Dramatic special election victory in Texas

Movements are built long-term, spanning decades. It's grueling work, requiring patience and fortitude. And nowhere more so than places like Texas, hotbeds of conservatism that, on first blush, appear hopeless causes.

But as in most of the country, Texas is slowly moving our way, and with a people-powered movement prodding things along, we are starting to notch tangible gains in the Lone Star state.

In 2001, Republican's drew a map they thought would elect 102 R's and 48 D's. They were wrong as only 88 Republicans and 62 Democrats were elected in 2002.  Still, it was a striking blow to Democrats as we had lost our majority, the Speakership, and control of the operation of the Texas House. That was a low point for Democrats in Texas as well as nationally. The result was the rise of the neo-conservative, uber Republican Tom Craddick who slashed the budget and cut social programs like CHIP and education funding. To this day that funding has never been restored even with surpluses in the state budget.

In 2006, Democrats won 6 seats plus Donna Howard's special election. In 2007 we welcomed Kirk England to the Democratic Party and now we have Dan Barrett as member of our caucus as well.  We've not even yet had a single vote cast the 2008 primaries, and there are now 71 Democrats in Texas House- a stunning and speedy reversal based on the same map that was drawn to have only 42 Democratic seats.

Yesterday's election in Fort Worth was a runoff between a Democrat and multiple Republicans even though only one Republican in name was on the ballot.  It was a race between the Democrat fighting for fair representation and the Republican Speaker and his possible enabler.  Dan Barrett vs. Tom Craddick and his crony Mark Shelton.

House District 97 was not drawn to be a Democratic seat.  In 2006, Barrett had taken on the recently retired Anna Mowery and claimed only 40.82% of the vote.  Tarrant County on the whole only gave Barbara Radnofsky, the U.S. Senate nominee, 34.80%, Chris Bell 31.07% in his bid for Governor, and the bell weather Texas Supreme Court candidate Bill Moody 42.79% of the vote. The Republican's should have won this election based on the poor democratic performance index (DPI) of the district alone. During the special election yesterday, Barrett won with 52.2% of the vote.

In addition, Barrett was dramatically out spent.  According to the 8 day out reports, Mark Shelton spent over $100,000 and raised (and presumably spent) another $10,000 from TexPAC before the election.  Barrett on the other hand spent a little over $45,000 according to his 8 day report. Again, according to his telegram reports, raised an additional $4,000 in the final week of the election from Texas Parent PAC and two individuals.

Breaking it down, that means Barrett spent $9.13 per vote compared to about $23.40 per vote for Shelton.

This was truly a people-powered victory, and gives Republicans an increasingly narrow 79-71 edge in the state House on a Tom DeLay-drawn map that, remember, was supposed to elect 102 Republicans. DeLay has already seen his "permanent Republican majority" disintegrate at the national level. Now, he's seeing it happen closer to his home state of Texas.

Netroots Nation in Austin should be lots of fun next year.