The Austin university campus is non-smoking, the toilets are multi-gender, the hotel charges coffee in reusable steel boxes to avoid plastic waste, while the LBJ presidential bookstore recalls that in the distant past, Texas was a democrat.
"LBJ" like Lyndon Baines Johnson (president from 1963 to 1969), successor to John F. Kennedy, despised by history because of the Vietnam War, but ardent promoter of civil rights. It was more than half a century ago. And the last time Texas gave itself to a Democrat was for another forgotten man in history, Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Yet in this year 2020, the Democrats want to believe it. "The question is not whether Texas will tip over, but when", said Austin Mayor Steve Adler, who said: "Republican Texas is old demographics. " That of the western plains, all the more conservative as there are cattle and oil derricks. But the cities, populated by young people and Latinos, have nothing to envy in San Francisco or New York. Forgotten, the Texan cowboy in Stetson hat.
"Embody a new generation"
"You're talking to the mayor of Austin, one of the most progressive cities in the United States", says Mr. Adler. He lists all the cases embraced by his municipality: a minimum salary of 15 dollars (13.60 euros), a law to hire former detainees without asking them for their criminal record, the payment of sick leave and a city that has already crossed its threshold. CO emission peak2.
Austin-la-boo celebrated Sunday February 21 Bernie Sanders, who had just won the Nevada primary, and chained four meetings across the state. Texans prepare to vote for Super Tuesday ("super-Tuesday") and send 261 delegates to the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Convention.
Steve Adler supported Pete Buttigieg, 38, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. "In the past, the Democrats have appointed Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, highly qualified figures who have not conquered the White House. Those who won (Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, but also Kennedy and Carter) were younger, embodied a new generation ", he assures. Alas, the change of generation will wait, with the announced withdrawal of Mr. Buttigieg, Sunday 1st March. And maybe the change of political color.
