Sifting through the dumpster behind the Democratic party headquarters, I came across discarded copies of this memo. From: Your Democratic leaders To: All Democratic voters Re: Election strategy To all Democrats in Texas: We have determined that the best strategy for Democrats in this election is to vote in the Republican primary and we urge all loyal Democrats to do so, except in areas of the state, such as South Texas, El Paso, and some East Texas counties where most local officials are Democrats. We realize that our statewide ticket is very weak, with one exception–Bill White, of course. Don’t waste your vote in the Democratic primary. The best way to help our party and our future nominee for governor is to vote in the REPUBLICAN primary for Kay Bailey Hutchison. The result we seek is for Hutchison to force Rick Perry into a runoff. At the very least, this will embarrass Perry; at the most, it could lead to his defeat. In any case, Perry will have to spend money to win the runoff that he could otherwise hoard until the general election. If Perry emerges from the runoff as damaged goods, this will improve White’s chances of defeating him. If as many as 200,000 Democrats vote for Hutchison in the REPUBLICAN primary, Perry will likely face a runoff. Some in our party may object that Hutchison would be more difficult for White to defeat than Perry. They have argued that Democratic support for Hutchison might backfire: She might win the Republican primary. While this possibility may have loomed large at one time, it is not the case today. Hutchison’s support has been declining for months. She is not as popular as she once was. Perry’s negative advertising has all but destroyed her as a viable general election candidate. The best course for Democrats interested in helping bill White is to try to weaken Rick Perry. As we learned in the 2008 presidential primary, a lot of Democrats live in Republican suburbs — Collin County, Fort Bend County, Denton County, Williamson County. What we showed the rest of Texas in 2008 is that Democrats haven’t gone away. We just haven’t had anyone to vote for. When we had a competitive presidential primary, we turned out in overwhelming numbers. Check out these early voting numbers for the two primaries in the ten largest counties: Harris 170,032 D, 51,199 R Dallas 119,880 D, 31,852 R Tarrant 82,578 D, 35,621 R Bexar 101,244 D, 32,457 R Travis 95,219 D, 17,995 R Collin 35,665 D, 23,368 R Denton 27,979 D, 16,290 R Fort Bend 34,387 D, 14,323 R Montgomery 12,622 D, 15,920 R Williamson 32,252 D, 13,113 R Please vote today in the REPUBLICAN primary for Kay Bailey Hutchison and help elect Bill White governor.