Texas: The Two-Party Party

If the Lone Star State has little room for the two-party system, many Texas Democrats will fight to extinction if necessary to maintain a two-party party.

Their struggle, waged for decades with near-Sicilian ferocity, is less a political schism than a blood feud between so-called liberals and uncompromising conservatives. Last week, Texas' liberals threatened to bolt in a body from the Democratic Party in order, of all things, to support a conservative Republican.

In a generally unfriendly climate, Texas' liberal rump flourishes mostly along the state's industrial Gulf Coast, among its Mexican-American...

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