Perry seeks to convert Democrats to the GOP

[theivoryqueen]

I don't think this is "just a rumor". I hope this obvious racially motivated bit o'machiavellian honey gets the attention from minority leaders that it should.

http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/mcneely/1103/112503.html

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Perry tries to recruit Democrats in House to run as Republicans. Rumors that Gov. Rick Perry's office put pressure on several white Democrats in the Texas House to switch parties is, for the most part, just that, several of them say. But two said the governor had indeed broached the subject with them.

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[lastliberalintexas]

1. It doesn't surprise me

The Texas repub party has always used racial issues to divide and conquer, just as the repub party does throughout the South.

I hope though, that our elected officials remember what has happened to those people who switched after the repub landslide/Shrub victory in 1994. Most of those guys have subsequently been beaten by Dems in the next election, so switching parties is not usually a very good career move.

[theivoryqueen]

2. unless you are campaigning for a judicial position

Remember Creuzot and the rest of those turncoats?

[Vogon_Glory]

3. Wavering Demos Would Be Fools To Switch Parties

Putting aside my obviously highly partisan feelings concerning Democrats and that Perry fellow, any Texas Democrat who would accept Governor Blow-Dry's offer would be setting himself or herself up for a loss in the 2004 elections.

No, I'm not thinking about the November, 2004 general elections, although angry voters have rewarded a few turncoats by retiring them. I'm thinking about beforehand--in the Republican Party primaries. The usual "reward" for Democratic turncoats in the Texas Republican Party primaries for the last ten years or so has been their defeat at the hand of the Texas Republican Party's right wing and their replacement on the GOP ballot with hard-right ideologues about whom the Republican far right has no doubts about their loyalty to the right wing's agenda.

Yes, there were Texas Democrats who later went on to have flourishing careers in the GOP--but what today's would-be turncoats don't note is that they turned on their voters back when it was still fashionable and feasible to do so--and still be accepted as ideologically pure by hard-rightists already in the Texas GOP. That "window of opportunity" has closed. 21st century party jumpers need to know that their 30 pieces of silver won't carry them very far.