Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski
National Democrats and liberal activists are taking enormous legal and political risks with the lawless activities in Texas caught on the Project Veritas tapes. But they see Texas as such a strategic prize that they believe it’s worth that risk, and that victory must be achieved at any cost.
When registering voters, Texas law makes it illegal for a volunteer registrar to “transcribe, copy, or otherwise record a telephone number furnished on a registration application.” It specifically provides that you cannot copy the name, address, or phone number.
Yet the latest video James O’Keefe has made public, focused primarily on a woman named Jennifer Longoria who is designated as Field Organizer for Battleground Texas, shows them openly saying that when they register voters they copy the phone number into their database, so that they can call those people at a later date.
Battleground Texas is an organization dedicated to turning Texas blue—that is, making it a Democratic state, as it was years ago when the Democratic Party was focused on other issues, and known for robust national defense and a respect for cultural issues such as gun rights. The same state that elected Rick Perry as governor and Ted Cruz as senator could be transformed into a place where someone like Wendy Davis, who is staunchly anti-gun, pro-abortion, and a devoted supporter of Obamacare seeking to expand government-run healthcare, is setting the agenda.
An essential part of building the apparatus to make this happen is the extension of no-holds-barred data collection. In elections, knowledge is power. Every person cares about many issues to one degree or another. If you have enough information on each potential voter, you can micro-target each person by sending direct communications that frame the election only on those matters where a voter might support one candidate, even if the opposing candidate better represents that person on most of the issues that are important to him or her.
As Longoria is quoted on the video, “That data collection is the key.” This information gives them a clear picture of who their voters are, and where they are. Once you know that, you can turn out those people to the polls. Elections are decided by a relatively small number of people. If you can target those people and motivate them, you can flip the outcome of an election and move Texas—or any state—in a completely different direction from what the majority of the citizens actually prefer.
If you look at the data dump that they’re getting through various sources, it can add up to a game-changer.
Texas is a big prize. It’s the second largest state. It has a ton of money. But it also has a huge non-white population. Democrats understand that if they can advance a racially-divisive agenda in Texas, and scuttle a conservative Republican-driven agenda that empowers minorities, then they hope over a period of years to turn Texas blue.
Texas also carries a block of electoral votes that no conservative can win the White House without.
More at link:
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/02/19/Why-Are-Dems-Willing-To-Stretch-Texas-Law-In-Election
