It’s OK to Dream of a Blue Texas

Whenever my friends and family despair about the GOP’s decades-long stranglehold on Texas, I remind them—wistfully—that it hasn’t always been this way. If you’re wincing, I get it. Such optimism in the face of electoral reality is insufferable, especially since I’m frequently bringing this cheerful message from highfalutin New York City, where I moved in 1996, two years after Democratic Governor Ann Richards lost to Republican George W. Bush. Whenever I make a pilgrimage to the Lone Star State,…