TexasCHLforum.com

canvasbck wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:

1911 10MM wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:

parabelum wrote:I would not be shocked if in 2-4 years Texas becomes purple State, and within next 10 years, a leaning Blue State.

Look at shift in demogragichs and inflow of Libs from Commie States.

That is precisely why we needed more offensive and aggressive pro-Liberty results in this session.

I keep repeating this over and over again, but people who think that Texas is a conservative state are burying their heads in the sand. According to the last numbers I saw, there is only a 4% difference between the numbers of registered democrats and registered republicans in this state. That is not a huge difference. Add in the fact that a lot of the republicans are, what can euphemistically be called, "moderate", and you have a state GOP that is not all that interested in expanding the RKBA. Yes, there are some stalwarts, but the fact is that Joe Strauss gets re-elected as Speaker each session because there isn't enough of a conservative GOP base to get a republican speaker elected without democrat help. It's not that the state GOP is "anti-gun" so much as it is that, for a lot of them, it's nowhere near their primary issue.

Those are the facts, and I don't see it getting any better, any time soon. THAT is why (A) political capital and (B) political realities are so important to the process; and the fact is that a certain segment of pro-gun advocacy people ends up shooting us in the foot time after time, because they refuse (very childishly in my opinion) to accept the battlefield as it IS, and not as they WANT it to be. Failure to properly recognize the actual battlefield conditions as they ARE instead of how they WISH it were, is the greatest sin of generals, as well as politicians, advocates, and voters alike.

I am not sure where you are getting your numbers but there is no registration of individuals to political parties in Texas. Voter registration cards do not indicate republican or democrat on them. Since you can vote in either the Rep or Dem primary but only once they wil stamp the voter registration and record the primary so you can't vote in both. There is no registration.

I did a google search about a year ago, and came up with the numbers that way. As I recall, it wasn't a registration list, it was a record of how Texans had actually voted. I've been politically active since 1970, and it was enough to convince me that things are not what they seem here, and Texans run the very real risk of getting complacent about the state's conservatism.

If the numbers came from Primary voters, then it definitely isn't accurate. I'm among those who voted in the Democratic primary 8 years ago to lengthen the fight between HRC and BHO. This was referred to as "project chaos". A study looking at primary voters would say that I'm a Dem even though I haven't voted for one in a general election in decades.

I'm off in my recollection. It's not a 4% difference, its a 5.5% difference.......but STILL not anywhere near what a lot of people imagine - February 3rd, 2016: http://www.gallup.com/poll/188969/red-s ... cking.aspx
Scroll down to Texas......


Now, I'll grant that this image depicts one day out of a daily tracking poll, but Gallup is a fairly reputable source, and it is significant to me that in 2015 - halfway through the 2nd term of a controversial hard leftist presidency, whose policies negatively impacted a large number of people - 5.5% leaning republican was the best Texans could do? It's no wonder that democrats thought the state could be flipped. After all, why not? They had successfully flipped other states with conservative reputations in the past, and it wasn't THAT long ago that Texas was a democrat state.

Please understand, I don't LIKE any of this. I came to Texas to seek refuge from California. I don't want Texas to become California. But remember that California elected Ronald Reagan as governor - TWICE - and never used to be as monolithically leftist as it is now. So I don't find a 5.5% difference very comforting. And also please understand that I mean no disrespect here, but California got flipped in no small part because Californian conservatives got complacent. Don't ever take Texas's conservatism for granted. This state is a target of the left......and they've only got to overcome a 5.5% difference in voter sentiments in order to flip it. I'm sorry to sound pessimistic, but what happened to California took place during my lifetime. I don't want it to happen here, but it could.......particularly if we take our current advantage for granted.

1911 10MM wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:

parabelum wrote:I would not be shocked if in 2-4 years Texas becomes purple State, and within next 10 years, a leaning Blue State.

Look at shift in demogragichs and inflow of Libs from Commie States.

That is precisely why we needed more offensive and aggressive pro-Liberty results in this session.

I keep repeating this over and over again, but people who think that Texas is a conservative state are burying their heads in the sand. According to the last numbers I saw, there is only a 4% difference between the numbers of registered democrats and registered republicans in this state. That is not a huge difference. Add in the fact that a lot of the republicans are, what can euphemistically be called, "moderate", and you have a state GOP that is not all that interested in expanding the RKBA. Yes, there are some stalwarts, but the fact is that Joe Strauss gets re-elected as Speaker each session because there isn't enough of a conservative GOP base to get a republican speaker elected without democrat help. It's not that the state GOP is "anti-gun" so much as it is that, for a lot of them, it's nowhere near their primary issue.

Those are the facts, and I don't see it getting any better, any time soon. THAT is why (A) political capital and (B) political realities are so important to the process; and the fact is that a certain segment of pro-gun advocacy people ends up shooting us in the foot time after time, because they refuse (very childishly in my opinion) to accept the battlefield as it IS, and not as they WANT it to be. Failure to properly recognize the actual battlefield conditions as they ARE instead of how they WISH it were, is the greatest sin of generals, as well as politicians, advocates, and voters alike.

I am not sure where you are getting your numbers but there is no registration of individuals to political parties in Texas. Voter registration cards do not indicate republican or democrat on them. Since you can vote in either the Rep or Dem primary but only once they wil stamp the voter registration and record the primary so you can't vote in both. There is no registration.

I did a google search about a year ago, and came up with the numbers that way. As I recall, it wasn't a registration list, it was a record of how Texans had actually voted. I've been politically active since 1970, and it was enough to convince me that things are not what they seem here, and Texans run the very real risk of getting complacent about the state's conservatism.

parabelum wrote:I would not be shocked if in 2-4 years Texas becomes purple State, and within next 10 years, a leaning Blue State.

Look at shift in demogragichs and inflow of Libs from Commie States.

That is precisely why we needed more offensive and aggressive pro-Liberty results in this session.

I keep repeating this over and over again, but people who think that Texas is a conservative state are burying their heads in the sand. According to the last numbers I saw, there is only a 4% difference between the numbers of registered democrats and registered republicans in this state. That is not a huge difference. Add in the fact that a lot of the republicans are, what can euphemistically be called, "moderate", and you have a state GOP that is not all that interested in expanding the RKBA. Yes, there are some stalwarts, but the fact is that Joe Strauss gets re-elected as Speaker each session because there isn't enough of a conservative GOP base to get a republican speaker elected without democrat help. It's not that the state GOP is "anti-gun" so much as it is that, for a lot of them, it's nowhere near their primary issue.

Those are the facts, and I don't see it getting any better, any time soon. THAT is why (A) political capital and (B) political realities are so important to the process; and the fact is that a certain segment of pro-gun advocacy people ends up shooting us in the foot time after time, because they refuse (very childishly in my opinion) to accept the battlefield as it IS, and not as they WANT it to be. Failure to properly recognize the actual battlefield conditions as they ARE instead of how they WISH it were, is the greatest sin of generals, as well as politicians, advocates, and voters alike.