[wanorris]

This is a tough seat to go after because it's a reliable Republican district (around 2/3) and Smith has held his seat since way back in 1986. He's extremely entrenched, so the Republicans aren't going to be particularly tolerant of a challenger (edit: in the Primary), and the Democrats probably can't win the district.

I'm not sure who exactly lives in that weirdly-outlined subset of Austin, but unless something dramatic has changed since I lived there, his segment of San Antonio is dominated by traditionalist Chamber of Commerce types. His chunk of Austin might be an exception, but I would expect it will be pretty hard to get much traction in the rest of his district based on tech issues.

[cwilson]

Sections of Austin referenced above (screenshot): http://cl.ly/2j3w0A2C3B0o1M0Q2O1j

These areas are primarily known as Westlake, Westlake Hills, and Lake Travis. These are the upper class areas of the city, where MANY well to do tech entrepreneurs reside (Michael Dell probably being the most prominent).

I'm sure if a large group of said entrepreneurs spoke up, at least some impact would be made.

[nl]

This is a tough seat to go after because it's a reliable Republican district (around 2/3) and Smith has held his seat since way back in 1986. He's extremely entrenched, so the Republicans aren't going to be particularly tolerant of a challenger (edit: in the Primary)

That's what they said about the Tea Party challengers to Republican incumbents. It can be done, with the right challenger.

[mkramlich]

I'm pretty sure the Tea Party is an instrument of the same folks running the Repub Party. It's intent was to capture/keep a chunk of redneck voters who would otherwise be disaffected with or embarrassed by voting for Republicans, post-Bush, without losing them entirely to the Dems or some other non-controlled organization. A pretty large chunk of Republican mom-and-pop voters appear to be racists or poorly educated middle-class, for example, and the Repub leadership wanted to create a safe harbor for them to vent that was still somewhat directable. A sort of temporary but loyal opposition. They don't want to lose the guns/bible/redneck demographic permanently because they'd lose the ability to get majorities in elections. If all working middle-class and poor people in country could get behind a single party, the aristocracy/oil/military/banking interests would lose control of Congress.