Texas politics is, as one former governor called it, a contact sport. The diversity of economy and race and ethnicity has created intraparty and interparty conflicts from the time Texas was settled. This has spawned some interesting characters and constant conflict. Texas, because of its resources and size, has also always been a major role on the national stage, making it interesting as a subject of study.
What made you gravitate toward Texas Politics and how did this interest develop over time?
I grew up in Texas and worked in campaigns in Texas before going to graduate school so my academic interests met up with my personal and professional experience.
Under what conditions would Texas secede from the U.S, and why do Texans have so much pride in their state?
No state can secede from the union legally but many Texans keep that fantasy alive because of a cultural sense that Texas is more like its own country than a state. Having been a standalone republic for a decade, the state heritage of was one of resilience and self-reliance. The history of this is more complex – the Republic had serious political and economic problems – but the sensibility among Texans is that the state is independent enough to chart its own course. As John Steinbeck once said, Texas is a state of mind, closely approximating religion for its residents.
What would the layman find most interesting and accessible within your research? (this is where we would like for you to “nerd out”)
There is so much interesting data about campaigns (like endorsements) and elections (demographics and turnout) that has yet to be mined. Tremendous demographic changes in rural, urban, and suburban areas will reshape the state’s politics. These changes may alter the direction of national politics if Texas becomes a competitive state politically.
What is the most interesting story in your academic career? Your greatest adventure, mishap, fortuitous incident etc.
In my academic work on the presidency, I spend a lot of time in presidential archives. So much is hidden and preserved in those internal White House documents that every new page is an exciting potential discovery. I’ve found amazing caches of documents like daily summaries of requests from members of Congress to the White House or weekly counts of mail from the public that have been the basis of my current research.
With all the funding in the world, what would you have researched and how?
Archival research is time intensive, so money and time are in short supply when doing research across presidents. With lottery-level winning, I’d digitize much of this and make it searchable. This is challenging because there are hundreds of millions of documents and limited funds. This has never been tried but the Obama Administration is digitizing much of their White House documents, so we’ll see how successful this might be.