AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Members of the Texas Democrats' diverse "dream team" of candidates tossed in the towel Wednesday a day after Republicans beat back their campaign strategy and retained control of statewide offices.
Tony Sanchez, the wealthy Hispanic businessman who spent more than $60 million of his own money in a run for governor, offered his congratulations to Republican Rick Perry who won his first, full four-year term in office.
"I feel that I am a much better person as a result of this campaign," Sanchez told reporters, refusing to say whether he would run for public office again.
Perry, a former lieutenant governor who automatically succeeded George W. Bush when be became president, urged bi-partisan cooperation in the upcoming legislative session which faces a $5 billion revenue shortfall.
Republicans not only defeated the Democrat's "dream team" candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, and the U.S. Senate, they also took control of the House for the first time since Reconstruction. They already had control of the Senate.
The Democrats had hoped their "dream team" slate of Sanchez and former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, a black, would draw record numbers of blacks and Hispanics to the polls, enough to sweep them and lieutenant governor candidate John Sharp into office.
Sharp, a pro-business former state comptroller and legislator, was defeated in a close race by State Land Commissioner David Dewhurst. Sharp also conceded Wednesday in Austin along with Sanchez.
Although the "dream team" did draw good numbers from the black urban areas and heavily Hispanic South Texas, they did not attract enough white voters to carry them to victory, according to Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
"The future of Texas politics has a larger role for Hispanics in particular and for Hispanics and blacks as part of a Democratic coalition, but it's just not yet possible to win a statewide Texas election that starts from the minority community of blacks and Hispanics," he said Wednesday.
Although 32 percent of the Texas population is Hispanic, they cast only about 12 to 13 percent of the vote, he said, and about 18 percent voted this time. They also don't have the impact their numbers suggest because about 30 percent are illegal and can't vote. They also don't turn out at the polls in the numbers that blacks and whites do.
Republican Attorney General John Cornyn defeated Kirk in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, and fill an historic senate seat once held by Lyndon B. Johnson and first held by Sam Houston.
"Texas made it clear tonight. We need new management in the United States Senate," Cornyn told a cheering crowd Tuesday night in Austin, promising as he did during his campaign to work closely with President Bush, who campaigned in Texas for Cornyn and Perry.
The Senate race drew national attention not only because of the fight for control of the Senate but because Kirk, the son of an Austin postal worker, would have been the first black senator from the South in the past 100 years.
He carried Dallas where he was mayor for two terms and Austin where he grew up, but did not do as well as he expected elsewhere, Jillson said.
Kirk, who trailed Cornyn by 12 percent, said he would be return to his law practice in Dallas but did not appear to completely close the door to a future run for political office.
"We're going to say good night but we're not going to say goodbye," he remarked Tuesday night.
