What's Wrong With This Picture?

The Dallas Morning News has an article today about how presidential hopefuls of both parties are swooping into Texas, dragging the sack for campaign contributions in anticipation of the first BILLION DOLLAR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN SEASON.

Let's pause and contemplate the notion that a billion dollars will be spent electing someone President in 2008. Think of the promises, implicit and explicit, that will be made in the course of accumulating that much money.

Anyway, the article mentions that "[i]n 2004, Texas ranked behind only California and New York among donor states with $33 million in contributions to candidates for the primary season." Obviously the McCains and Clintons and Giulianis and Obamas are hoping for a repeat performance by Texas donors.

The article goes on to say, however, that "the extra attention on Texas might not amount to much. Candidates will visit the state frequently to collect checks, but they may not campaign here." This has been Texas's problem since the 1980s -- Texas is not a battleground state so none of the money raised in Texas is plowed back into the state for infrastructure building, leadership development, or any other party-building activities.

While the Democratic Party in Texas has literally had trouble keeping the doors open over the last several years, the DMN article reports that "Hillary Rodham Clinton raised $852,000 in Texas for her re-election to the Senate last year" and "John Edwards ... raised $328,000 from Texas in the last two years for his political action committee." Yowzir! In case you're not good at new math, that's a cool $1.18 million that will never be seen in Texas again.

And that is the tip of the iceberg. Senatorial and congressional candidates of both parties from all over the country troop through Texas, using us as an ATM machine for their political ambitions.

As long as this continues, the Texas Democratic Party, and the larger progressive movement, will be starved of resources as they try to build the leadership, ideas, communications and political capacity we need to challenge right-wing and Republican hegemony in Texas.