Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of February 10, 2014. Give me your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11am. Remember, you can listen online at KFYO.com or on your iPhone/Android with the radioPup App.

U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)
U.S. Senator Rand Paul (Alex Wong, Getty Images)
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Rand Paul Visits Texas

Senator Rand Paul was in Texas over the weekend sounding more and more like a Presidential candidate. Paul spoke at a dinner put on by the Harris County GOP according to POLITICO. During his speech Paul warned that Texas could turn blue if the GOP doesn't make changes. He also went after Hillary Clinton over Benghazi.

Sen. Rand Paul on Saturday predicted that Texas would turn blue within a decade if the Republican Party doesn’t become more inclusive.

“What I do believe is Texas is going to be a Democrat state within 10 years if we don’t change,” Paul (R-Ky.), who grew up in Texas, said at a dinner held by the Harris County GOP. “That means we evolve, it doesn’t mean we give up on what we believe in, but it means we have to be a welcoming party.”

Paul, who is heavily weighing a presidential bid, noted that his assessment was shared by the chairman of the Republican Party of Texas. The Lone Star state, currently the largest Republican bastion in the country, is nearly 40 percent Hispanic — a demographic that has overwhelmingly supported Democrats in recent elections.

The senator, whose father was a longtime congressman from Texas, acknowledged that immigration reform is a “touchy” subject before offering his vision for people who want to come to the United States.

“We won’t all agree on it,” he said. “But I’ll tell you, what I will say and what I’ll continue to say, and it’s not an exact policy prescription … but if you want to work and you want a job and you want to be part of America, we’ll find a place for you.”

There was some quiet applause in the massive hotel ballroom, in which hundreds of Republicans — a mix of high-dollar donors, activists and state officials — were gathered. But Paul remarked that the response was “kind of tepid.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t believe in securing the border first, doesn’t mean I don’t believe it’s important we have a secure country,” he said. “But it does mean we have to have a different attitude.”

More people applauded when he quoted his colleague, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah): “Immigrants are assets, not liabilities. We were all immigrants once.”

In his 25-minute address, Paul also offered up some 2016 red meat: He went after Hillary Clinton, a likely Democratic presidential contender, over Benghazi.

“We’re talking about six months of ignoring repeated, one-after-another requests for security,” he said, referring to the months leading up to the September 2012 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. He added that the issue that “should limit Hillary Clinton from ever holding high office, when she was asked for reinforcements, she turned down reinforcements, and we should never, ever have a commander-in-chief who won’t send reinforcements.”

Could Texas turn blue within a decade? Sure, but not if they keep running candidates like Wendy Davis. Still, Republicans should take the threat seriously of Texas turning blue.

 Hispanics in Texas

According to the Texas Tribune, a new Gallup Poll has found that Hispanics in Texas are more likely to be Republican than Hispanics in other parts of the country.

Texas Hispanics lean Democratic, but they are more likely to be Republican than Hispanics elsewhere in the country, according to a new Gallup poll.

Democrats hope that the state’s rapidly growing Hispanic population — now 38 percent of residents — will help them win the Republican-controlled state. But the poll suggests that the Lone Star State is likely to stay red.

“Texas remains a Republican-leaning state because its white residents are becoming increasingly Republican and its large Hispanic population, though solidly Democratic, is less so than Hispanics nationally,” the Gallup website says.

Texas Hispanics have become increasingly Republican since 2008, according to Gallup. In 2013, 27 percent of Texas Hispanics preferred the GOP, compared with 21 percent of Hispanics in other states, the largest gap in six years.

Among non-Hispanic white Texans, 61 percent identified as — or leaned — Republican, compared with 48 percent of non-Hispanic whites in other states.

The poll was based on telephone interviews with people across the country throughout 2013.

As groups such as Battleground Texas — founded by former Barack Obama national field organizer Jeremy Bird — seek to turn out Democratic voters in a state where the party hasn’t won statewide office in 20 years, they face a major obstacle in Hispanic voter participation.

Just 19 percent of Texas adults who said they were registered to vote are Hispanic, 13 percent are black and 64 percent are white, according to the poll.

“The biggest challenge for Democrats hoping to turn Texas blue may be in registering and turning out minority voters in that state,” Andrew Dugan of Gallup wrote on the polling organization’s website. “But the Democratic Party’s relatively poor standing with white Texans will continue to impede its ability to compete on a statewide basis for the foreseeable future.”

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