Texas

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Grave - I'll ask you, how do you think the image is exported? In general Texas has a very light footprint in entertainment (that's still West coast) and outside of Glenn Beck who moved there after being kicked off of Fox, we have no major media footprint. Texas doesn't originate its headlines or have media personalities largely conversent in its politics like New York or Cali. About the only media we do spin is the Cowboys and that is entirely meant to sell jerseys. What you hear about Texas comes from either Hollywood or news organizations headquartered in the northeast.

The presidential question is a better question but it's a detailed one. Carter was Carter and Reagan was Reagan. So from the 80's to 1992 you have the guy who (whether you like him or not jumpstarted the modern Republican party) and a Texas politician(two in the 92 election technically). Ann Richards was governor during that period so you did have a Democrat that was elected state wide. 1996 Clinton lost based on values voting as scandal was not sitting well in the state. Bush was a former governor so the first win is not shocking. The second win occurs after redistricting, a point that state wide a lot of democrats essentially capitulated (2004). 2008 was Obama, but Obama was not like Clinton and although he has been more moderate in his actual government, that's not how he ran his campaign. He lost that election because of his War on Terror rhetoric and non-specific change rhetoric. But again, even then you're now talking about a state where voter turnout on the Democratic side was depressed. That brings you to 2012, and the only thing I can say is you're now talking about a state with a political machine that's been in power for 12 years headed by Rick Perry who didn't even debate his opponent and won by a large margin. Despite the largest inflow of voters being hispanic which skew Democrat, the gap has widened which doesn't make sense unless the voting is depressed, shenanigans, or malfeasance. So Presidential has a story, Gubernatorial is technically not true although they've had two governors in 19 years which have been Republican. I'm just not sure how you can't look at that and see what I'm telling you though. Seriously, Perry bankrupted the state AND got reelected. His own party couldn't beat him.

So the whole thing has a history to it, but it ends with an entrenched political machine and one that the national press doesn't really follow. That's what machines do, they disenfranchise.

That was why the rant honestly, there's a huge freaking story there that gets turned into "Texas does" which is really "Republican party was allowed to while the national Democrats watched."

[Gravekeeper]

Grave - I'll ask you, how do you think the image is exported?

Oh, I'm aware of why it exports what it does. Texas was like 40% blue last election if I remember right. Its just that the red side of it is so farked up it manages to make the national news constantly. While the blue side's voice doesn't seem to make it outside of major urban areas most the time.

[HYHYBT]

Actually technically there have been more Democrat (39) governors than Republican (6), with the last two occurring in '95 (Bush) and 2000 (Perry). Ann Richards (D) was governor at the start of the 90's.

Which, since obviously the most recent several elections are more relevant than those more than 20 years past, supports my question nicely without answering a thing. Between Bush and Perry, the Republicans have won how many consecutive elections for Texas governor? Five? Covering the entire period that supposedly it's only the gerrymander keeping Republicans in power in that state?

I'll ask again: if it's true that the majority of the state isn't like that, why do they keep winning elections that cannot be rigged in that fashion?

[violiav]

Partially the perry machine, part the tendency to vote for incumbent (the devil you know), and part the lack of a strong opponent.

[HYHYBT]

Thanks. The third, at least, is going to be the Democrats' own fault. And while I can understand Texans' voting for their former governor when he ran for president, it doesn't explain their support of Romney, McCain, or Dole.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Yes, the Democratic challengers certainly have not been the best. I was around a winning Democratic Judge in a heavily Republican district but that was very much a well known person that won by a nose. I think the truth is, IF you're a Democratic politician with talent in Texas you may very well move. I've been to several fundraisers for people where the logic for them running wasn't much better than, "well we have to run somebody." That's what happens though when one side doesn't feel it has a reasonable expectation of moving voters to the poll. The talent isn't going to stay there.

Finally

I'll ask again: if it's true that the majority of the state isn't like that, why do they keep winning elections that cannot be rigged in that fashion?

Well, I tell you gerrymandering suppresses Democratic voter turnout. Here's an NPR number that puts that number at about 10% lower turnout than other States with comperable hispanic populations. That's about 9.8 million potential voters that underperform other parts of the nation by 10%. That's 980,000 votes gone.

If you consider the fact that a state wide election is occurring between about 6 million voters in a state of 28 million, casually dismissing the effect of a 10% reduction in voter turnout isn't a good idea when Perry only actually won by 600,000 votes. And that's the easy to track number. The harder to track number is the number of transplanted and liberal voters who are white and just don't bother to show up because they see no point to it. It's really hard to create a statewide turn-out the vote campaign with a gutted infrastructure and more money flowing out than in.

To your point, you're discounting the idea that someone in a district that has been gerrymandered and hence their vote won't matter on the local and state legislative level will show up in the same proportion for national and statewide elections just because those can't be rigged. I'm not sure why you believe that is a valid assumption since it forces complete rationality on voters and discounts apathy and capitulation. Percentage wise, what would we expect the impact of those local and state legislative districts to be in terms of turnout? Voter suppression legal, illegal, and through campaigning is something that both sides know how to do and Karl Rove (contemporary of Tom DeLay and George Bush) was a master of. And again, I'll reiterate we're looking at a difference of 600,000 votes in the last Governors election in a state of 28 million. It is extremely possible that the cumulative effect is worth 600,000 votes. That's really just not that many votes.

[HYHYBT]

To your point, you're discounting the idea that someone in a district that has been gerrymandered and hence their vote won't matter on the local and state legislative level will show up in the same proportion for national and statewide elections just because those can't be rigged. I'm not sure why you believe that is a valid assumption since it forces complete rationality on voters and discounts apathy and capitulation.

Well, again, not quite. There are at least two reactions other than complete rationality. Some people will be discouraged by the offices they can't affect, but others would be worked up to make sure they could get those they could. Rather than ignoring either, it seemed most rational to assume they would approximately cancel each other out.

Your answer, though, does make sense.