Conservatives at the Crossroads

A recent Gallup Poll came up with the surprising finding that Texas appeared to be a competitive state. Gallup found that the split between Republicans and Democrats was now leaning Democrat at 2 percent.

Democrats, emboldened by these results, are already salivating with the prospect of a liberal takeover in the Lone Star State. Republicans tend to dismiss the poll. Neither reaction is very representative of the facts.

The presidential election can be seen as the high water mark of Democratic electoral strength in Texas. Obama was the glitzy candidate, who drove voter turnout, McCain was less inspiring and Republican brand name ID was down. But Republicans still won by 12 percentage points.

Neither is it true that Obama suffered much due to the fact that he was black, nor did the charge that he was overly liberal hold him down more than any other Democrat. The U.S. Senate race – the only other statewide vote on the ballot – showed a drop off was an equal 4 percent between the two races for either party, and there was only a minor statistical deviation in the number of people voting Republican or Democrat. Put simply, anyone inclined to vote Democratic likely pulled the lever for Obama.

So there are a couple of ways to interpret the Gallup Poll:

1) It’s wrong. Among conservatives, this would be the Ostrich approach.

2) It’s accurate, but misleading.

3) Population shift is indeed taking place, but is not yet reflected in the electorate.

We won’t even analyze item 1 other than to say that while polls are becoming more problematic, Gallup has the best track record out there. Until another poll contradicts it, it should be considered legitimate, in so far that it is what it says it is: a measure of people (not necessarily voters) leaning Democrat or leaning Republican.

Moving on to 2: There is the possibility that Republican affiliation is down and that many old-school Conservative and Populist Democrats are re-identifying with the Democratic Party after years of being on the GOP side. Many in the GOP feel the party has lost its way in Washington, and their lower turnout was a big factor in this year’s election. Democrats who came over in the Reagan Revolution may be more inclined to go back home, since the GOP didn’t hold up their end of the bargain in D.C.

But voting Democratic doesn’t mean they are liberal. These are the old yellow dog “shoot-the-way-you-shot” types of Democrats. Rural Democrats, working class Democrats. With the exception of single-issue topics (think unions), these folks are hardly liberal.

If this is the case, this could be an indication that the GOP/Democratic divide is not an accurate measure of the conservative/liberal divide.

Finally, possibility 3. This is the idea that Democratic and liberal voters are on the increase in Texas. There may be more truth to this than Republicans and conservatives want to admit. Or quite simply, the two sides have admitted this already in the implicit argument about illegal immigration.

U.S. immigration policy is importing liberals, plain and simple. Most legal immigrants, like most illegal ones, come from Mexico and Central America. While evidence indicates that, unlike African-Americans, Hispanics tend to be more open to party swapping after a few generations, the reality is that first-generation immigrants align with the Democratic Party. They want stuff, and the Democratic Party is the party of taking stuff away from some and giving it to others.

No one likes to say it, but immigration has essentially become a recruitment tool for the Democratic Party, and a way to rebuild their base and expand into new areas. Ethnic gerrymandering, if you will. That’s why Texas liberals like Leticia Van de Putte want to aid and abet it at every turn. More Hispanics – legal or otherwise – ultimately means more voters for her and her fellow travelers.

But there’s another, more surprising possibility. Not only are Democrats abetting the flow of new liberals to Texas, but Republicans may be as well. Texas job poaching – particularly of California and the Northeast – has led to a massive wave of other Americans moving into Texas that is having a real effect on Texas voting patterns. As failed states like New Jersey – what else can you call them? – continue to regurgitate their population throughout the United States, those people bring their politics with them to their new homes. And demographics make it clear that most of those people espouse liberal politics. 

Texas’ strong economy – created, Republicans claim, by their policies – attracts these migrants. Programs like Rick Perry’s Texas Enterprise Fund continually claim credit for the new jobs they are bringing to Texas. But many of those new jobs aren’t taken up by Texans, but by new non-Texan workers, who are brought along by the companies themselves or flow on their own accord, lured by tales from other migrants.

If you live in Austin in particular, you know this is true. And like non-American immigrants, who have ethnic enclaves to disappear into to circumvent the melting pot, migrants from liberal donor states are recreating their liberal communities within the Lone Star State. Unlike immigrants, they vote. From Day 1. As long as Texas continues to outperform the national economy, this drawing of liberal voters from North of the Red River will continue to happen.

The question for conservatives then becomes first, how to re-excite their base, and secondly, how to reach out to these migrants and win them over. Most liberals – like most conservatives for that matter – vote based on factors other than logic or principle. How their parents voted, what their influences are, what sort of news they’re exposed to. There is no liberal or conservative gene, and these new immigrants are no more destined to stay liberal than Hispanic immigrants are. But without an active effort to win them over – to enunciate and defend conservative principles – the momentum is on their side.

If conservatives want to maintain and grow their numbers in Texas, the only solution is to be assertive, not to be passive, cloistered in their comfortable homes in Highland Park and Alamo Heights. Texas is changing, and conservatives need to grab the wheel, or risk getting thrown under the bus.