Burnt Orange Report

Give to the Texas Dems!

By Byron LaMasters

It's always a good thing to have unity in an election year, but occasionally letting off a little steam isn't a bad thing. That's what Charles Soechting (TDP Chair) did today. The Houston Chronicle reports:

State Democratic Chairman Charles Soechting said Monday that he is disgusted that his national party has written Texas off as Republican and is urging financial donors from here to cut off the Democratic National Committee.

"Is a line drawn in the sand between myself and the DNC? Yes it is," Soechting said. "If you want good government in Texas, you start (by giving) at home."

Soechting said national party officials have taken the attitude that Texas is President Bush's home state and cannot be won.

"That is a loser, defeatist mentality," Soechting said. "I'm not willing to concede that Texas is not winnable. I'm just hearing too many good things around the state."

Soechting said he decided to start urging Texas donors to keep their money in the state after the DNC offered $5,000 to the Texas party to send staff to battleground states that could be won by the Kerry presidential campaign.

"I'm not sending a single person to another state when we have important races here. They want my best and brightest," Soechting said. "I've got people from the courthouse to the White House to elect."

I'll concede the DNC one point. John Kerry will not win Texas. George W. Bush will win the state of Texas on November 2nd, and Texas will cast our 34 electoral votes for George W. Bush. Having said that, Soechting makes a critical point. For years, Texas donors have sent millions of dollars to the DNC and other national committees (DCCC, DSCC), while declaring the situation in Texas as hopeless. Well - it's only hopeless if you say it is. The article goes on to state that Texans gave $15.4 Million to the DNC in 2002! $15-fucking-Million dollars! And for what?

Think about it for a minute. Was that $15.4 Million best spent with the DNC? Sure, they have a nice new office with better technology, and overall I give Terry McAuliffe a lot of credit for bringing the DNC to relative parity to the RNC - especially after McCain-Feingold. But do the math here. Where did that $15 Million get us nationally in 2002? We lost the Senate. We failed to retake the House. Patriots like Max Cleland and Walter Mondale went down to heartbreaking defeat.

What if that $15+ Million was spent on the thirty most competitive state legislative races in Texas? That's $500,000+ extra money in every race. What would that have meant? Electing another handful of Democratic state representatives might have kept Pete Laney the Speaker of the Texas House with a bipartisan coalition. Electing one more state senator (David Cain) would have meant that even when Sen. Quitmire (D-Houston) came back home, enabling the redistricting scheme to proceed last summer, there still would have been enough senators to deny a quorum. Either of these events would have prevented redistricting. And instead of talking about how we'd be lucky if three of the Texas Five win, we'd be talking about knocking off Henry Bonilla.

Texans have every reason to send our money to the state party over the DNC. Will the DNC ever put more money into Texas than they take? No. But if they see funds drying up, they'll give us more than a passing glance, and not insult us by bribing the state party for staff to send to swing states.

So Donate to the Texas Democratic Party, because good government starts at home.

And then, only afterwards, send your leftover change to the DNC.