Texas or bust for the GOP

Good piece at the top of the Great Orange Satan this morning, so I'm going to duplicate some of it and add a little of my own thinking at the end.

On Tuesday, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to debate comprehensive immigration reform. The amendment-o-rama begins! The actual 84-15 vote isn't indicative of much...

[...]

Aside from (Illinois' Mark) Kirk and Iowa's Chuck Grassley, the other 13 obstructionist votes all came from solidly red states. Among them? Texas freshman Ted Cruz.

This is interesting because Texas, by its lonesome self, should be the only excuse Republicans need to support genuine immigration reform.

Want some crazy math? How about this?

Mitt Romney carried Texas by a margin of 15.8 percent over President Obama in 2012. If Latino citizens had voted at the same rate as non-Hispanic whites, Romney’s victory margin would shrink to 5.4 points.

Or this?

If current demographic trends continue, Democrats would whittle about 5 ½ percentage points off the 15.8-point margin of victory won by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 in every subsequent presidential cycle. That would transform Texas - the center of Republican resistance to Obama's agenda - into a competitive state at the presidential level by 2020 and a toss-up state four years later.

Let's be clear about this: If Latinos voted at the same rates as whites, Texas would already be purple.[...]

How important is Texas? If Republicans lost it, they could win Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin and still lose the election. In other words, lose Texas, or even be forced to defend that expensive-ass state, and Republicans are screwed.

So the math is clear—Texas would be purple if Latinos voted. But they don't, so who cares, right? Well, Republicans should, because even with the same existing shitty turnout rate the growth in the Latino and Asian communities will erode the GOP's base by about 5 1/2 points every four years, or about 1.4 points per year.

In other words, demographics alone will make Texas purple by 2024. And if Latinos decide to start voting, years sooner.

Markos finally sees what those of us who worked on elections here in Deep-In-The-Hearta have known for at least the last ten years: break the spine of the Republicans in Texas, and they don't get back up for a generation.

Said it before, but it needs sayin' again: if Hillary Clinton goes for the presidency in 2016 and taps a Castro, or another Texas Latino -- it has to be a man for gender balance -- as her running mate, then the GOP doesn't get a decent sniff at the White House until 2032.

(That would be the Republican party in its current iteration, of course. It could always fall apart, split up into Whigs and Teas, and in any event maintain Southern regional strength in places like Columbia, SC and Montgomery, AL.)

Oh yeah, and Texas turns blue. Not just in the electoral college, either. Absent unknowable future events like terrorist attacks or scandals, the nation's first female president -- and then its first Latino one -- don't get defeated for re-election.

But it's what happens here at home that's the most encouraging.

No longer will the future of Texas be decided in the Republican primaries exclusively. We can kiss Rick Perry, Greg Abbott, and all their associated lackeys and lickspittles goodbye. And we can finally start moving down the road toward a more just and equitable Lone Star State. That's what Battleground Texas exists for. The TX GOP brain trust, such as it is, understands this dilemma implicitly, and it's what motivates their ongoing gerrymander of Congressional and statehouse districts, while at the same time pushing all in on wiping out the VRA at the SCOTUS.

Speaking of that, I'll be at the hearing this afternoon, and I hope to have more to be encouraged about afterwards.

Update: My hopes about the hearing were false. But Joe Scarborough and Michael Steele spoke the very next morning about their party's problems... because GOP Congressmen are talking about rape and pregnancy again.

Scarborough noted reaction he’s seen from Republicans “out and about” who are outraged by remarks like (Rep. Trent) Franks’ — and he questioned why such individuals want to damage the party.

“The national party right now really has to find a better voice,” Steele noted. “Or maybe it should just find a voice.”

A voice that will “tell the idiots out there to just shut up,” Scarborough agreed. “Because you know what? Before I pass away, I would like to have a Republican in the White House again.”

But alas, Steele lamented, “that day is looking further and further away.” Diagnosing the problem, Scarborough added, “We are so undermined by so many of the shrillest voices in our own party. That has nothing to do with conservatism.”

They can't help themselves. It's self-destructive behavior at its most classic, and no amount of carnage to their electoral future can get them to stop.