Odessa American - Sen. Cornyn Visits Regional GOP Training Session in Midland

News Article

By Corey Paul

Sen. John Cornyn visited a regional Republican training session on Saturday in hopes of galvanizing local officials to make red West Texas even redder and counter Democratic efforts to color the state purple.

Republican worry stems from analyses of a diversifying electorate that have fueled Democratic efforts such as Battleground Texas. That group, lead by two 2012 Obama campaign veterans, aims to turn the state blue primarily by mobilizing Hispanics.

"If they do that, then there would not be another Republican, another conservative, elected President of the United States in your lifetime or mine," said Cornyn, who is up for election in 2014 and attended Saturday with his campaign manager. "I'm not too worried about Texas turning blue in 2014. This is the time to get prepared and to get started and get organized."

Even left-leaning organizations examining the demographic data have stopped short of asserting such a transformation could be realized within an election cycle. Those include the Center for American Progress, which released a study in late February projecting that in 2016, 185,000 newly eligible white Texas voters will be overwhelmed by some 900,000 Hispanics entering the state's electorate.

Nonetheless, Republicans at the regional meeting, including State Rep. Tryon Lewis (R-Odessa), said it was important to stay abreast. The training session included officials from Van Horn to Pecos, and dealt with fundamentals such as block canvassing and phone banks. It was held at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin's Center for Energy and Economic Diversification.

The idea was to "train the trainers" so that these local leaders could recruit and train others, said Cassie Daniel, organization director with the Republican Party of Texas.

Greater Republican voter turnout in West Texas could help offset Democratic build-up in urban areas, Cornyn said.

The senator spoke briefly with media and took questions from the audience. Neither session broke new ground, but here are a few highlights of the senator's comments:

--The oil boom. Asked about what he and the federal government should do to aid energy-impacted areas that have seen their governments strained and infrastructure overwhelmed, Cornyn said: "When it comes to this renaissance we've seen in the oil and gas industry, I think the federal government should largely get out of the way. Fracking has been something that has been going on for about 60 years and it's regulated at the state level -- the Railroad Commission -- and we've got good ways of making sure that the water supply is protected. Of course it's created a lot of jobs here in the Permian Basin, which has probably the lowest unemployment in the country right now. So Washington needs to pay more attention to Texas and the Permian Basin in terms of how to grow jobs and how to get the economy moving.

"But to your point, there are costs associated with it." Particularly roads, Cornyn added.

"Rather than a federal responsibility this is something that the local government and the state government need to be dealing with," he continued. "The main thing the federal government can do when it comes to this energy renaissance you see in West Texas is to get out the way and let the state regulators deal with this rather than have federal regulators who really don't know what they're doing and kill this goose that's laid many golden eggs."

--The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare. Cornyn spoke at length about his distaste for Obamacare, which he sees as dysfunctional and prohibitively expensive. He also discussed his intention along with others in the GOP "to defund it, to delay it, to dismantle it and to save the American people from this monstrosity."

--Reaching new minority voters. Cornyn said Texas Republicans need to do a better job reaching out to minorities and promoting the GOP as the "party of opportunity."

--President Obama. "I just think he's out of his league when it comes to the job of being Commander-In-Chief and the leader of this free world"

--Mid-term election hopes. Republicans need six Senate seats and need to hold onto the House of Representatives. If they do, Cornyn said they can investigate the IRS and Benghazi scandal. Cornyn did not mention the NSA privacy scandal.

--Renewable Energy. Choc Harris, the chair of Precinct 201 (Greenwood) asked why the Obama administration would take an unfavorable stance toward the natural gas industry when it's such a clean burning fuel. Cornyn replied that carbon output is going down in American primarily because of the increased use of natural gas. An American populace and economy that lives off solar panels and wind energy "ain't gonna happen." Texas is the number one state in wind energy production, "but it's single digits, my friends, in terms of consumption," he said said. "And the wind doesn't always blow."

Here in West Texas, a lot of people laughed at that part.

Source