The election in House District 48 means everything for House District 48, and very little for anywhere else.
This week we had the Houston Chronicle pontificating on the bellwether nature of all things Texas electoral of the single Democrat win in House District 48 this past week.
And they would have been exactly correct, if only they had stopped at simply reporting that Donkey Donna Howard defeated Elephant Ben Bentzin, 58% to 42%, in a District that, well, tends to vote 58% Democrat and liberal most of the time.
District 48, representing a southern and western portion of decidedly unconservative Austin and Travis County, is hardly a Republican stronghold. It is arguably a swing seat that most certainly can be described as Leftward leaning.
Exhibit A of this tilt was its 58% vote against Proposition 2, a ban of gay "marriage" that this past November passed with 76% of the tally statewide.
This District 48 liberal percentage, one has surely noted, is precisely the same as the one that has just now, but three months hence, ensconced Howard in the statehouse.
It was indeed a seat most recently held by a Republican, Todd Baxter, but the very same Media who describe this most recent Democrat victory as some sort of shocking development portending much more are forgetting the very things they themselves said when Baxter first ran for the office in 2002, seeking to unseat Democrat Anne Kitchen.
|
The 2002 Press Baxter Assessment |
Then the Press described Baxter as a long shot who was wasting his time and Republican money taking on a strong Democrat in a Donkey district.
Yet he won 52-45%, predicated on his good work representing roughly the same portion of the County on the Commissioner's Court, and because he was a part of what was then an actual statewide trend, away from the century old Democrat bog in which the Capitol was mired.
2002 was Texas' version of the 1994 national Congressional Republican sweep, and yet another reverberation from the Ronald Reagan Revolution that has made America Elephas maximus.
In this, the first election of the new millennium, the Reagan echo finally reached the Lone Star Legislature, and the G.O.P. won control of both halves for the first time since Reconstruction.
Much like in its national parallel eight years before, there were many traditionally Democrat districts that were swept up in the overarching theme and sent Republicans to represent them in Austin.
But, just as happened nationally, as Lone Star Elephants begin to implement their ideas via the machinations of the government they now control, the districts around the state will begin settling back and return to ordinary voting form, and some of the Democrat leaning swing seats that elected out of character will again become Donkeyfied.
Hence, the results just culled from District 48.
It does not speak to a broader Lone Star anti-Republican theme. Come November 8th, there will still be not one Democrat holding statewide office, and the two halves of the Legislative whole will still be found in Elephantary hands.
There may be some seat shifts along the margins (we may see, amongst others, the triumphant return of Republican Talmadge Heflin, reunseating Democrat Hubert Vo in District 149, to offset the Howard win), but the overall ratio in the state House and Senate will remain basically static.
The Press rush to project this single win as anything more than merely that is, again, more wishful thinking than factual analysis.
