The Democratic ballot for 2014 is already starting to take shape. There is little doubt that State Senator Wendy Davis will be heading the ticket. After her courageous filibuster of the anti-woman GOP bill in the legislature, she has become a hero among Texas Democrats (who begged her to make a run for governor). She has declared her candidacy for that job now, and has already raised a couple of million dollars for her campaign. That's not enough, but she has time to become competitive financially. She also has an energized base of supporters.Democrats were hoping that she would be heading a strong ticket, with some good candidates down ballot. So far, there have been four other candidates that have declared their statewide candidacy for office on the Democratic ticket -- and it's a bit of a mixed bag (with a couple having pretty good name recognition, and a couple being virtually unknown by voters).
The picture above (from the Burnt Orange Report) is of Maria Luisa Alvarado. She is officially declaring her candidacy for the office of Lt. Governor today. She is well-known among Texas Democrats since she ran for this same office back in 2006 -- getting more than 1.6 million votes with very little campaign funding and a weak candidate for governor heading the party's ticket. Hopefully, by declaring her candidacy this early, she can raise enough money to run a decent campaign. If so, she could be a real help to Wendy Davis.
The other candidate with good name-recognition is Kinky Friedman (picture is from his website) -- comedian, author, and singer. Kinky ran for governor in 2006 as an Independent, and has now declared his candidacy for Agriculture Commissioner on the Democratic ticket. Some Democrats are still angry at Kinky, blaming him for their loss in 2006. But they need to get over that. Their 2006 candidate was weak, and could not have won even in a two-man race. If he survives the primary (and so far, he has no opponent), Kinky could help the ticket because he appeals to a lot of Independent voters (and voters who normally don't vote) -- and the Democratic ticket could use all the Independent votes they can get.
The first of the virtual unknowns is Mike Collier (picture above from his website). Collier has tossed his hat in the ring for State Comptroller. He is a businessman and a former partner at PriceWaterhouseCoopers auditing firm. He is most likely a blue dog -- but if you're going to vote for a Democratic blue dog, then the office of Comptroller is probably the best office to do that in (since the Comptroller keeps track of state funds, and notifies the legislature how much money they have to spend). His main problem is going to be getting his name before the voters, because he has never run for office before and most Texans have never heard of him. But with this early start, he might be able to remedy that (especially if he can pry loose some funding from the business community).
The final declared candidate for Democrats is Maxey Scherr (image from vimeo.com). She has declared her candidacy for the U.S. Senate. Her candidacy has to be considered the biggest long-shot of all. She is inexperienced (only out of Texas Tech Law School for five years), starts with little to no funding, and no Texas Democrat (or Independent or Republican) outside of El Paso has ever heard of her -- and she is running against a very well-funded GOP incumbent (Cornyn). She has a very tall political mountain to climb. But who knows, maybe she will surprise us and turn out to be more formidable than expected.That's it for now. But there is still plenty of time (with months to go before the primary), and I expect others will be declaring for office soon -- since we have a good gubernatorial candidate, and the Republicans have recently damaged themselves by supporting the government shutdown. It won't be easy, but 2014 represents the Democrat's best chance to win statewide office in the last twenty years.
