companionship the company. they do a lot. .. the former executive

director of the republican party of texas discusses how texas became a republican stronghold over the past half-century next on book tv. booktv. it's about an hour. >> good morning. i am michelle easton of the clare booth luce policy institute and i want to welcome you all to the special lunch featuring wayne thorburn and his great new book called "red state and inside story of the gop came to dominate texas." you may be wondering why he is the president of the clare booth luce policy institute introducing? it was almost 42 years ago when i came to washington, d.c. from

new york after graduating from college and my first job was a young americans for freedom and my first boss was wayne thorburn. rob who asked me to do the introduction, ron and i have been friends with wayne and his wife judith for decades and wane by the way was a very good first boss. he joined young americans for freedom as a college student in 1961 and eventually rose to become executive director when i worked for him. after running the americans for freedom and number of years and getting his each key in political science at the university of maryland, doctor wayne thorburn was a history professor at arkansas state university for he moved to texas. from texas he worked as an appointee in the department of the department of education and housing and urban development for president ronald reagan and george h. w. bush. he also served as a longtime board member of the young america's foundation.

in 1978 when texas selected the governor the first republican governor in 104 years for he had been the executive director of the party for two years. i give you full credit. he also oversaw a coordinated election of all statewide republican candidates for the first time and texas has not voted for a democratic president now since 1976. think about it. how did that happen in november 1960 the democratic party dominated texas. we had the new u.s. vice president lyndon johnson from texas and the democrats held all 30 statewide elected positions. the texas state legislature had 181 democrats and no republican support. now everyone calls texas the red states. the book is interesting.

i read it this weekend on the road traveling. and i love how it explains for many years beginning in the 1940s, the texas contests were between conservatives and liberals to gain control of the texas party, the liberals needed to drive the conservatives out of the democratic primaries. they gained control of the democratic party. so it was the liberals liberals in the party that actually helped with the strengthening of the republican party by deliberately driving the conservatives from their own party. he said because what you wish for. and let's hope he also talked about the texas governor's race just last month when the texas attorney general beat the democrat liberal for my next wendy davis by 20% of the vote. watching that race here from virginia i thought it had to be about the time when she ran that ad on tv of her opponent of the

empty wheelchair that race turned around for good. so now to talk to the transformation of the transformation of texas have it took place in the future, please join me in welcoming doctor wayne thorburn. [applause] >> i think my microphone is on. i wanted to thank not only michelle for that great introduction and ron for allowing us to have this opportunity to get together and talk a little bit about the red state, a book that came out the first of september and i think that you're going to get a copy of. i will be glad to cite them after the presentation for those that would like a signed copy.

the one thing i do regret is the mention of all of those years that i actually and are maybe it makes me that my actual age but it has been a lifetime of involvement in conservative and republican politics beginning in college of those many years ago. i'm also honored to have my dissertation advisor here who was at that time and this is a professor at the university of maryland where i did my graduate work. that is basically the thrust of what the book is about is as indicated what i tried to do here in the first couple of chapters for those of you who either are not that familiar with texas and really want to get a better background on the

state, the first couple of chapters really going to a discussion of the population religion, racial and ethnic make up of the state, the political culture of the state, the different geographical areas of the economy and so i think if you are not familiar with the background there in the first couple of chapters it goes into what makes texas unique and what is distinctive of the state of texas. from that point on, i really stressed the changes that have happened since 1960 in texas politics and the texas political culture to some extent and the whole political environment in the state of texas. michelle kind of gave you a clue to what the situation was so i would just restate very briefly when she said that in 1960 the democrats were going to again

recovered. the college votes from texas if if you're a member of eisenhower was able to carry texas with the support of dramatic establishment in both 1952 and 1956 and so by 1960 democrats were able with jack kennedy to recover the electoral college votes from texas. they had good senators and they now have the vice president from texas, lyndon johnson, and as michelle quickly pointed out of the members in the state senate and the statehouse there wasn't a single republican. the only republican in any significant office in the whole state of texas other than maybe two or three justices of the peace i don't even think there is a was a county commissioner certainly not a county judge in any of the 254 counties the only republican of any office with the congressman by the name of

bruce boucher from the dallas area and he was the lone single republican. so just flush fast-forward to 2015 and what is the situation in texas, it is totally different. this year of all 29 statewide officials they were elected as republicans for every election since 1996. there's not been a democrat elected to statewide office since 1994. that's 20 years, 29 because we elect a whole slew of judges statewide is that there said there were 29 elected positions statewide. every single one of them elected as a republican. in the states among the congressional delegation 25 536

congressmen, the largest contingent of the republican congressman from any one state or the 25 from texas. in the state legislature the state senate is 20 to 11. republicans, the house is 98-52. almost to-1 and in this election we picked up seats in all three in congress cut and congress cut the state senate and the statehouse. most interesting is what was happening over the last year and what the media was portraying as a supposedly happening in texas. those of you that all politics will know that there was a lot of discussion in early 2013 of the formation of the group called battleground texas. and battleground texas was an organized effort by some obama organizers who have been heading upward amazing for america the obama front group and had

organized fieldwork in ohio also for obama in the 2012 election. they were able to get a few million dollars to find some wealthy democratic contributors and organized their efforts to change texas and make it to turn texas lube. their group was called battleground texas and they were designed specifically to increase the turnout by registering the voters who are currently not registered and then turning them out in the election. the particular emphasis was on hispanics because in our state, the voting participation rate of hispanics is much lower than it is for anglos were african-american voters. so, they went about this effort

and cost an awful lot of media attention of how they were going to do what they have been successful in doing in the obama campaign nationally and turn texas no longer into a republican state that into one that at least had possibilities for the democrats to win. they went about doing this on television to behold a media style was created and that was by the state senator wendy davis. wendy davis in the closing days of the legislature undertook a filibuster of that though it was putting the restrictions on abortion services in the state of texas. and through that one effort she became kind of a bicoastal hero of the liberal element and so wendy davis got elevated into a major personality in texas and

is subsequently announced she was going to run for governor soap low and behold here was the great pope hope of the liberal democratic element in the state to start making texas blue. they were going to elect wendy davis. battleground texas quickly changed its emphasis. it had originally been as i indicated a long-term effort to register more voters to turn them out to get them part of the overall electorate in the state and therefore change the electorate and make it more democratic. well along comes wendy davis and they decided they are going to latch on to the campaign and indeed from about july of 2013 and on they become almost an affiliate of the campaign and moved their headquarters from the state capital of boston to fort worth which was her home

base and it had become kind of the field operation field operations for the wendy davis campaign. one of their big mistakes matter-of-fact i think was watching onto one candidate rather than taking the long term approach. so, anyway given that background davis runs for governor and there are certain signs may be battleground texas wasn't doing quite as well as everybody was hyping them up in the media. the first one was when the filing deadline came for the candidates for 2014 blue and behold, there were a whole slew of offices in texas where neither the battleground or anybody else in the party could find anybody to run for office. if you can delete it of the 254 counties in texas and we have a slew of counties some of them

are very small and some have like 5 million people at terrace county and some have less than a hundred, but of the 254 counties no democrat could be found who was willing to put their name on the ballot to run for the county judge which is the chief elected official in the county government in texas. no democrat could be found in 165 of the 254 counties. the end result come november is that basically roughly 200 of the 254 counties now have a republican county judge. the total shipped over from what we saw back in the 60s and 70s. then came the primary and two things that happened for the democrats in the primary. we have an open primary. we don't register by party in texas so anyone had the opportunity if they were so inclined to go vote in the

democratic primary. the first problem was in the 22 small counties they couldn't find anyone who holds the primary so the voters in the 22 seats of texas it's the responsibility of the political party to put on the primary. it's not a function of the government so it is not available everywhere like the regular election in november. they couldn't find anyone to hold the democratic primaries of the voters in the county had an opportunity to participate in choosing the democratic nominee because there was no primary. that was the most there's ever been in as michelle pointed out historically would have has been the case is the democratic primary had been the big enchilada. that's where people decided that the liberals and conservatives and chose who was going to be the the officeholder within the county they couldn't find anyone to hold the primary. and comes the primary and wendy

davis loses 29 counties to someone who was a local in a civil judge who had no money, no name recognition that he needs when the davis in 29 counties mainly along the mexican border. he had a hispanic name and i'm sure that was an appeal that also sent warning signs to davis that maybe there were going to be more problems than they thought they were going to have in turning all these supposedly new hispanic voters to the democratic side. the other amazing characteristic of the 2014 democratic primary is the turnout in the roughly a little over 500,000. i think it was 455000 people who voted in the democratic primary.

so i went back and i said that the look back and see how much of the significance. i know that is less. let's go back and see how far one has to go to find that small a turnout in the democratic primary. unbelievably, the answer was 1920. 1920 was the last year that fewer people voted in the texas democratic primary. now keep that in perspective the population of the state of texas in 1920 according to the census was 4.7 million. the population of texas estimated today is north of 26 million. so, the last time they had so few voting there was less than 5 million people in the state and now there's 26 million. that gives you an indication of the battleground texas in terms of registering voters

motivating them and turning them out as democrats when they have a primary with a member since 1920. as is as a, but is it, what happened then on election day well, you all know that greg abbott defeated wendy davis for governor. you probably also recall john cornyn was reelected to united states senator. the other interesting fact about how serious and difficulty democrats find themselves in is that wendy davis was able to obtain only 38.9% of the vote, much lower than the previous democratic candidates who haven't had all of the publicity surrounding the effort. so davis got 38.9% and lost by

over $950,000. that was the difference between her and the attorney general abbott. even more significant, of the 12 statewide democratic candidates on the ballot, wendy davis had the highest percentage and lost by the smallest margin. so in other words, as bad as she was, she was the best that they could do and that is a change from some of the past elections where they drew upon the traditional support of the democratic party that had gotten better than perhaps the top-level candidates. so the best they could do was 38.9%. the best they could do was lose by 950,000 votes. even more significant perhaps for the long-term is that in 110 counties of the 254 he got 80%

plus of the vote. 80% plus, eight out of every ten voters in the county voted for abbot. i've already told you what the breakdown was after the election and both congress and the legislature and in the county judges, overwhelmingly republican. why did this happen and how did this come about and is there any lesson that can be learned from this and other parts of the country. there are certain unique factors to texas and we have to recognize that. the population of texas is conservative and has been conservative. at least the predominant view of most texans would classify themselves as conservative. if you ask people generally

speaking do you consider yourself a conservative or moderate liberal anywhere from 45 to 50% of the people in texas over time mostly conservative. only about 20% holding liberal and over liberal and the other 30% roughly will say i'm somewhere in between. so one of the problems as you could see when wendy davis was coming across as the hero appealing to the electorate there'll make roughly 10% of them think of themselves as liberals, one calls of cowboy conservatism and i think that is probably an accurate expression of the two trades of the political opinion that is present in the state of texas. one is the frontier kind of the more individualistic attitude is present in much of the people of

texas that was there from the early days of the settlement particularly in west texas where everyone was on their own and have to solve their own problems because there was no organized society in much of the areas of west and central texas and so to fight off the indians to go to their homes and solve their disputes with other people and neighbors, they had to do it on their own. it was the attitude of self-reliance and the ability to hold one's own problems and not rely on the government or some other institution. the second strain of the political belief that is present in much of the state comes over from the culture of the old south and that's because much of the settlement in east texas was by people that moved from tennessee, alabama, mississippi and other states and brought

with them that tradition of family values, doing things the way that one has always done them, not fixing things unless they are broken, why fix it unless it is broken. that's not the way we do it around here. those kind of attitude came with its more traditional attitude and so through the accommodation of the individualistic and the tradition of political cultures comes this cowboy conservatism that is the dominant political culture in texas and its dominant its dominance but just in the rural areas but in the large areas as well. it fixes of course is in terms of religious values not only strongly catholic but is the largest representation of the southern baptist and again, that

is an indication of the traditionalist southern culture because here you have a religious domination that the present in all 50 states now but still has the words southern indicating again the importance of the tradition that is important to them. another factor that has influenced texas is population growth. as i indicated just from the figures of 1922 the present has grown phenomenally and much of the growth took place in the 1960s and 1970s but has continued growth in state population growth, natural birth growth but also migration engine is figures for texas announced about 2 million new residents every decade. probably the most significant

period was in the 1971 to 1980 period when the republican party was starting to make the real growth in the state and the migration into the state has been an important factor and continues to be. there was an interesting comment by a political observer in texas recently. he indicated that in the last two years the republican party of texas have been able to get a list of new registers. i don't know how they do but i guess it's that i guess it's from the utility lookups or whatever and from that, they did a survey of people moving into the state of texas and duly registered as voters and a founder that when they asked them what was their inclination in terms of the voting voting behavior, 56% said they were most likely going to vote republican.

much different than what this whole approach was supposed to be a bit of a would-be democrats had hoped for in the state blue and his observation is coming and i noticed it in some other comments by liberals after the election is that texas has become a magnet for people who belief that free enterprise for the opportunity for job growth and private enterprise, for entrepreneurship and low taxes limited government services and soap we have been attracting those kind of people who share the conservative philosophy and view of the government of the state and meanwhile what is happening is those who don't agree with that outlook and want more government services and want more spending are moving away from the state.

so this migration pattern that continues today is working to solidify the state of texas rather than changing it in the direction towards the democrats. now, population growth is a factor even in the 1970s and in the 1980s and in the growth of the republican party. there was a survey done in the 1970s. 90% of the chairman of the state had been born in texas. roughly half of the republican county chairmen were new residents in texas and had moved there in the last 25 years. migration was a big factor in terms of building the base support for the party. there were certain individuals played a key role and those were the ones that you probably know the first one was john tower

because right after that 1960 democratic victory as we talk about here, lyndon johnson had been elected to two offices, reelected to the united states senator and elected vice president of the united states and he couldn't hold both offices so he had to resign the position as the united states senator and that caused a special election for the first republican senator since reconstruction in any of the southern states not just texas. and he was elected in a kind of a corky and interesting way because he was running against a conservative democrat in name by the size delete the name of bill blakely has been appointed until the election ran for election and lost to tower. since the democrats had nominated a conservative as

their candidates the liberal elements in the democratic party started doing something that's maybe major factor in the growth of the republican party. they decided that in order to control, to get the liberal control of the democratic primary and the democratic organization they had to drive conservatives away from the democratic primary in other words fewer conservatives voting in the democratic primary the more the liberals could win and gain control of the party organization. how do you do that when there is no alternative for the conservatives to go to flex so they decided that one of their objectives was to build out a viable alternative party. in other words, to try to drive the conservatives to the republicans had to make the republicans a viable party.

and so what they did in the 1960s when election is they started a pattern. they came out and endorsed john tower and worked for the republican in a very close election. their support probably made a significant difference. they then continued to do that in a subsequent elections for governor none of which the republicans were able to win. that's what they ended up doing is tower who they thought they could knock off probably went on and won the next three and has been the republican governor ever since 1961. so michelle indicates the careful what you wish for. what the liberals were able to do in the 60s and 70s by giving support to the republican candidates even though they lost they helped gain control,

but the factor that gained under control and 76 wasn't someone in texas but someone from california and that was ronald reagan. and when he ran against gerald ford for the republican nomination in 1976, he was able to attract in a positive way millions of these democrats who otherwise would have been voting in the democratic primary to the republican primary. and so in 1976 roughly half a million people voted in the primary and that a lot of the liberals to gain control of their party. the result then is able to can tv could defeat the governor and nominate a liberal democrat candidate for governor.

but by then the republicans have become a viable alternative and so what happened was the candidate lost to a man by the name of bill clements became the first republican governor in 104 years to serve in texas and so you can see sometimes if you try to purify the party and you try to kick out all of those with whom you don't agree 100% the end result may be that all you're doing is benefiting the opposition and that is certainly what happened to the liberals were able to gain control of their party but really since 1996 had been able to win nothing in the state even though they controlled the party organization. what are some of the lessons that can be applied in other places? first of you have to mentor the

people who were possible candidates, officeholders and government officials. one of the great things he did in his time of office is attracted a number of younger people to the staff and a number of younger people as volunteers and campaign operatives who then went on and became candidates for public office having been made toward and having developed their political skills with the united states senator and his operation so subsequently the younger individuals became elected as the county judge in houston and dallas county and in the city of san antonio. others were elected and others

that have served on his staff had been mentor does what he did was build a cadre of younger workers and supporters who then became candidates and public officials. and i think that is one thing that we have to keep in mind you can adjust when by putting up an attractive candidate at the top of the ticket. you have to build from the ground up and trained them and recruit them to be candidates. the second thing that unfortunately from my perspective our state allows the straight ticket vote. by that i mean when you go in and look at your ballot the first thing is you want to vote a straight ticket. if you do you either markets or press a button or whatever

method of the voting machine you might have you make an indication that is what you want to do and what that automatically does is for every candidate of the party on the ballot to cast a vote for them. you can go in and override the individual vote if you decide i'm going to vote republican but for county commissioner i'm going to vote for the democrat and when you get down you can override it and vote for the democrats. what it does is automatically put a vote in the republican column and therefore there is no -- if you understand the mechanics there is always a big drop-off. they vote at the top of the ticket and they get tired and they don't know the candidates and they don't booth near the bottom but when you vote straight ticket every one of them is right down to the bottom of the party. since about 2,000 roughly 60% of all of the votes of texas

overcast as a straight ticket. so it's become the dominant method of voting for people in the state. and in each of those years, the republican party has had a majority for the state ticket vote and as one observer indicated voting the straight ticket in the old days remember the example that i gave you the were conservatives, liberals, defend this and that. everybody does a democrat if you go to democratic straight ticket you didn't know what you are doing. >> in today's world is there a distinction between the republican and democratic party? i certainly think there is and

the difference between the two parties is such that the republican candidate is going to be at least more conservatives than the democratic candidate. it may not be your pure conservative. so there is the certainty of voting a straight ticket if you are voting in the position that were consistent with your philosophy whatever it might be. it's become the republican party of texas has really pushed straight ticket voting and it's been a great benefit. romney beats obama by 500,000 votes on the straight ticket voters. he did beat obama even more but there is a whole chunk of the

votes not only for the top of the tickets but ticket but for every one of the down ballot candidates supporting the party candidate. even if they don't have an ability to cast the vote, they emphasize voting for the party ticket as the means of the candidates. the attributes of the individuals as one party or one is over the other party. the third thing i think that has been successful in texas is outreach and recruitment. the state has emphasized the state chair man chairman and a ford former yaf member and director. emphasizing outreach not just at election time but on a

continuing basis for the various ethnic and racial communities in the state presenting themselves as interested. it would be to greatly increase the number of the hispanic candidates and not only the candidates but officeholders. at the present time, there are in the statehouse five hispanic republicans two black republican representatives, we lost one and we had three black republicans. and one asian and one hispanic congress and serving his third term and one new freshman congressman.

among the hispanic voters, they received 43% of the vote on the race for governor. are they doing in texas, i think they are and it's important we do that across the country and reach into other areas sometimes we don't campaign in a certain communities. >> the fourth point is inclusiveness. one of the great things he's done since he was elected chair man in 2010 is he has brought together the various elements of the party working together in one concerted efforts so that

his effort has been so successful that when he was about to state convention no one even ran against him for the office of the state chairman because all sides in the party recognized that he was keeping everyone together and working together on goal which is a victory in november and i think it is the inclusiveness remembering the rule that he would rather have somebody that voted with an 80% of the time then somebody that voted against him 100% of the time and then we stop working within the area of inclusiveness in the party it's even broader than including the various racial and ethnic groups or geographic groups. its other elements too. we have to remember what happened to the liberal democrats in texas when they tried to exclude conservatives

if they got control of the party they were calling themselves the democratic wing of the democratic party kind of an echo of what you might hear on the republican side. they didn't have the term dying out that they were talking about people and the democrats name only that they were able to get control of the party organization and in so doing given the nature of the population at large they lost control of the state politics. with the stock their. i hope that will give you some thoughts on why texas has been successful and maybe a few pointers on what can be applied in other parts of the country. if you have questions i would be glad to answer. [applause]

>> thank you very much for coming. i just had a question i recently had read the book called the blueprint. i don't know if you've read it but it's called how colorado turned blue and it's interesting because when you talk about battleground texas and how it was extremely unsuccessful of the efforts in colorado when you look back ten, 15 years ago it used to be read and then it was blue and it talked about how you had out site interest groups that came into the united effort to turn out the vote for obviously the blue candidates so in looking at how texas has been so successful keeping the state red how do you think something can be applied to a state like texas or colorado debt swung from largely ready to now pretty blue wax

>> they had an advantage and i think back to the original culture of the state texas basically was conservative and is conservative and so what really happened in our state is the republican party became labeled and identified as the conservative party in the state and as the democrats lost their control and became more liberal, they were out of touch with the views of the people. i don't know i think that cory gardiner did a tremendous job in his election and what he did is stuck to the point it didn't get diverted into other areas and he about mark udall -- there are two of them and i keep forgetting which is which mark udall got off on this women's rights women's issues things and overkill of his own position,

and i think that really helped. i would go back to some of the planes i said, grassroots recruitment involvement in all of the various communities you can get involved in not just during election time coming and i think there is certainly a sizable population growing in colorado and i would be looking for individuals that are possible candidates from that community. outreach to the civic organizations and religious organizations and the hispanic community now not just election time and finding some of the key people that could be recruited. whether we like it or not we are all ideological and think in terms of conservatism. sometimes you have to remember the average voter looks at elections in a much broader way and it may be racial ethnic

religious, other factors that cause people to vote for someone and therefore if you can't attract someone from that community to be a candidate, you are going to get not only to people that would normally vote republican but those that are voting because he is one he's one of us, someone we can relate to and we think that person will reflect our values because he is like us or she is like us. >> we will have a couple questions. first, even though the liberal wing of the democratic party may have hurt themselves in texas did you find that they contributed to what you would have to say has been a successful liberal domination of the democratic party nationwide? where they contributors to that and then the second question is you seemed a bit disdainful of the strategy. what about the strategy, what impact has the prosecution or

the persecution of tom delay and now governor. contribute to or subtracted from the democratic image in the state of texas? >> good points. let's take the second one first and that is i don't think that it's been effective at all. you have to realize that where we lived in austin which is best described as a blue dot in a red city that's where this prosecution has taken place so most people who are natural or objective are pretty much dismissive of the charges against, particularly the charges against perry and of of course as you know the ones against tom delay were thrown out. i don't think that it's effective if anything politically. but neither has it hurt the democrats because people say

yeah. nationally, yes. certainly there were some figures from texas to talk to move the democratic party nationally to the left. so yes they helped the process and certainly the moving of the democratic party nationally to the left was a negative influence on the texas voters. >> i have two questions. the first one being what are battleground texas made a big mistake by putting itself with wendy davis. what are the prospects of having forward, are they getting smarter and while they still have their wallets open and first in the prospect of them moving forward i guess my second question would be there has been a conservative liberal fight in the republican party recently we have groups like texas some of the speakers members and stuff like that. i just wonder we are seeing that

conservative fight brewing brewing and how do you see that moving forward in the future? >> one of the biggest strategies is to register or voters particularly hispanics to customers all this media hype about some unknown point in the future ten years, 20 years the state will become majority hispanic and low and behold it's all going to become a democrat and republicans aren't going to have any success. for those of you that do fundraising for political organizations, you can believe all that and try to present that to the donors because it is a good scare tactic and i am sure that it works. but the reality is that it's all based on all kinds of assumptions that i think are very questionable and i will give you three reasons why i think those are questionable assumptions of hispanics in texas and again it may not be applicable everywhere else.

assimilation in the organization that quickly check those. assimilation the more and more generations that become affiliated with american society, the more assimilated they are and the more they will share the values of others and attitudes. there were two statewide hispanic candidates on the one democrat and one republican. the democrats last name vanderbilt. the republican hispanic name bush. i asked the question what's going to happen to their children and grandchildren ten, 20 years from now? they may think of themselves as hispanics but what if their kids marry an anglo but are they

going to be? are they going to think of themselves as hispanics? i don't know nor do these demographers making these predictions about the future. the third thing is suburbanization. the more successful they get what do they do? they move to the suburbs and what happens in the suburbs? currently there are 29 counties that surround the suburban counties according to the census bureau predicted metropolitan area dallas, fort worth san antonio, 29 counties. every one of those 29 as a republican county judge. every one of those 29 has a republican majority and sometimes zero on the county commissioners court and other county officials. so if you are hispanic and successful and you move out of dallas or houston and you go to one of the suburbs and and behold the primary comes around and there are no democratic

candidates in the county which is the big suburb of houston and all of your neighbors have yard signs for the republican candidates at all the candidates that are republican and everybody's putting in the voting in the primary, what are you going to do? abe won't vote at all and maybe that's why there is the voter turnout. or i want to figure out who my county commissioner is going to be. i'm going to vote in the republican primary. once you do that with is that going to lead you to do? probably support republicans statewide in the fall. so i can't see what's going to happen but neither can these demographers getting all these predictions about how the state is going to become democratic because the state will become the authority hispanic. now your other point about the internal disputes, yes there are those. we had a speaker by the name of joe strauss who comes from a long time republican family. his mother was fairly active in the party for years.

i happened to have the pleasure of being the delegate for george h. w. in 1988 and she, too mac was a delegate and we sat next to each other and i've known her for some time. i don't know joe that well but he has been the speaker now. he has lined up to 70 of the 98 republicans have already come out and pledged to support him for another term, so he's close to -- there's 150 members and you have to give 76. he's close to lining up to support and i know that he will be the speaker again. yes there is an element to the party in these issues trying to say so and so isn't pure enough but so far they have not been successful. >> probably time for two questions. >> just a comment and then a question. adding to your vocabulary on the

straight party voting but the texas termed the yellow dog democrat and the idea that there were democrats voting for a yellow dog if they were on the ticket. so perhaps the art raising some good yellow dog republicans at this point, i don't know. but the question is coming and in a way it follows on the last point with the cowboys trained in the cowboy conservatism. take deal of liberal in the state. ron paul came from texas. if you even look back at the election where they ran as a third-party it was kind of a joke and there was no threat but for god sake they got 10% of the vote so is there a threat with this appeal to the libertarian element of someone like steve doesn't manage to keep all of them together?

>> there's always the possibility of the candidate influencing the election and obviously those of you here in virginia no doubt from the last gubernatorial race and maybe even wasn't that close a vote in the senatorial race this time around. so yes there is always the possibility that there doesn't seem to be a very strong viable libertarian party presence. there is certainly a libertarian attitude. so, it could be but so far there hasn't been. one more and then we better stop. >> hell is the republican party doing in the major cities in texas? >> it depends. if you look at houston pretty well come and abbot carried his debate coach harris county and the judge there is a republican by the name of ed and -- emmitt.

it is a republican stronghold and that is fort worth and arlington. and we are doing disastrously in travis county which is austin and el paso. and we had a very good year in their county in terms of electing judges, so it is viable but not that strong. the important thing to remember is those big counties are actually coming down as a percentage of the overall vote. they are less today than they were ten or 20 years ago as a share of the overall vote. the tremendous growth has been in the suburbs and the suburbs are so overwhelmingly republican that but they are outputting the big cities.

thank you all very much. i appreciate you being here. [applause] i would be happy to sign books for anyone who would like one. >> thank you very much. we wanted to present you with the tie that ron is actually wearing today. an exclusive young americans for freedom's tie. thank you so much for coming and we just wanted to offer that to you. >> thank you so much. [applause] spin echo of >> how everyone cut into for coming. my name is ashley and i guess books meant for the young america's foundation. today you will all be receiving a free copy of doctor wayne thorburn's the criteria and there will be a signing in the lobby which is complement three as well. we also have a free lunch for you today [inaudible] if you parked in the garage you

will be validated parking as well. we would like to thank you again so much for being with us today [inaudible] we hope to see you back here again soon. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

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