Fronted by Jerome.

As Democrats in the Texas House worked all weekend and through the early part of the week chubbing to death a voter identification bill that would disenfranchise millions of Texans and has rapidly become the civil rights battle of the decade in the state, one might wonder where the Lone Star State's two Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate stand on the controversial issue.

The reality is very illuminating.

Earlier this year, appearing before a Texans for Obama meetup in Austin, Houston Mayor and U.S. Senate candidate Bill White was asked about voter identification. According to folks who were present, White didn't say he was for voter identification, but, basically gave a blase answer that he didn't think it would impede turnout beyond a small amount.

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Some interesting happenings in my homestate. Promoted by Texas Nate

With former Texas Comptroller John Sharp's announcement today that he is in the race for the seat that U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is expected to abandon as early as this June to pursue her runfor governor, all eyes are turning to Texas and the prospects of Democrats  picking up another U.S. Senate seat between election cycles.

Since 2006, speculationhasmounted that Hutchison would abandon her safe senate seat to take on Governor Rick Perry in the 2010 GOP Primary for Governor. Hutchison toyed with the idea of making a similar run in 2002 and 2006 and ultimately made neither race. This time, however, she seems to be making the race for real, having formally formed an exploratory committee and populated it with a  million dollars from her bloated campaign warchest.

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 While plutocrat Mikal Watts was getting some well deserved tough love from the Houston Chronicle, the people-powered candidate Rick Noriega was getting some great press around the state. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a particularly glowing piece that points out the prescience of Noriga supporter State Rep Lon Burnam, one of the first to endorse Rick and also  THE first to totally reject the corrupt leadership of the Texas GOP:

In a church turned reception hall, state Rep. Rick Noriega, D-Houston, told local Democrats last week that Fort Worth Rep. Lon Burnam is a prophet.

Burnam was the lone representative in 2005 to vote against electing Tom Craddick as speaker of the Texas House. In 2007, Burnam led another House dissent against Craddick, but this time he wasn't standing alone.

Perhaps Burnam is foretelling the future with his endorsement of Noriega to win the Democratic nomination for the 2008 U.S. Senate race. Noriega, citizen-solider, believes that Texans are as frustrated as other Americans with the Iraq war debacle and yearn for experienced leadership to end that conflict.

As battalion commander of an infantry unit in the Texas National Guard, he has led troops in Afghanistan and guarded the southern U.S. border.

Noriega said he's running partly because of his warrior ethos, which demands you leave no soldier behind.

"We have 160,000 brothers and sisters right now who I think are being misled by civilian leadership that has never walked the walk," he said.

Noriega claims that his experience at the front lines and the border gives him the expertise to formulate policy based on the realities of war and diplomacy. After five terms as state representative from District 145, he said he's ready to go to Washington to help fill the leadership void.

 There's no need to worry that Noriega will be a "Bush Dog"  when we send him to Washington to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate.  Here's a man who knows why he's running and knows that there are real life consequences to political action. 

Still, the citizen-soldier, like Noriega, has an unromantic, unsanitized understanding of war that tempers the zeal to shock and awe the enemy. As any grunt in Iraq will tell you, the mission is far from accomplished.

Turning his attention to immigration, Noriega claimed that Sen. John Cornyn was the administration's first lieutenant in supporting every policy introduced in the Senate except for comprehensive immigration reform. Instead, he said, Cornyn joined the ideological extreme and became an obstructionist.

Noriega said that obstructionists oppose reform because it offers them a punching-bag issue in the next election cycle. Doing nothing provides employers with an easily exploitable work force. The Noriega plan recognizes that this country will continue to need professional and manual immigrant labor as the baby boomers age. At the same time, he wishes to secure the borders with more law enforcement officers.

His five months serving along the U.S.-Mexico border taught him something valuable: "There are bad guys over there doing bad things," he said. Those "bad things" include human and drug trafficking. 

 Unlike most politicians, Democrat and Republican who would be happy to stop there, Noriega goes on to offer real solutions. Solutions that recognize the messy realities of our situation here on planet Earth in the year 2007 AD:

Noriega recognizes that as long as the enormous economic difference exists between the United States and Mexico, the flow of undocumented immigrants will not end. He said that "people will continue to do risky things for $15 an hour."

He proposes foreign aid to Mexico that will help build its infrastructure. Mexicans building roads, schools hospitals and dams will give them the opportunity to work with dignity and will reduce the temptation to come to the United States.

"They may make $8 an hour, but they won't take the risk or leave their families to do something treacherous." he said. Noriega's comprehensive plan would address the supply-and-demand side of the immigration equation.

 In short, Rick Noriega is so obviously the real deal, a once-in-a-lifetime candidate with obvious cross-over appeal that even the Texas press corps can recognize the potential. But here's the catch. Texas is a huge state. More than 23 million residents. More than 15 million eligible voters. More than 8 million likely voters. More than 261,000 square miles. More than 20 media markets. Winning a state-wide election will likely take more than $20million. (!)

And since, unlike his primary opponent Mikal Watts, Rick Noriega only makes around $100,000 a year rather than $109,589.04 a day, the "smart money" in Texas politics is asking the obvious question, how's Noriega, a citizen-soldier going to fund a race like that? 

If Noriega wins the Democratic Senate nomination, the citizen-solider will certainly give the Republicans a run for their money.

But first we may need to consult with prophet Burnam to discern where Noriega will find the war chest required to run a statewide Senate race.

 Paul Burka, the dean of Texas political pundits agrees:

If Watts wins the primary, his background as a trial lawyer will hurt him, but Cornyn will carry a lot of the baggage that has piled up during Bush's second term. Watts will have enough money to focus the race on Cornyn's record. Noriega has the better shot to beat Cornyn--if he can raise the money.

There are two factors here. 1) The pundits and political know it alls in Texas don't understand the power of the netroots. -- the same netroots that just raised a congressional candidate from Washington state named Darcy Burner more than $87,000 in a week and won her primary without a ballot being cast. The same netroots that has already helped Rick Noriega raise over $50,000 and is on a pace to raise him more than $500,000 in time for the primary.

The other factor is this -- the netroots has never faced a challenge of this magnitude at less than a presidential level. The biggest netroots senate campaign in history -- Jim Webb's amazing win over George Allen -- only required a little under $8 million -- half of that raised online. This race will require an unprecedented committment from the netroots. Can we do it? Throw some turkee on the pile today. 

 This is also a unique opportunity -- a chance to defeat one of Karl Rove's personal projects in John Cornyn, a chance to build a historic alliance between the overwhelmingly white online progressive community and the Tejano community, and most importantly a chance to win a filibuster proof majority in the US Senate.

 Let's do it.

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