No shit Sherlock. This is a long-shot race. Just like all the worthy netroots races have been.
All the political geniuses in Virginia were saying there was no chance of beating Allen in 2005.

Texas is NOT an inherently conservative state. This is a state that repeatedly sent Ralph Yarborough to the Senate during the reactionary 1950s.
It's also a majority-minority state just waiting for the right candidate and campaign to activate the masses of people who have never voted.
And the white folks out in the rural areas are getting fed up with the GOP BS they've been fed for decades. Gov. Perry did terrible last year in the rural areas. Noriega's military experience gives him the credibility to win those voters. They've voted for hispanics before -- Attorney General Dan Morales was a big vote getter in rural west texas in the 1990s.
Nothing is impossible unless we don't try.

If you're looking for analogies for Texas, try Virginia, Colorado, and Arizona.  Oh yeah, and California pre-Pete-Wilson.

Texas has some very rapidly changing demographics.  The state is moving out from under the GOP, and Rove of all people knew it.  He in fact was terrified of it, and terrified that his base would do exactly what it wound up doing to him with immigration.

Virginia was a solidly red state, until suddenly it wasn't.  Demographic changes clicked, and now the WaPo is writing about Virginia as a swing state on the presidential level in 08.

Colorado likewise.  A solid red state, until suddenly it wasn't.  And California was consistently competitive (Govs Nixon, Reagan, Wilson) until suddenly it was deep blue.  

The politics actually lagged the underlying demographic changes in all cases.  No one really expected the changes to come until much later than they actually did.

The final great thing about this is the element of surprise.  Because the reigning party usually underestimates the speed at which the chickens can come home to roost, if you find a candidate who can put together the coalition you've been hoping for quickly, then you can often catch the incumbent completely off guard.

I'm not saying it will happen, but Rick Noriega, on paper, is the kind of candidate who could put together the coalition that will be governing Texas in 12 years, this year.  Disenchantment with an out-of-touch and off-the-wall state GOP is also high.  Noriega is the kind of guy who could surprise the hell out of John Cornyn.  The number one problem with this scenario is that Texas is way way way expensive to advertise in, and that sucks.  The Colorado Dems had some serious money thrown at them when they pulled their upset, the California Dems have always been well-funded, and I don't know much about Virginia.  But the lack of money -- and I don't mean netroots money, I mean serious money -- is a problem for Texas and Noriega.

But that's really the only downer.  This is the right guy, and it's either the right time, or maybe two years early (a midterm election would have been much better for this kind of strategy).  But the Texas guys are not all smokin dope when they talk about this stuff.  There are serious underlying trends involved here.  In that sense, it's not like Idaho or Nebraska or Alabama or the other states you complain about hype. Texas is big, and it may take more than two years.  But Texas is moving.

Sure, the guy has spent some money on Democrats. That's nice. He can have a cookie.

But, that he gave money to three of the most corrupt, co-opted Texas Republicans to ever hold office in the Executive Branch (Rick Perry, David Dewhurst, and Greg Abbott) says more than any amount of money he could give or raise for Democrats.

By giving this money to these individuals, he is essentially saying, "I support your campaign and the job you have done in office."

How can you support anyone who supports Rick Perry, et al? It is supporting a legacy of failure, disenfranchisement, hate, and worse.

I'm not asking you shit on Mikal Watts for not being "blog saavy" or "fluent with the blogsphere."

I am just saying that, as many campaigns across this great country have, perhaps he should have done a little research and checking from "day one" way before he formally announced to see about hiring a netroots coordinator or at least doing something with the Blogsphere. Many campaigns begin their campaign and/or exploration by trying to get support from bloggers or at least attempt to 'meet and greet' bloggers. He has professional campaign staff who have worked other races, so surely someone could have told him that. I have also heard through the grapevine that Watts was told by a number of people in Texas how important and vital the Texas Netroots can be to 'make or break' a campaign, and he seems to have ignored that advice as well.

However, in his defense, I seem to remember he went for at least a couple of months without even returning the call of a Houston Chronicle reporter calling about his exploration (which they documented on their blogs), so perhaps his entire "media strategy" was just ill-thought out.

Watts has hired a director of online strategy. I hesitate to say who that is or what his other affiliations are because I'm not sure that appointment has been made public. I will say, however, that this person is a nice person I've met/known before, though I disagree with them on the Watts v. Noriega issue.

However, the hiring was "too little, too late" in my book for Watts.  He was too late in coming around to the concept that the netroots is important for a primary win in Texas (i.e. Uresti, Radnofsky, et al) and essentially pissed away his opportunity to have built any goodwill with the Texas Netroots.

Watts should have hired a DOOS the day the Noriega stuff showed up on DailyKos back during the session.

I personally don't care if Watts has given $50 million dollars to Democrats; it's the Republicans he gave to which are most troublesome. For someone who had his eye on a U.S. Senate race, they were some very stupid contributions.

The fact that he wasn't supporting Democratic candidates when there were Democratic candidates in the race is highly troublesome, regardless of who else he gave money to. His donations are a tad opportunistic.

And what, pray tell, would Mikal Watts want to talk to Rick Perry about? Getting an appointment for one of his law partners to the bench, perhaps?

The old "doesn't want to get the door slammed in his face" doesn't work when the contributions are that big and the Republicans are that corrupt.

You ask if I'd object if Noriega took money from Tom DeLay. It's a moot point because DeLay would never give to Noriega and Noreiga would damned sure never accept such a donation, period. You are attempting to dilute the issue with absurd hypothetical scenarios.

I ask you this: do you really think it is appropriate for someone who claims to be a Democrat to not even support our candidate for governor (who sure could have used the money) and instead supports someone who has done everything he could possibly do to go against the ideals Democrats stand for -- from environmental policy all the way down to health care. Watts has enabled Rick Perry's terrible public policy. He's, at best, an apologist for a failed administration.  

The trial attorney part doesn't bother me. I understand what trial attorneys have done for America and have no qualms there. My concerns are with his record of enabling an administration of Republican corruption and poor public policy.