Turning Texas blue the hard way

Obama campaign guru David Plouffe comes for a visit and gives his hope-y vision for Texas as a swing state.

[Plouffe] says Texas could soon become a swing state and drastically alter the landscape of state and national politics.

To that end, Plouffe is urging candidates to use the Obama model for winning elections, which involves heavy grass-roots organizing and the deft use of campaign volunteers.

Mastering technology, especially to network and raise money, also helps.

“We have to organize now, here in Texas,” Plouffe told about 300 people gathered at Deux Lounge at Mockingbird Station. “If we do that, we’ll win.”

From your lips to God’s ears, David. I’ll say this much, that’s far easier to do when there’s an Obama-like candidate to organize around. Be that as it may, that kind of trench work could make the difference in a lower-level state race, like for the Supreme Court or CCA, or maybe for an office like Railroad Commissioner. For races where one side will have millions of dollars available for TV advertising and other traditional forms of voter contact, I don’t think you’ll get very far until you can at least be in that same ballpark. Yes, I know, one of the points of all that grassroots organizing is to build a small-dollar donor network that can compete with the big-check writers. Again, I feel like this is more candidate-driven than anything else, and I don’t have any idea where that stands right now. I also feel that if putting Texas in play is a priority of the national party, they could give this effort a huge boost by bringing in some of their own folks to do some of this work. And maybe they are doing that and I’m just not aware of it. I guess what I’m looking for here is more specifics and less hopeyness. But this is what I’ve got.

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