Obama doesn't need Texas - Part 2

There's been some discussion of my "Obama doesn't need Texas" on Burnt Orange Report and other blogs. Many of the comments have missed the point entirely. My post was in response to an article by Clay Robinson in the San Antonio Express-News (Obama has yet to loan rock-star appeal to Texas Democrats):

Weeks ago, Texas Democratic officials got an important commitment, or so they thought, from Barack Obama's campaign.

The Democratic presidential candidate would do more than milk money from Texas for his own race. He would use his rock star appeal to also raise money for the Texas party with an event to be scheduled before Election Day.

There still is time, of course, but the clock is ticking, and some Texas Democrats are worrying that Obama's handlers may forget about the idea or permanently postpone it....

I don't care if Obama campaigns here or not. I would just like to see him appear for a major fund raiser for the Texas Democratic Party, then leave the money raised to the TDP for GOTV. His campaign may have done the math and figured they can't win in Texas, but Rick Noriega sure as hell can. If Obama gets into the Whitehouse, he will need a Democrat from Texas in the U.S. Senate. He also needs our Democratic U.S. Representatives. And he needs a Democratic Texas House to do redistricting in 2011 for the additional Congressional seats we expect to pick up in 2012.

Obama can come down once for the fund raiser, then ask Hillary Clinton to campaign here as his surrogate. While South Texas got screwed out of delegates for the primary, we have a lot of voters down here who will count much more during the general election. Clinton is very popular and could be key to turning out the vote for Rick Noriega and other down-ballot candidates.