It’s hard to believe now, but Democrats once had a lock on all power in the state of Texas. From Reconstruction to the 1980s, Republicans might be competitive at the presidential level, but other than picking off a statewide election here or there, had virtually no power. Texas was a one-party state.

Texas flipped to Republican control in a slow-motion sweep during the 1980s through 2002. It took solid conservatives like Phil Gramm, Bill Clements, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan to get liberty-minded Texans to see that our future was with the GOP. George W. Bush and Rick Perry solidified and expanded GOP control.

The Democrats never had an answer. When the Democrats finally lost power in Texas, they engaged in none of the soul-searching that Republicans always do when we lose elections. The Democrats didn’t question their own policies, or wonder if they’re seen as too far to the left, or if they’re actually too far to the left for Texas. The Democrats didn’t question their position on guns, the right to life, religious freedom, economic freedom, energy – anything. Despite the fact that they had just lost control of one of their bastions after more than 100 years, the Democrats in Texas never considered that they might be the problem.

Instead, they built a shadow party to wage a guerrilla war in the media.

The Texas Democratic Party marched on, funded mainly by trial lawyer Fred Barron and by his estate after he died, but Barron’s millions went in other directions too. Some of it went to help John Edwards conceals his love-child problem. Some of it went to a man named Matt Angle.

Matt Angle is not a household name outside Texas, or even inside Texas except in political circles. He launched the Lone Star Project, which was supposedly about “cleaning up Texas politics” but was really about covering for Democrats while attacking Republicans. Angle and his associates, using Barron funding and funds from convicted felon George Soros and other hard left sources, established groups like Texans for Public Justice. These were supposed to be non-partisan watchdogs. They are actually partisan attack dogs. Angle’s web includes TFPJ, the Texas Freedom Network, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the Texas Democratic Party, and allied big-money funders like trial lawyer Steve Mostyn.

It took me a few months of going through Texas Ethics Commission reports to trace all the strands of Angle’s web. It has taken the media in Texas a little longer to report Angle’s groups as the partisans that they are, but the media have come around. The groups are usually identified as aligned with the left in the media now, and occasionally a reporter will also mention Soros. That defangs them.

It just takes looking at a poll and the 2010 and 2012 election results in Texas to see that Angle’s Lone Star Project is a bust. The shadow party failed to cast more than a flicker on the electorate.

So it’s time for the community organizers to get involved and try a new trick. Enter Jeremy Bird and Battleground Texas.

Battleground Texas is the Frankenstein combination of ACORN and Barack Obama’s Organizing for America/Organizing for Action. The idea of Battleground Texas is to turn Texas over to Democrat control by hook or by crook, and even outright fraud.

Fraud? Well, James O’Keefe’s undercover reporters caught Battleground Texas admitting that they use data from voter registration forms they have voters fill out, to populate their own databases for follow-up contact later. That’s illegal according to the Texas Secretary of State’s office, though a judge has since thrown out a complaint on the matter.

Where Angle failed, Bird may succeed. Not this year, certainly. The Democrats’ nominee for governor, Wendy Davis, is running a terrible campaign and is a weak candidate known mainly for being radically out of step with Texas’ majority on abortion. Barring an unforeseen catastrophe on the GOP side, the Democrats will lose all statewide offices in Texas again.

But Battleground Texas isn’t about now, it’s about tomorrow. That’s what the state’s conservative majority needs to understand. Battleground Texas is likely doing what ACORN is known to have done in other states – flood the system with fraudulent voter registrations, and militate against voter ID laws that would prevent illegal voting, while running “walking around money” campaigns to essentially buy votes for the left. Combine that with the state’s growing Hispanic population, which the Democrats have long pined for to save them, and the Democrats could be building the infrastructure now that will give them control within a decade or two. Mix in the chaos that the Democrats have long sanctioned on the border and its demographic implications, and conservatives have a lot to ponder.

What will that mean for Texas? Under Republican rule, Texas is the nation’s job creating engine. It’s where free people come to have a family, own a home, have a job, and live free. Given any power, Texas Democrats will follow the lead of their brethren in Washington, California, New York and other blue states – extreme taxation, irresponsible spending, denigration of traditional values, huge government and the erosion of our Second Amendment rights, among others.

In short, if and when the Democrats turn Texas blue, their aim is to destroy what makes Texas Texas. “Battleground” Texas isn’t just a catchy name.