John Courage nets #2 in mapchangers

From John Courage's Website

You did it!

As the voting closed late last night here in Texas around 2 a.m., you helped John Courage SURGE to the #2 spot in the west, coming incredibly close to taking the first place slot in Mark Warner's Mapchanger contest.

John will now be competing in the final round for a grand prize of a fundraiser in the district with Governor Warner.

By Glenn Smith

Texas' first president, Gen. Sam Houston, ordered Santa Anna, the foe he had just beaten at the Battle of San Jacinto, escorted (secretly) to Mexico City to begin repairing relations between the new Republic of Texas and the Mexican government.

What the hell does this have to do with John Courage's courageous fight to oust Republican Lamar Smith from Congress in Texas CD 21? Everything. I've always thought Houston's courageous and pragmatic gesture represented something special about this place.

To make his young country safer and more secure, Gen. Houston released its biggest nemesis. It worked. We saw this special character in Sam Rayburn. We saw it in Lyndon Johnson when he fought for and signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. This independence and courage is missing in the last two presidents from Texas. It is especially lacking in Lamar Smith.

I'm not going to detail Smith's record here. He was a leader of the House Ethics Committee rule change that sought to protect Tom DeLay. Enough said. The news today is that John Courage can beat Smith. In part because of Courage's character. In part because of Smith's. In part because Texas CD 21 is changing.

There's another reason. Courage has captured the imagination of the progressive netroots here. My friends at BurntOrangeReport and the Agonist and Annatopia and their Texas colleagues are not an easy crowd. They're tough, and they're into this fight.

A few words about the political landscape in Texas and in CD 21. The GOP culture of corruption, the debacle in Iraq, deteriorating schools, job loss, a health care crisis, traffic -- all of these have taken a toll on Republicans here. In state House districts that look a lot like CD 21, Democrats are beating Republicans. That is, Democrats are winning in moderate districts that have historically voted Republican.

State Rep. Donna Howard, for instance, beat a well-financed Republican (in a special election earlier this year) in a district that gave Bush 65+ percent of the vote in 2000, and better than 55 percent in 2004. Notice a trend line? State Rep. Mark Strama beat a well-financed GOP incumbent in a similar district in 2004 for much the same reasons.

Think of the reasons as incompetence fatigue. Or deceit fatigue. The consequences of Republican policies are now felt across a broad swath of Texas, especially in places like CD 21.

I used to live in the heart of Texas 21, in a little town called Dripping Springs outside of Austin. Willie Nelson lived nearby. It was kinda redneck. The District runs north and south, sandwiched between IH 35 and U.S. Highway 281. Between the two highways runs a rugged geological feature called "The Devil's Backbone." You get the picture.

Once, I advised the backers of a new sewer system to go door to door and talk with the 650 registered voters rather than pay for advertising. At the first home they visited, they were locked in the House at gunpoint. The sewer system failed, but they escaped with their lives.

Dripping Springs is now a moderate place, full of teachers and nurses, high tech workers. They are pragmatic, family-oriented people. And by the way, the old-timers in Dripping are good people, too. Like I said, no one died in the sewer controversy. I LIKE the rural people of central and west Texas. They care about our land, they'll give you a beer when you're thirsty, they're honest. They've just been fooled by Republicans, but many have figured out just who it is that's been stealing their chickens.

A Democrat, state Rep. Patrick Rose, hails from Dripping Springs. I watched him grow up. He beat an incumbent Republican in 2002 when Democrats were wiped out across the state. There's even a documentary movie, "Last Man Standing," about Rose.

Rose has moved to the right on a few issues of late, but he was elected as a moderate Democrat.
Don't get me wrong, the district is conservative to moderate. About 19 percent of the district grabs some more conservative parts of San Antonio. But about 35 percent live in the Austin area.

A recent Lake Research Partners poll put Smith's re-elect at 31 percent. More than 60 percent were willing to consider someone else. Smith has a positive/negative of 37/40. Congress has a negative rating of 71 percent. Bush's positives are down to 44, better than he's doing in some places, but it's like he's fallen off the Devil's Backbone here.

I don't know John Courage personally. I hope I get to know him soon. He's a married father of four, a Air Force veteran, a teacher, an honest guy who had the courage to run against the odds, and now the odds are running in his favor.

John Courage is right on Social Security, health care, the environment. He's a teacher, and he's been hanging with the schoolkids while Bushco leaves them all behind. But it's his backbone, his Patriot's Backbone, not the Devil's, that attracts me to John. And that's what's going to make us all proud when he's in Congress.