WI: Ron Kirk Defeats John Cornyn, 2002

In the Texas Senate election in 2002, John Cornyn defeated Ron Kirk. Though it's a bit implausible, how would Kirk have been as a Senator? What would the lack of Cornyn have meant?
 

Jasen777

Donor
I actually met Cornyn after a debate for that election. Unfortunately Kirk skipped out on the debate and Cornyn was only there with the Green Party candidate, Roy Williams. Cornyn ignored him and Williams spend most of his time getting soundly booed for opposing the war in Afghanistan. The debate was put on by a conservative group for lawsuit reform (they wanted to limit how much you could sue doctors for) so it may not have been bad for Kirk to skip it.

It is a bit implausible for Kirk to win, he lost by 12% and despite it being an off election during a Republican presidency, it was a Republican year because of 9/11. Republicans won the national combined votes for the Senate elections and for the House elections, and of course Texas had become safely Republican for state level elections at this point. Kirk was a fairly good Democratic candidate for Texas, but not a great one.

If Kirk won he'd replace Cornyn, a party-line Republican, and likely be a fairly party line Democrat, though perhaps a bit of a blue dog in a few areas. Assuming no other changes, the Senate gets split 50-50. That's not likely to mean a whole lot other than Cheney has to hang around the Senate more to ensure Republicans keep leadership. If Kirk won in 2002 he would have a decent shot to win reelection in 2008 in what's a better year for Democrats and will also have higher turnout due to being a presidential year. It'd be interesting to see if this would help Democrats in Texas any. Probably not.
 
I agree with Jesen

To continue your thought, I think Kirk winning the Senate seat gives the Texas Democratic party a shot in the arm showing it can still be a relevant force in a statewide election.

The knock-on effects from that are a possibility that somebody (with Kirk's support) defeats Perry in 2006 IF they choose a semi-viable candidate with a decently-run campaign (i.e. NOT Chris Bell! :D:D). I was always partial to Henry Cisneros, but Bill White or any of a number of candidates could do it.

The big problem Kirk winning the Senate seat doesn't solve is that the Democrats had problems filling in the middle- they could elect Governors (up to Ann Richards, anyway) and city councilmembers but started losing the Legislature and other elective state positions AG, RRC, etc. that really have the power to do things and vote money for pet projects in the Reagan/Bush I years, then got gerrymandered into irrelevance. Reversing that takes time and pushing good candidates that do well in those positions.

This meant that outside of the blue dogs who'd been around since Briscoe's time, there wasn't much perception both in Austin and in the voting public that Democrats were where the path to power lay.
We talk a good game in Texas about being independent thinkers but politics is a good 'ol boy system where the party in power stays in power by mutual backscratching and backroom deals with the understanding everyone plays ball. That's why Perry and a ****-load of other Dems switched to the GOP in the 80's and 90's.

As a Texan Democrat, it's been a long period in the wilderness with W and Perry's regimes as governor where sanity, compassion, and basic competence seem to have fled the building. Could Ron Kirk winning turn the tide?
It'd be a nice first step.

As to Ron Kirk as a senator, I imagine he'd probably just scale up how he ran the city of Dallas as mayor. To say he was "business-friendly" was an understatement. he'd definitely fight for more Medicaid funding and other stuff, do what he could to attract business and federal $$$ to Texas. If the Lege tried any of the shenanigans with redistricting @ OTL I could certainly see him making resolutions on the floor punishing Texas for violations of the CRVA and other stuff. Otherwise, the guy's a corporate lawyer. He liked things to run smoothly, make sure his people got their cut, and keep on trucking. He'd definitely be an improvement over Cornyn IMO.
 
Last edited:
Top