Texas Dems coming back
Election 2008: Howard Dean tours Lone Star State
Party members hope to end GOP control.
Texas Dems coming back

By The Associated Press

Published: July 18, 2008

AUSTIN, Texas — Democrats are climbing out of the political graveyard in Texas where George W. Bush buried them. But winning local and legislative races is a far cry from delivering the state for their presidential nominee.

The state's Democratic presidential primary contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton drew a record 2.8 million votes in March. Just two years after sweeping Dallas County's elected offices, Democrats are threatening to repeat that in Harris County, which includes Houston. And the party is attempting to retake the Texas House by gaining five more seats in November.

With party prospects rising, Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean made Texas the first stop on his bus tour of the South designed to boost Democratic registration. The eye-catching bus wrapped in the red, white and blue of Obama's campaign logo traveled Thursday to Austin.

The Texas capital is the state's most liberal Democratic city, derided by conservatives as "The People's Republic of Austin.”

"We're down here,” Dean said, "because we know that if Barack Obama wins Texas or does well enough in Texas to pick up five House seats in the Texas state House of Representatives that we're going to undo all those evil things that Tom DeLay did.” He referred to the former Republican U.S. House leader who masterminded a Texas redistricting designed to ensure GOP control of the Legislature.

Players in both parties say the state isn't as assuredly Republican as it was in the 1990s when George W. Bush was governor and Republicans held every statewide office and majorities in both houses of the Legislature.

"Republicans realize the need to work harder and smarter than they have had to in recent years,” said Austin-based Republican consultant Ray Sullivan.

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