Another Poll Slams Blue Dog Bill

The Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram released a poll yesterday that they and several other newspapers had commissioned to look at the governor's race. The poll surveyed 1,508 Texas voters between February 2nd and February 10th, and has a margin of error of 2.5.

Just like the three polls I discussed yesterday, this poll doesn't look too good for Blue Dog Bill White, who is the leading Democratic candidate for governor by a wide margin. While Blue Dog Bill looks strong in the Democratic primary, he doesn't look so good when paired against a Republican. Here's what the poll showed:

Perry 43%.....White 37%

Hutchison 42%.....White 34%

Perhaps the most remarkable fact uncovered by the poll is that after a couple of months of campaigning, 65% of Texans say they still don't really know who White is. That means Blue Dog Bill has a lot of work to do before the November elections (assuming he wins the primary).

Now some Democrats are saying it's a good thing that 65% of voters don't know White. That means he has a chance to win voters over before November. If White was a fiery campaigner, a great speaker and offered a real difference from what Republicans are offering, I might agree with that.

But the sad fact is that Blue Dog Bill is a corporate-owned conservative, a poor campaigner and a boring public speaker. He is far more likely to put voters to sleep than fire them up. I doubt that many independents (or Democrats) are going to be very impressed when they do finally get to know him (and he doesn't have a prayer of getting any Republican votes).

And the picture gets even worse when you consider the responses to a couple of other poll questions. Many Democrats are pinning their hopes on Texans wanting to dump current governor Rick Perry, but the poll doesn't back that view. When poll respondents were asked what they thought of the job Perry was doing as governor, 46% said they approved and 38% disapproved.

That doesn't look like a groundswell of opinion against Perry to me. Then respondents were asked whether Texas is moving in the right direction or is on the wrong track. About 53% of them said Texas is going in the right direction, while only 35% said the state is on the wrong track. Texans are just not chafing at the bit to dump their current state leadership.

A lot of my progressive friends are holding their noses, biting their lips and supporting Blue Dog Bill, because they think he's the only Democrat who could beat Perry or Hutchison. They're willing to sacrifice their beliefs just to get someone in office who calls himself a Democrat. I think they're wrong.

We've all seen the destruction wrought by blue dog Democrats in the last year, and it certainly doesn't inspire any confidence in voters that the best the Democrats have to offer is a blue dog corporate-owned candidate. I think he'll be lucky to hold the Democratic votes, and could do as badly as the empty suit they ran in the 2006 governor's race.

Democrats will not win the governorship until they offer Texas voters a real choice -- someone radically different from the corporate-owned conservative leadership we currently have in Austin. I urge all real progressive Democrats to show the party leadership your displeasure with their "anointed" candidate by voting for one of the so-called "minor" candidates on the ballot.

I am supporting and will be voting for Felix Alvarado -- an educator from Fort Worth. My good friend Perry over at the blog Brains and Eggs is supporting Alma Aguado (pictured) -- a physician from San Antonio and a good progressive. Voting for either one in the upcoming primary will send a message to party leadership that you're tired of business as usual (trying to trump a Republican conservative with a Democratic conservative) and want to see the party return to its progressive roots.

Maybe then we'll see some real progressives nominated and the Democrats will have a real chance of winning statewide races. Maybe then Democrats can return control of state government to the citizens of Texans instead of the corporations.