12.02.08
Democrats get ready
While there will be many lessons taken from this past election there was a very illuminating part, as to why the GOP’s troubles in Texas continue to mount. Paul Burka’s post yesterday, The Speaker’s Race: Shock and Awful, highlighted why the GOP has been losing seats in the Texas House. It’s Tom Craddick’s top-down, nepotistic, “my way or the highway”, philosophy of running campaigns.
The problem for Craddick is that things have gotten to the point where every time he acts like, well, Craddick, he reminds GOP members why they wish he would just go away. Many members are still fuming about Craddick’s iron-fisted control of members’ races. Candidates had to come to Austin and appear before Christi Craddick, the speaker’s daughter; operative John Colyandro; and consultant Dave Carney. They were told what they had to do in their campaigns in order to get money that the speaker controlled. They had to bring their campaign plans and subject them to Christi Craddick’s scrutiny. She could overrule the members and insist on their using speaker-approved campaign materials that had already been prepared by consultants. Many members were furious; they felt that they knew their districts better than Carney, who is from New Hampshire, or Ms. Craddick. These hard feelings have not subsided.
That’s exactly the kind of blind, recycled consultant driven campaigning, that contributed to many of the problems Democrats had in years past. It’s a miracle the GOP didn’t lose more seats in 2008 with that kind of campaign “assistance”. The GOP has done nothing but lose numbers in the House since he became speaker. He’s become toxic, done little to protect House members in the past, and there’s no reason to think that will change. Evidenced by Burka’s insight about how the 2001redistricting of the Texas House, which was setup to elect Craddick-friendly Republicans, not to elect as many Republicans as possible.
It is apparent, in retrospect, that the map adopted by the Legislative Redistricting Board was drawn to elect not just a Republican speaker, but a Republican speaker named Craddick.
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Craddick couldn’t settle for 85 Republicans, because, back in 2001, there were 15 to 20 ABC Republicans who would never vote for him for speaker. To get more GOP districts, safe seats had to be sacrificed for more marginal seats. These are the seats Republicans have been losing: a net of twelve seats lost to the Democrats since Craddick became speaker in 2003.
With all of that in mind it’s really mind boggling why the GOP, and GOP House members, would want Craddick still in charge of the House when the next round of redistricting comes around. While Burka believes House Republicans are finally waking up to the damage Craddick has done to them – as well as contributing to the problems of the GOP in Texas as a whole, (see this Burka teaser, New poll will examine GOP’s troubles in Texas) – it will only be confirmed if Craddick has the gavel taken from him. Also check out Kuff’s post on how Craddick is having problems even in his own back yard.
As is becoming a theme at EOW, while there are many problems with the Texas GOP, and their waning numbers in the Texas House in particular, it doesn’t do any good unless there are qualified Democratic alternatives ready to step in and take advantage. While Craddick and the GOP’s campaign philosophy has been, and will likely continue to be top down, the Democrats in Texas haven’t yet figured out how to take advantage with an “Obama-style” bottom-up model of fundraising and campaigning to win in Texas. There was a discussion earlier this week (see this post and comments), about whether the Democrats can gain more seats in the Texas House in 2010. It may not be likely as things stood on election day in 2008. But by 2010, with a more refined, bottom-up campaign mdoel, Democrats in Texas will make more gains in the House and all across the state. That’s what needs to be in the works and be in place for the 2010 election.