2010: Reaching Across the Aisle?

The Texas Democratic Party wants you to know that 49 percent of the people who voted in last month's GOP primary voted against Gov. Rick Perry.

Their new website — called theother49percent.com, naturally enough — features videos from the Republican primary, with Perry, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Debra Medina all trash-talking each other. The videos include commercials, clips from debates and other forums, and the like.

"The point of this site is to challenge the conventional wisdom," says Kristen Gray, spokesman for the party. "The bloodiest rhetoric of the season was in the GOP primary for governor."

The candidates in that primary, she says, spent $37 million tearing each other apart. The Democrats want to keep those messages going, presumably to the benefit of gubernatorial Bill White and, less directly, to the rest of their ticket.

The target audience isn't Democrats, necessarily, Gray says. It's independents, and what she calls "mainstream-minded Republicans" who were looking for an alternative to the incumbent governor.

They've only got a half dozen videos on the site to start, but hope to expand that to 60 or 70 over the summer.

The Perry camp isn't impressed. "Gov. Perry will continue running a campaign based on issues that matter to all Texans," says spokesman Mark Miner. "The Democratic Party’s new website fails to mention that all of their party’s candidates who have challenged the Governor are now home watching reruns of CSI Miami."

It's not unusual for campaigns to set up one-subject websites, either boosting themselves or tearing down their opponents. It's a relatively new venture for the Texas Democratic Party, though.