So Arnold Garcia, Jr., in a commentary for the Austin American-Statesman:
Even
in the reddest counties in a deep red state, Texans are streaming to
vote in the Democratic primary at double and sometimes triple the
number voting in the Republican primary.
Early vote tallies compiled since Tuesday — the day early voting
opened for the March 4 primary — show huge numbers of suburban voters
turning up to vote Democrat. Texas suburbs have long been Republican
strongholds, but the numbers indicate a huge shift.
You can probably chalk that up to the excitement generated by the
Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama race for the Democratic presidential
nomination. But if — capital "I," capital "F" — Texas Democrats hold
onto those votes in November, they have the best chance in years to
come back from the wilderness they’ve been mapping since the mid-’90s.
It’s IF because the party’s organization has been in tatters, its bench
isn’t deep — and if the party has a clear, coherent message, I haven’t
heard it.
Big Democratic turnouts in Travis County are to be expected, but the
early votes so far are record breaking — 23,132 as of Thursday — making
any number of local races difficult to handicap because the big
turnouts dilute the influence of the Democratic in crowd.
Where the Democratic surge is truly impressive is in the suburbs
that were once the exclusive property of Republicans. In Collin County,
at the heart of the Metroplex — a heavily Republican area — county
officials recorded the Democratic turnout at 5,021 early voters as of
Thursday. That represented an increase of 4,294 early votes in the 2006
Democratic primary.
A wow would be in order here.
Kit Stolz 