The Democratic party booster and strategist responds — by invitation — to my Newsweek piece.

In an opinion piece published Monday in Newsweek, Texas Monthly Editor In Chief Evan Smith looks into his crystal ball and sees red far into Texas’ future. “Democrats can dream,” Smith says, “but the only thing likely to be blue in 2012 is their mood.”

At the bottom of Smith’s fortune telling is a common assumption one would think Barack Obama just put the lie to: the belief that outcomes in politics are as predictable and deterministic as Newtonian science. Tell us where the billiard balls are today, and we can predict where they’ll wind up tomorrow. Find a pundit following such 17th Century science who called Indiana for Obama.

Texans are not quite so predictable as Smith pretends. And errors in a prognosticator’s picture of the status quo can translate into wildly inaccurate predictions. Ask a weatherman.

Smith makes such mistakes in his picture of the present, confusing white college graduates in exit polls with current white college students. He forgets that there are Democrats on state courts of appeals. Even Smith’s choice of statistics betrays a bit of bias. His citing of the college vote was meant, I assume, to show that Texas young people tended Republican. But a glance at the 2008 exit polls shows that Obama won among 18-24 year olds, 50-47, and among 25-29 year olds, 58-42.

It’s also a mistake to compare 2008 election results in Texas with results in other states. The Obama campaign spent millions upon millions advertising in places like Indiana, Colorado, North Carolina, and New Mexico. Smith is comparing pecans to pinecones. The picture Smith presents of Texas today would be substantially different if the Obama campaign had spent that kind of money here.

Smith mentions Republican pollster Mike Baselice. Again, he chooses only what reinforces his thesis. Yes, Baselice mentions in his 2008 election analysis that the worst performing Republican got 51 percent of the vote. But Smith left out the most compelling part of Baselice’s analysis: Democrats have closed the gap on Republicans. Baselice found generic Republicans with a nine-point lead over Democrats in 2006. This year, the gap has closed to 5.7, Baselice reports.

Smith also fails to mention that where Texas Democrats have campaigned hard and invested resources, they won. Smart work by Democratic state House leaders and their allies closed the Republican margin in the state House from a dozen to only two seats in just two elections. Harris County, which is the largest county in Texas and has more people than the state of New Mexico, now favors Democrats. Prior to the 2008 elections, not a single Democrat held any countywide office in Harris County. After investing time and resources in Harris, Democrats won 85 percent of the countywide seats on the ballot. This follows a similar effort in Dallas County – Texas’ second largest county. A focused Democratic effort has moved the county from having only four countywide Democratic elected officials to now holding every single count-wide position.

Smith is right when he writes that demographics aren’t destiny. What has opened the future to Democrats in Texas is not the make-up of the population or party-based gamesmanship; it’s what’s happened to the Lone Star State under Republican rule.

College is no longer affordable for many. Texas has more citizens without health insurance than any other state. Mismanaged transportation planning has led to failing toll roads, poor maintenance, awful traffic, loss of productivity. Public education is headed backwards.

When the GOP rose in Texas, it based its “no tax” arguments on the premise that taxpayer money was spent on the other side of the tracks. But now critical state services are visibly crumbling everywhere. Phony social issue distractions are thin and growing thinner. People want their children to learn in public schools. They want them to go to college without having to start their lives staring up at a mountain of debt. They want them to be able to drive on safe roads, and they want them to have access to medical care should they have an accident on the way.

Republicans have taken these simple hopes away from us.

Also, Texas’ strong individualistic, libertarian streak is hurting Republicans. Tom Craddick’s authoritarian style cost him the speakership. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst risks a similar fate by ignoring the warnings of America’s founders and subverting Senate rules intended to protect us against the “tyranny of the majority.”

Republicans’ biggest problem in Texas is they want to tell all of us what to do, in our homes and private lives, in our local schools, with our land (give it to them), with our bodies (women’s bodies, at least). They’ve disguised their authoritarian ways until the last few years. The mask has fallen.

The future looks much brighter than Smith tells us. I’m willing to admit it could all turn out differently, of course. But the case for change is more compelling than the case for stagnation. If Texans believe it can happen, it will happen. Because Democrats can dream, we will win.

Glenn is right that I transposed stats about white college students and white college grads; mea culpa. But support for Obama among 18 to 29 year olds across the country was 66 percent — perhaps ten points more than the same age group in Texas. He is also correct that there are Democrats on the state appeals court, though I’d humbly offer that substituting “appeals” for “district” doesn’t change the overall point: that the Democrats are no place in terms of statewide elected officials. As for the missing Mike Baselice stat: It was in there, but, alas, my editors at Newsweek cut it. (You know editors.) The actual spread Baselice cites is 47.31 R, 41.86 D — 5.45 percent, not 5.7 percent — but either way, the overall point is again made: Less red is still red.