The Emerging Democratic Texas?
BARNES, FRED
The Emerging Democratic Texas? Probably not this year. BY FRED BARNES Austin, Texas IF DEMOCRAT RON KIRK wins a Senate seat in Texas this fall, it will be a defeat for Republicans with dire...
...The fear among Republicans is that Texas pride could kick in, with Anglos voting for Kirk to vindicate their state and its reputation...
...But Republicans "still have work to do" among Hispanics, he says...
...Today the Democrats are increasingly a party of professionals, women, and minorities...
...Kirk fared poorly by comparison...
...Where Kirk lands ideologically is unclear, but a campaign aide, Robert Gibbs, calls him "a DLC type," referring to the moderate Democratic Leadership Council...
...Their voter registration drive initially set a goal of 500,000 new Hispanic voters, then cut it to 100,000 before finally deciding a get-out-the-vote effort on Election Day would suffice...
...A Democrat quoted by Boyer in the New Yorker called him the Democratic Colin Powell and suggested it would say something bad about Texas if he loses...
...But there's a way...
...it's whether they can increase turnout and overcome what Professor Earl Black of Rice University calls the "under-utilization of Hispanics...
...Then he said Bush had made the case for war in his United Nations speech...
...Judis and Teixeira insist "Hispanics are making the Democratic party their political home...
...The Austin .American-Statesman wrote in late September that the Kirk campaign is "floundering" because of both "errors in judgment and remarks made in haste...
...He blamed Cornyn, as attorney general, for presenting racist testimony in a murder case...
...BY FRED BARNES Austin, Texas IF DEMOCRAT RON KIRK wins a Senate seat in Texas this fall, it will be a defeat for Republicans with dire implications far beyond Texas...
...The party now "differs substantially from the New Deal Democratic coalition that dominated American politics from 1932 to 1968," they write in their new book, The Emerging Democratic Majority...
...And Kirk, 48, is also different, a business-friendly Democrat with such strong ties to Republican plutocrats and professionals that he'll cut deeply into the Republican base in the Dallas metropolitan area...
...Cornyn's looks—white hair and an inoffensive manner—are misleading...
...Texas will be politically competitive again...
...Republicans have sought to stigmatize him as a liberal, hoping it might dislodge 50,000 to 100,000 Joe Sixpacks who normally vote Democratic...
...But 2002 is different...
...In 1998, Republicans won all 27 statewide races...
...And Kirk is not running on what he believes but on who he is, a black who transcends race...
...These percentages would not have produced a Democratic victory four years ago in Texas...
...He later apologized for this comment, and his position on Iraq has changed dramatically...
...Running for attorney general in 1998, he was expected to finish third in the GOP primary...
...That's the Democratic formula, anyway...
...He stresses pro-business themes...
...Kirk scheduled a fund-raiser in Boston hosted by a man connected with Swiss banks accused of holding funds of Holocaust victims...
...ty had begun to set in...
...One reporter covering the race asked Cornyn and Kirk the exact same questions about national issues...
...He beat a strong favorite for a district judgeship in San Antonio in 1984 and was elected to the Texas Supreme Court in 1990 after trailing for most of the race...
...But Republican strategists don't see much evidence of this, and they believe many Hispanics will vote for Sanchez but leave the Senate race blank...
...And he's usually underestimated...
...The best news for Republicans was that George W. Bush captured better than 40 percent of the Hispanic vote running for governor that year and again in 2000 as a presidential candidate...
...Cornyn has so many advantages— money, experience, and help from Bush, who spoke at a Cornyn fundraiser in Houston last week—it's hard to envision him losing...
...Cornyn, 50, lacks Kirk's sparkling personality, but he's a skilled politician who's run statewide three times and won...
...He endorsed the Bush tax cut...
...I wonder how excited they'd be if I get to the United States Senate and I put forth a resolution that says the next time we go to war the first 500,000 kids have to come from families who earn a million dollars or more," Kirk said...
...Worse for Republicans, a Kirk victory would all but doom the Republican bid to recapture the Senate and allow Democratic majority leader Tom Daschle to afflict President Bush for another two years...
...At first he sounded like Daschle, saying the United States should first get international backing for a war against Iraq and develop plans for postwar Iraq...
...Polls now show Kirk trailing—by a few points in most polls, but by a dozen in a survey last week by John Zogby...
...Kirk said he needed to line up debates in Texas before accepting an out-of-state invitation...
...He attended Bush's presidential inauguration...
...In truth, Cornyn asked the Supreme Court to bar the testimony...
...For a black candidate, Kirk is unusually well positioned to do well among whites...
...Let's be honest about Kirk's chances: They aren't great, but an upset is possible...
...it was a tortoise versus hare race, Cornyn the plodding and cautious tortoise, Kirk the flashy and error-prone hare...
...Cornyn says Republicans start with 25 percent of the Hispanic vote and believes 40 percent is attainable...
...He won and easily disposed of his Democratic foe, Jim Mattox...
...He's a tough trench fighter," says Alan Sager, the Austin GOP chairman...
...He's sort of larger than life," a Cornyn aide admits...
...The biggest worry for Democrats is not that Cornyn will match Bush (he won't...
...Anxiety over Kirk's unfamiliarity with national issues may have prompted his campaign to balk at debating Cornyn on Meet the Press on October 6. Cornyn accepted immediately, figuring host Tim Russert would surely raise the Iraq issue—to Kirk's detriment...
...Campaign manager Carol Butler ran Debbie Stabenow's Senate race in Michigan in 2000...
...These groups are growing, especially Hispanics...
...One poll found a 14 percent drop-off in votes from the governor's race...
...And the election of Kirk would tend to confirm the theory, plausible but not yet proven, that a Democratic majority is emerging in America...
...By Labor Day, realiFred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Kirk's worst stumble involved Iraq...
...For a spell over the summer, Kirk actually led his GOP foe, state attorney general John Cornyn, in the contest to succeed Republican senator Phil Gramm...
...His biggest problem may be inexperience and lack of discipline...
...What the Kirk coalition must erase is a significant generic Republican advantage in Texas...
...It might work...
...Speaking to black and Hispanic veterans in San Antonio, he said the well-to-do might not back a war if their kids were sent to fight...
...The Kirk formula is straightforward: He must win at least 85 percent of the black vote, 65 percent of the Hispanic vote, and 35 percent of the white, or Anglo, vote...
...But that's not the half of it...
...It's these groups the Kirk campaign is counting on to defeat Cornyn...
...A Hispanic at the top of the "dream team" ticket of Sanchez and Kirk is bound to stir some Hispanic enthusiasm...
...He reminds reporters of Bush in one respect: He stays on message, never winging it...
...His first TV ad presents testimonials by white Republicans in Dallas impressed by his record as mayor...
...Stabenow came from behind three weeks out to win...
...In recent elections, voters have preferred GOP candidates by 6 to 8 percentage points...
...Yes, it will signify the end of the GOP's short reign—less than a decade—as absolute ruler of Texas politics...
...With a black candidate for senator and a Hispanic, Tony Sanchez, as the Democratic nominee for governor, both blacks and Hispanics will turn out in far greater numbers, thus becoming a bigger share of the electorate—not 20 percent to 25 percent, but 30 percent to 35 percent...
...So far the evidence is not encouraging for Democrats...
...After he won the Democratic nomination in April, the national media trekked to Texas and crowned Kirk, the black ex-mayor of Dallas, the most charming and charismatic new figure in American politics...
...Finally he endorsed the White House-drafted resolution approving military action...
...Kirk has two things that matter: a campaign team that knows how to stage a strong finishing kick, and Kirk himself...
...He brings to the race the one intangible that can trump the advantages of money, connections, even issues—he has captivating charm," wrote Peter Boyer in the New Yorker...
...In any case, attracting 35 percent of the Anglo vote will be difficult for Kirk...
...The Democrats-as-majority theory that's being tested in Texas is the brainchild of liberal political writers John Judis and Ruy Teixeira...
...That could happen, but it probably won't...
Vol. 8 • October 2002 • No. 4
