| Maria Louisa Alvarado, Hank Gilbert, Dale Henry, J.R. Molina, Barbara, and I were the 2006 candidates who attended the meeting. Judge Bill Moody was not able to fly in to the meeting from El Paso. Judge Moody is very active in the discussions among the candidates, however, and is deeply interested in these issues. Chris Bell has not been participating in the group's discussions since November and did not respond to any of the emails or phone calls that were made to him about the meeting. Hank Gilbert was the first candidate to speak in the round-robin presentations at the meeting. Hank pointedly informed state party chair Boyd Richie that it was the Texas Democratic Party's job to exert its best efforts to generate an atmosphere of excitement and pride about the statewide candidates, but that the TDP did not do so. Every candidate present agreed that the state party did not attempt to build excitement or confidence about its 2006 statewide ticket. I spoke next after Hank. I cannot here recite everything I said, but I will come as close as I can to summarize my presentation and discussion for the sake of a historical record. I pointed out to Boyd that the biggest obstacle for the statewide ticket in 2006 was the constant drumbeat from the major metropolitan press about how the statewide Democratic ticket was composed of lightweights who were not to be taken seriously and could not possibly win. I asserted that it was a major duty of the TDP to exert maximum effort to counteract that atmosphere of defeatism about the statewide Democratic nominees, but that the state party made no serious attempt to do so. I know from personal discussion that every statewide candidate present at the meeting agrees on this point. I further asserted that the reason the TDP did not seriously promote the statewide nominees was that they weren't part of the game plan, because the game plan was solely to try to win 17 targeted state house races, roughly half of which involved Democratic challengers to Republican seats and roughly half of which involved defending Democratic incumbents. I stated to Boyd that the Texas Democratic Party has made winning legislative seats its priority since the first "battleground plan" of 1998. I stated that this has been and remains a huge mistake, because the legislative branch of government is the most indecisive, slowest-moving, unreliable branch of government in comparison with the Executive and Judicial Branches. I also stated that perhaps there was significant self-interest behind the legislative strategy in that perhaps the legislative branch of government provides the most patronage. I further pointed out how concentrating on closely contested or "swing" legislative districts ignores the highest concentrations across the state of Democratic base voters; the very reason they are swing districts is that they are not where the highest concentrations of Democratic base voters reside. I stated that if the party were serious about winning the statewide executive offices it would concentrate on turnout in the safe districts where the highest concentrations of Democratic base voters reside - it's the very reason they're safe districts. I further told Boyd that I clearly saw this happening in the 1998 campaign when selective legislative targeting strategies were first made the party's highest turnout priority - I was on the statewide ticket that year and I pointed out in party circles at the time that the targeting strategy was going to risk forfeiting the whole executive branch to the Republicans. The answer given to me in 1998 was that since we were coming up to a redistricting year, we needed to win as many legislative seats as possible. In reply, I pointed out at the time that we were thus shooting ourselves in the foot, because redistricting would reach a logjam in the legislature and go to the Legislative Redistricting Board, made up mostly of state executive officers, and by giving up the executive offices we would get plowed under at the LRB (with regard to state house and senate redistricting). Richard Raymond, who was running for Land Commissioner that year, hammered this point hard throughout the campaign. The inside targeters didn't listen. The party's turnout efforts disregarded most of the core Democratic base, we lost every executive office, the legislature stalemated on state house and senate redistricting, it went to the LRB, and the new Republican statewide executive officers easily had their way on that board. The rest is history. At the close of this narrative I posed a rhetorical question to Boyd, who was right and who was wrong in 1998? Hank pointed out that Tom Craddick's recent re-election as speaker of the house with the decisive votes of several House Democrats proved the failure of the party's legislative strategy; as Hank said, the fact that Democrats in the House could not hold together on such a huge issue demonstrates the foolishness of making legislative districts the party's top priority.
(To be continued)
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