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In my time as Editor (now Publisher) of Burnt Orange Report, I have occasionally taken the liberty of talking about my hometown of Fredericksburg in Gillespie County out west of Austin in the beautiful Texas Hill Country. Today, I'm going to use it as an example of why this 2008 Democratic primary is one for the record books.
Gillespie County, in the good times, is 20% Democratic. It has had no Democratic candidates run for local office in decades (other than Daniel Boone for state rep which covers multiple counties. My father, a city councilman there, is the only (non-partisan) elected and open Democrat in town. We do have a great county chair in George Keller who has helped build the local organization from a half dozen people meeting in the backroom of Gatti's Pizza to regular meetings of about 40 active Democrats of a more diverse nature.
But this email from my mother underscores what we are seeing all over the state.
Forgot to tell you last night at the Democratic meeting- we had about 100 people come! That's about 4 times as many as usual. We had quite a few from Kerrville (even 3 African-Americans) who came for the Obama get together.
After the meet, we broke up into Obama and Hillary groups, about 6 for Hillary, about 80 for Obama (including those from Kerrville). (A few people had to leave early). The Hillary group went out in the hall.
So that is how Gill County shapes up for the candidates!
We had two really good Obama people there from the Austin office. The signs and bumper stickers got snapped up, I have a sign in the yard now!
It was a good meet up, people are very excited. I have yet to see a McCain or Hillary bumper sticker anywhere, but there are several Obama ones out!
This is what amazes me. I know Gillespie County and the average age of the Democratic primary voting electorate is probably 65+. These are folks who knew LBJ personally (who was the last Democrat to carry the county, in large part, because he brought the Chancellor of Germany to town before his election). According to the census, there are only about 70 African Americans that live there out of ~20,000 residents so it's whiter than Iowa & New Hampshire. And yet given all that, it was 80-6 Obama/Clinton in yesterday's meeting? I can't explain it. It's not normal.
Even crazier- the breakdown of the mail ballot requests, which typically are even more Republican than the 80-20 split the county is normally. From the local paper yesterday...
"As far as Democratic voting goes, I don't think I've ever seen it this heavy before," said [Republican County Clerk Mary Lyn Rusche].
In addition to Tuesday's walk-in voting activity, her staff was also processing 117 Republican and 68 Democratic requests for mail-in ballots.
Democratic mail ballot requests were 37% of the total. That just doesn't happen. And this is even in the face of hotly contested GOP primary races- a 4 way contest for the open seat of county Tax Assessor-Collector and a contest for County Commissioner which normally pulls over all the Dems to vote in the GOP primary so they can decide their local elected officials.
My point in telling this story, is that I think we are seeing a re-alignment of Democratic politics in Texas- even in Rural Texas. While we have a lone way to go before we turn those intense minorities out there into competitive pluralities and eventually simple majorities, the energy we are seeing is not limited to the urban cores in this election.
That gives me great hope for the general election and beyond.
Update: I got word that in the first 2 days of EV in Gillespie plus the mail ballots has now exceeded the totals from the last election. In short, the same patterns we're seeing in the metros.
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