Scatter-shooting while waiting for Wendy

-- What Wendy Davis could learn from Ann Richards, by Mary Beth Rogers.

There are some hopeful signs for Davis in the Texas numbers today.

The base Republican vote has peaked and is declining. The downward trends are evident in county-by-county voting analyses during the past two gubernatorial elections in non-presidential election years. On the other side, the base Democratic vote is growing organically, although it has rarely been extended effectively in recent elections. Both large and mid-size Texas cities are seeing extensive shifts in partisan voting patterns, primarily because of Hispanic population growth, but also because urban voters are bringing a more tolerant and progressive cultural mind-set to election contests. The challenge for the Davis campaign is to turn out this base Democratic vote, plus bring in an additional 20 percent of new Democratic voters.

The 1990 Richards campaign for governor was about suburban women. We developed relevant targeted messages and voter contact activities aimed at moderate suburban women. It paid off on election day.

The Wendy Davis campaign has the potential to do the same. Suburban women are turning away in droves from extremist Tea Party/Republican messages. 

Even Anita Perry, as it turns out.  Davis needs the votes of women of all races, creeds, and colors, and the men who love and respect them... and then she still needs more men to vote for her.

The decision to focus on Williams was a critical factor in Ann’s winning campaign and it may be the most important lesson for the Davis campaign in 2014. We made the campaign about Clayton Williams, rather than about Ann Richards. The Davis campaign can also force a referendum on the mean-spirited acts and opinions of Greg Abbott.

[...]

Greg Abbott’s record is ripe for similar disclosure. After holding statewide office for more than 20 years, he is still unknown and untested. He has already begun to make the kinds of gaffes that could torpedo his campaign. And even in red Texas, his ideas are out of touch on dozens of issues that matter to the majority of voters. He is against requiring employer-based health insurance policies to provide contraception coverage. He is against requiring background checks that prevent mentally ill people from buying guns. He is against providing adequate funding to improve the quality of Texas public schools. And he has done everything in his power to restrict the right to vote for ordinary people, particularly for those who are old or poor or who don’t have a driver’s license to show for identification. These are not left-right issues. They are issues that matter to suburban voters, as well as to the Democratic base.

These are extremist views in an already-too-extreme state.  There's evidence everywhere of that.  There isn't going to be any moderate voice that gets nominated by Texas Republicans.  People who haven't been voting in recent elections are the linchpin in turning back this red tide of derangement and insanity.  That's going to require a herculean effort.  And a little good fortune.

-- Democrats still have no prospects to run against John Cornyn.  But there are several hints that he gets challenged from his right.

At last weekend's Texas Tribune Festival, the Tea Party lobbed a couple of cannonballs across Sen. John Cornyn’s bow. When asked if Texas’ senior senator should be challenged in the 2014 GOP primary, all six members of a lively Tea Party panel unequivocally answered yes. Earlier, Cornyn’s junior colleague, Tea Party hero Ted Cruz, offered a polite but definite demurral when offered a chance to endorse Cornyn in that primary.

This is the mainstream media just catching up with me.

-- A few things on the shutdown worth reading.

Government shutdown: Why many Republicans have no reason to deal

If Congress Won't Raise the Debt Ceiling, Obama Will Be Forced to Break the Law

The Atlantic asks: Wouldn't it be better to save the nation from default by invoking the Fourteenth Amendment than to stand by and do nothing?

30 Ways the Shutdown Is Already Screwing People

Kids with cancer: 30 children who were supposed to be admitted for cancer treatment at the National Institute of Health's clinical center were put on hold, along with 170 adults.

Head Start kids: When a new grant didn't come in, Bridgeport, Connecticut, closed 13 Head Start facilities serving 1,000 kids. Calhoun County, Alabama, shut down its Head Start program, which serves 800 kids. Some were relocated to a local church.

Pregnant women: Several states had promised to pick up the tab if the US Department of Agriculture stopped funding the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)—but not Arkansas, where 85,000 meals will no longer be provided to low income women and their children.

Babies: 2,000 newborn babies won't receive baby formula in Arkansas, due to those WIC cuts.

People who help pregnant women and babies: The 16 people who administer the WIC program in Utah will be furloughed—in order to free up money to continue funding the program.

Ah, the pro-life party strikes again.  Maybe Republicans in Congress will listen to Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein.

"There's a consensus that we shouldn't do anything that hurts this recovery that's a little bit shallow, not very well established and is quite vulnerable," Blankfein said. "The shutdown of the government and particularly, a failure to raise the debt ceiling, would accomplish that." 

When you've lost the Big Banks, when you've lost the Big Healthcare Insurance companies...