Imagine after he tries to blow a few of those racial dogwhistles during a national debate. You'd probably double hispanic turnout overnight.

McCain won by 11 points in 2008. This poll shows Perry - the current governor! - winning by only 1 point - a statistical tie. The largest gap is only 7 percentage points, and in each case the percent of undecideds are greater than the gap.

If the election were held today against any of those Republican candidates, there's a good chance that Obama would win Texas!

It's similar to the margin Clinton lost to Dole there in '96 and about four points better than Obama placed in '08.

So much for the home team advantage.

I wonder how the religious factor would play in an Obama--Romney matchup? Texas continues to be a southern state more than a western state, and the Religious Right plays a HUGE role in the Texas Republican Party.

A lot of more secular-minded right-wingers and Republicans were doing their best earlier this year to shove the memory of the Fundamentalists and Evangelicals railing against Romney and his membership in the LDS in the 2008 primaries. As the South Carolina primary showed, bias against the Mormon Church still is a factor in right-wing politics and it showed.

I don't know how well an Obama--Romney matchup would go here in Texas. I'd be thrilled to see the 2012 Presidential election give the Texas Republican Party establishment a long, long overdue and very nasty surprise, but I've been disappointed too often before. Sure, the President is popular with a lot of Texans. The trouble is, as progressives have learned to the sorrow again and again and again since 1992, a lot of these people might claim to admire certain Democrats and progressive policies, but when they have a chance to express that admiration, they stay home in droves and don't vote. Right-wingers DO vote and the good guys get stomped.