The Valley Is Going Red

Is there any more sure sign that Democrats need to get on the stick in the Rio Grande Valley than this:

History could be in the making Monday when Texas Gov. Rick Perry swears in the Cameron County judge on New Year’s Day.

“I don’t recall any governor coming in to swear in a Cameron County judge,” said judge-elect Carlos Cascos. “What bigger honor can I have than have the governor” preside over the ceremony?

Cascos said he asked Perry if he would perform the ceremony a few days after winning the Nov. 7 general election.

If you could not tell this from the above three paragraphs, Cascos is a Republican. Yes—a Republican was elected County Judge of the county right on the Mexico border that has Brownsville as its County Seat.

No, no: I promise that you are not hallucinating. You read that paragraph correctly: a Republican was elected county judge of Cameron County. Um hum.

This should not surprise us, however, if we’ve been paying attention to the numbers over the years. Evidently, a lot of folks in Texas have not been, as I’ve heard a lot of rumblings from activists that the state party does not haven an effective Valley strategy.

Taking a look at the presidential numbers in Cameron County (and I’m doing that because I have those numbers handy from a project I did in 2004), Republicans gained 6,889 votes in the presidential race from 2000 to 2004. The county had 7,562 more votes cast in the presidential race in 2004 than it did in 2005.

In 2000, the year that Bush was most universally popular in Texas, he only polled 45.5633 percent of the vote in Cameron County, meaning Gore won the county.

In 2004, however, when Bush was less popular, he polled 50.5848 percent and Kerry lost Cameron County.

Of course, presidential numbers don’t and won’t ever tell the whole story. But, they tell a lot of the story. Consider another strange tally from Cameron County: in 2002, Ron Kirk polled more votes than Tony Sanchez did.
Ron Kirk, who is African American, polled 65.05% over Cornyn in Cameron County. However, Tony Sanchez didn’t break 60%, and polled 59.82. Rick Perry polled 38.72 percent.

Given that a Republican managed to snag a countywide office in Cameron County, I thought it was worth a look to see how Democrats statewide faired, assuming they performed poorly.

Turns out they performed OK, and mostly beat their statewide averages. Barbara Radnofsky’s anti-war, pro-prosperity message had her neck-and-neck with Hutchison (49.29-48.54); Perry still bested Bell, but only narrowly (35.09 to 34.90 with Strayhorn polling 22.97).

If historic trends are any indication, though, Republicans statewide should be getting routed in Cameron County, not breaking-even with Democrats. The fact that Republicans and Democrats are neck-and-neck in major statewide races like U.S. Senate (which given its lack of publicity from the media, is a decent indicator of party preference in the region) means the races down ballot will be even closer when it comes to county electeds.

It’s those races where voters get to meet and greet the candidates and hear from them personally several times during an election cycle (if they are observant and participate in the process). It is also where candidates get to make a personal appeal to voters to get elected in spite of their party label, if that label happens to be “Republican.”

So, why are Republicans appealing to more Valley voters, especially on the local level?

Does it have anything to do with “machine politics” that is still a dominant force in Valley politics? I can’t answer that, because I’m not educated enough about machine politics in the Valley, except to know that it still exists.

Does it have to do with the Republicans anti-tax message? Probably. I think that some of the Republicans’ anti-tax message is starting to hit home with RGV voters as we see a burgeoning Hispanic middle and upper-middle class take hold of the wheel in this region. Gone are the days when the economic structure of the Valley was such that Hispanics were almost universally lower-middle class or below on the socioeconomic ladder. (In fact, gone are the days when many in the Valley was on that rung of the socioeconomic ladder regardless of race).

So, what can Democrats do? For starters, we’ve got to do something other than sashay on down to Cameron County and say, “I’m from the Party and I’m hear to help.”  One thing is to develop a Valley strategy—not necessarily for vote getting right now—but for “message.”

The Valley is a very unique part of our state. I dare say, in fact, it’s almost like another state within Texas. Politicos in the Valley know the message voters need and want to hear. What’s key is making sure that message is finely tuned and that Democrats know how to deliver it and make it resonate with voters more than the Republican message.

The long and short of it with most elections, it seems, comes down to message. Who had the better message? For Cameron County voters this time around, the Republican running for County Judge had the better message.

Was it really better? Since he’s a Republican, I seriously doubt it. So, why did it win out? Perhaps it was more “on point” and addressed specific issues that needed to be addressed. It may have addressed them in a totally wrong way, but I’d be willing to speculate that this guy’s message included some Democratic missed opportunities.
The bottom line is we must develop a strategy for the Valley. Republicans took over other parts of the state by starting at the county level. Now, they are doing this in the Valley, and we can’t let it happen there. We’ve seen it happen for years elsewhere. The Valley must be our last stand.

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