POLITICO.COM : Democratic Houston Mayor Annise Parker said that Texas is going to become a battleground state in a few years. - U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, the former Dallas mayor : "When Texas turns blue, this country’s going to turn blue and it’s going to stay blue."

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Inside the Democratic Party : Brave and Courageous Texas Mayors and Elected Officials want to turn Texas into a Swing State :

Some excerpts :

Democratic Houston Mayor Annise Parker said her party couldn’t afford to wait passively for population change to turn Texas blue. Instead, they should dig in for a longer, harder campaign to make it a swing state.

“We have been waiting in Texas for a very long time for the Latino vote to come into its own and turn the tide. But many of us have decided that we can’t wait for that. We have to do the old-fashioned work of going out and talking to Texans,” said Parker, who didn’t rule out a statewide campaign “when I am done [being] mayor.”

“Do I think we’re going to turn Texas in two years? Probably not. Do I think we can turn Texas in four years? Absolutely, because I think the Republican Party in Texas is going to drive itself off a cliff,” Parker said. “You hear Republicans with rhetoric, literally talking about the jack-booted thugs coming and taking guns out of people’s homes, going door to door. You have legislators who will file, once again, virulently anti-immigrant legislation in the state House.”

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“I’m excited to see that at national levels, people are now looking at Texas and saying, ‘That’s where we need to make our next investment. That’s where the next opportunity lies.’ The enthusiasm that I’m hearing in that regard is growing every day,” said Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis.

The Fort Worth legislator, who won a difficult reelection campaign last year in a conservative district, is viewed in and outside of Texas as perhaps her party’s strongest statewide prospect for 2014. Both Davis and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro visited Washington during the Inauguration this week and addressed a fundraiser for the Lone Star Project, an influential outside group that drives Democratic messaging in Texas.

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POLITICO.COM
Democrats launch plan to turn Texas blue
By ALEXANDER BURNS
January 24, 2013


Democrats launch plan to turn Texas blue


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