Mikal Watts Interview: "What It Takes" ... Part 1

I had the good fortune to sit down with Senate candidate Mikal Watts a while back and basically ask whatever I wanted of him for about an hour. The good thing from that is that there's a good deal to blog about from it. The bad thing is that the audio turned out horribly. So we're relying on my abilities to transcribe and sum up here. I'll break this into digestible parts. There should be about three or four parts of this to cover when it's all said and done. Maybe by the end of the week, I'll have it all wrapped up. After that, I'll try to arrange a similar interview with his primary competitor, Rick Noriega.

The first part of my conversation with Mikal was simply putting a jump ball out there on what he thinks it takes to win. There's two elements of this that I'll cover today: the idea side of the equation and then some of the tactical aspects of campaigning. Later today, I'll add my own analysis. For now, here's as close and faithful a representation as I can get to Mikal's side of the interview:

Leading into the policy side of this, Mikal offers his view that he believes there are already enough Democrats in the Texas electorate to win. On the one hand, Mikal offers that "Republicans have done about 70% of the work for us." Fill in the blanks yourselves as to whether that means the current failed record in Iraq, Katrina, Bush's sales tour to privatize Social Security, a politicized Justice Department, or whatever bill of particulars you care for. The remaining 30% presumably comes from Watt's calculation that there are enough non-primary voters - a "General Election electorate", if you will - to allow for a discussion of "bread and butter issues" to inspire.

The first policy ideas that Mikal Watts offers along those lines are relatively safe issues: education and health care. That's the front side of the equation, as Watts tells it. The only issue covered at the back side of the equation was Social Security. Watts doesn't venture from the Democratic mainstream on any of those issues. It's cheaper to invest in education & health care to send them to prison, he offers. And Social Security is a contract, not an entitlement. And it's unfair to ask people who have paid 30-35 years into a system to all of a sudden change the benefits.

Organizationally, Watts allows that while you have a rich pool of General Election voters to appeal to, you can't just go out and be right on the ideas and not know what you're doing politically. Watts offered a few takes from the Dallas County situation - the natural Democratic coalition came together, put aside their petty differences, and executed a plan that focused on the different needs to contact and turn out voters on the north side of the county as well as the south side. Watts contends that when a similar plan is put into place for Harris and Bexar County, you'll change the dynamics of state politics. Add that to what Travis County has been doing lately, throw in El Paso, the Valley, cut our losses in West Texas, get back East Texas voters (they'd previusly gotten "talked into" voting Republican), etc ... and Watts concludes you arrive at a recipe that gets you "well over 50%."

We touched on Watt's previous State Rep district, where Juan Garcia defeated incumbent Gene Seamen in a district that has seen Republican outcomes well over 60% in the past. Watts offered that he was among those who didn't initially think the district could be won. Among the things Garcia did right was that he wasn't afraid to go into Republican areas and argue the case. It's here that Watts also offers that there are a number of people who have been voting Republican for years but don't buy into the Republican Party platform at all. He also offers that we have to be willing to go into areas where we've been losing and fight the fight. "Voters have to be touched, voters have to be communicated with."

We also got into an area of my own interest: taking the fight into the suburbs. Clearly, with recent wins by candidates like Mark Strama, Donna Howard, Valinda Bolton, Allen Vaught, Hubert Vo, Paula Hightower Pierson - and to some extent, Ellen Cohen - the new growth opportunity will come from this part of the state. And yet, there are areas where Democrats have been slow to see this progress. Collin County, Williamson County and Ft. Bend County haven't moved quite the same as Williamson and Hays Counties. Part of that may be due to the proximity of the suburbs to more traditional Democratic areas. And another function of that is likely due to the preconcieved notion that it's not worthwhile to invest in campaigns in such areas.

Watts recognizes that Republicans have a decade-plus head start in organizing the suburban areas, but that we've got to start. He argues a case very close to the "Run Everywhere" model. Run candidates for city council, run candidates for school board, run candidates for Justice of the Peace, run canddiates for Sheriff. The areas of the state cannot simply be "given away" as Watts puts it. Watts draws a parallel to Dallas County here. I've not concluded that it's a good fit, but I'll let his analogy rest for now. Basically, it's that we were once losing Dallas County 60-40 and with a lot more organization and effort - and not giving up as that outcome was chipped away at - we turned it around.