davidvoegtle.net

Democrats set sights on Texas:

Reporting from Washington — As they review the results of Tuesday’s election victories and begin looking toward future campaigns, some Democrats have settled on a rallying cry: Texas is next.

It sounds improbable for the Republican bastion that produced President Bush and served as an early laboratory for Karl Rove’s hard-nosed tactics. But Texas is one of several reliably red states that are now in Democrats’ sights as party strategists begin to analyze a victorious 2008 campaign that they believe showed the contours of a new movement that could grow and prove long-lasting.

The main problem for Democrats with Texas is that there are parts of the state that are extremely small-c conservative, in the sense that they do what they’ve always done and it’s very rare that they change. Generational turnover will help them somewhat (as will the demographic changes mentioned in the article), but I don’t expect Texas to be truly competitive at the presidential level again for a while (maybe three or four additional cycles).

I’m willing to be proved wrong, though.