts to follow some kind of natural constituency, i.e. geographic lines or something. Not too clear about this, what I mean is "no really weird-ass districts, and make a district sort of represent a community of people."

You better BELIEVE that what they put us through the last go around pissed a lot of people off, both rural and urban.

[txaslftist]

20. Got it!

URBAN PLATFORM:
Item 1: Clean Fuckin' Air.
Item 2: Better Public Transportation
Item 3: Lower Property Taxes
Item 4: Support for Unions
Item 5: Redistricting Reform -bipartisan, following the census.


RURAL PLATFORM:
Item 1: Redistricting Reform -bipartisan, following the census.

[txaslftist]

18. Since we've essentially been quarantined...

by the national party, we sort of have an opportunity to build the Texas democratic party platform from the ground up, don't we?

[crispini]

21. Well, we're pretty much going to have to take it over.

Seeing as it does kind of already exist. :D Just for shits and grins, here's last year's platform:

http://www.txdemocrats.org/about/platform/

[txaslftist]

22. You're gonna laugh, but...

when I tried to pop over on your link my computer told me the page doesn't exist.

Besides, isn't it more fun to pretend it doesn't?

Then we can invent our own platform, get it all done, then see how it stacks up. I'm putting separation of church and state on my lists.

[txaslftist]

23. As amended

URBAN PLATFORM:
Item 1: Clean Fuckin' Air.
Item 2: Better Public Transportation
Item 3: Lower Property Taxes
Item 4: Support for Unions
Item 5: Redistricting Reform -bipartisan, following the census.
Item 6: Separation of church and state

RURAL PLATFORM:
Item 1: Redistricting Reform -bipartisan, following the census.
Item 2: Separation of church and state.

[NoPasaran]

25. Here's a few more ideas

Clean fuckin' water
Voting reform: Allow voting at early voting locations on election day itself, in addition to individual precincts
Either a paper ballot, or a voter-verifiable electronic ballot
Right of every child to an adequate education and health care
I would rather have redistricting be a NON-partisan process, instead of the two parties carving the state into two sets of "safe" districts

[crispini]

26. Right, that's better.

Non-partisan, not bi-partisan.

[txaslftist]

27. Adding them in:

URBAN PLATFORM:
Item 1: Clean Fuckin' Air/clean fuckin' water.
Item 2: Better Public Transportation
Item 3: Lower Property Taxes
Item 4: Support for Unions
Item 5: Redistricting Reform -nonpartisan, following the census.
Item 6: Separation of church and state
Item 7: Voting Reform, paper ballots.
Item 8: Adequate education and health care for every child.

RURAL PLATFORM:
Item 1: Redistricting Reform -bipartisan, following the census.
Item 2: Separation of church and state.
Item 3: Voting Reform, paper ballots.
Item 4: Adequate education and health care for every child.

Keep them coming, but no cheating by looking at the regular State Platform. This is OUR platform, not the DLCs.