Far be it from me to defile Daily KOS with an item from The Corner ... but when
they're right, they're right. In this entry, Rod Dreher mentions that he's seen many Dean bumper stickers in Dallas, but none for any other candidate.
And he's right. I live in Dallas myself; I'd like to think that one of the stickers he's seen is mine. And like him, I've seen nary a Gephardt or Lieberman sticker (although I do know a Gep supporter), and I can't even imagine a Kerry sticker on a vehicle around here.
Dean has visited Texas at least three times, staging rallies in San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston, and he'll be back here for a fundraiser next week. He's even run a few ads in Austin from what I understand. I wouldn't be surprised to see Clark stop by sometime soon, but as near as I can tell, the rest of the candidates have been treating Texas as a lost cause.
Maybe there's good reason for that, but Dean detractors have to understand how much that means to people like me. I've been to several Dean meetups, and I went to the Grassroots Summit last weekend, so I can say with confidence that he has people here who are working for him.
Now it would be easy to dismiss that by saying, "Oh, but it's just Texas. It's not in play." But that kind of proves my point. Even in freakin' Texas Dean already has an infrastructure. If his national campaign is paying off here, it's probably paying off in a lot of other places, too.