Blue Binder on a Red Shelf : Let's Turn Texas Blue!

I conducted my own informal poll on who is likely to win the presidential election.  As I travelled to Austin, Texas this week to attend the Texas Conference for Women, I didn’t succumb to the driver’s lull that usually takes over when I’m on the road for more than an hour.  Nope, this time I was on maximum alert. 

As I drove along the rural highways leading to Austin, Texas I counted yard signs, or a better description is "farm" signs.  I didn’t plan to count the signs, it just sort of happened.  As I was driving in the Red State of Texas I noticed sign after sign…not for Romney-Ryan, as you would expect, but Obama-Biden.

The signs seemed out of place as I headed further towards west Texas, but they were everywhere! In Caldwell, Texas I counted 6 signs for Obama-Biden and two for R-R.  In Bastrop, Texas, a huge Republican city I didn’t see a single R-R sign. I saw several for Obama-Biden. 

I couldn’t help thinking…”What if we turn Texas Blue?”  What if the Romney-Ryan ticket is just too right wing even for Texas?  No, the drive didn’t make me crazy. I know I’m talking about the same Texas that produced George W. Bush. The same Texas that put Rick Perry on the national stage and exposed him for all that he is.  The same Texas that has an elected official, Tom Head of Lubbock, Texas, who said out loud, in public that President Obama “…is going to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the UN”.

There are a lot of feisty women here in Texas. In fact we have a saying here, “Don’t mess with Texas women”.  We can handle ourselves pretty well in most situations.  At the Texas Conference forWomen over 5000 women were in attendance. Most of them were executives and entrepreneurs.  I sat in that roomful of women (binders and binders…), at the luncheon listening to keynote speaker Dr. Brené Brown I couldn’t stop thinking it’s truly possible.

The women in that room have children they want to have health insurance through college.  They want their daughters to have access to reproductive health services provided by Planned Parenthood.  If that same daughter is raped while away at college and it results in pregnancy, I believe they’d want to make the decision on how to proceed as a family. The government shouldn’t get a voice in such a personal and life changing decision. These women are part of the infamous 47 percent.

Surely Texas Republicans have a threshold that they are not willing to cross… don’t they?

Let’s make history. Let’s Turn Texas Blue!