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What is it about Texas? Why do its politicians fare so well, and ours so poorly, when it comes to national matters?
Not long ago, Colorado looked ready for the big time. Gary Hart, our former senator with a cabin in Troublesome Gulch, led the pack for the Democratic nomination. When he bowed out, Pat Schroeder looked like a plausible candidate. On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Bill Armstrong was getting touted as presidential material.
But have you heard anything lately from Colorado? No. Our politicians faltered while Texas gains momentum.
Back in February, George Bush was presenting himself as
a New England product, right up there with covered bridges
and clam chowder. Now that he doesn't need New Hampshire,
he'll be switching homes. Any day now, you'll hear him
drawling as he greets everyone with a slap on the back and
Heidi, yawl.
He'll belly up to the bar, order a
round of Shiner for the house, and announce that he stands
tall and doesn't take doo-doo
from anybody,
especially Yankees.
Fully aware that no Democrat ever wins the presidency
without carrying Texas, Michael Dukakis has spurned Jesse
Jackson (whose constituency was the dispossessed, the
deprived, the damned
-- that is, precisely the sort
of people who do not make substantial campaign
contributions).
To persuade Texas to be on his side, Dukakis chose a Texan as his running mate: Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, whose constituency comprises anyone willing to pay $10,000 to eat breakfast with him. That's even more impressive when you recall that it cost only $500 to eat lunch with President Reagan when the leader of the free world flew in and out of Denver a couple of years ago.
Why is a Texas connection so important in presidential politics?
Texas does have a goodly number of electoral votes -- 29
at last count. But New York has 36, and most candidates for
national office seem enjoy bashing New York; you certainly
don't see them paying obeisance the way they do to Texas.
California has 47 electoral votes, more than any other
state, and though such Californians as Herbert Hoover,
Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan have held the presidency,
there's never any talk of a California factor.
The other possibility is that Texas is a great source of campaign financing, providing you have a good old boy on the ticket. But we keep reading about how depressed things are down there in the oil patch, of how John Connally's millions shrank to a foreclosure auction, of how Houston vies with Denver for the highest office building vacancy rate in the known universe.
So I'm at a loss to figure out why Texas waxes while Colorado wanes. But if we can't beat them, maybe we can get some national prominence by reversing history.
It is not commonly admitted, but about a third of Colorado once belonged to Texas. In 1836, when the Republic of Texas was declared, its northern boundary was the Arkansas River. At its headwaters, present-day Climax, the line went north to its intersection with the Continental Divide in the Park Range, and thence along the Divide up into Wyoming.
The Texas parts of Colorado include our highest peaks, deepest canyons and swankest resorts, so giving them back might be painful. But in truth those areas are already packed with visiting Texans, winter and summer.
Thus, the formal return of this land to Texas would not change our culture, and it offers several benefits. There would be a much greater chance of permanently exporting one-time Colorado politicians to Washington, which deserves them, and vast portions of our state would enjoy better roads and lower taxes, something the Colorado legislature has never managed.
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