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Democrat Barack Obama may not win Texas — most analysts still rank Texas among the reddest of the red states — but his team is watching to aid strategic races.

Even while Obama talks about reaching across the aisle in office, his campaign handlers are mindful that gains in Democratic House and Senate seats will be important to Obama’s efforts should he reach the White House.

And they know that legislatures are where congressional districts are drawn. Texas Democrats were subjected to bludgeoning mid-decade congressional redistricting in 2003, engineered by then-Republican US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Democrats lost control of the Texas House after the Legislative Redistricting Board, dominated by Republicans for the first time, drew House districts in 2001 that punished Democratic incumbents and led to a flip of the House to the GOP in the 2002 elections.

That in turn cost the Democrats six congressional seats in Texas.

Texas is not among the 18 battleground states in which the Obama campaign plans to concentrate its television advertising, a campaign spokesman said. But the campaign will still provide ground troops in Texas.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters that the campaign would send a dozen or more staffers to Texas to help organize volunteers to help the effort to register voters and maximize turnout for Democrats.

While the Obama campaign’s principal goal is to win the presidency, “I think in a state like Texas, there’s House races, there’s state Senate races, and we’re going to encourage people to get involved,” Plouffe said.

The better-heeled Obama campaign, which is bypassing public financing and its campaign limits, also hopes that efforts in some states normally ceded to Republicans will force the John McCain campaign to spend some of their limited resources defending turf usually taken for granted.

One of the principal challenges for the Democrats will be to get new voters drawn by Obama’s campaign to continue voting for other Democratic candidates on down the ballot. Even if he doesn’t win the state, Obama’s camp knows his coattails and organizational assistance can help Democrats in selected seats.

A net gain of five seats in the Texas House would give the Democrats at least a numerical majority of that body.

Texas Democrats also hold out hope that the Obama campaign, if it continues to raise money like it did during the primary elections, will have enough resources to indeed continue a 50-state strategy, and actually spend money on TV ads in Texas.

Craddick Challenger Upheld . . . . Among those down-ballot Democratic candidates in Texas apparently will be Bill Dingus, the former Midland city councilman who won the Democratic nomination to contest Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick’s re-election.

Republicans had questioned Dingus’ candidacy on grounds he did not resign from the council until after he won the Democratic primary. So the Texas Democratic Party, in a friendly legal proceeding, blocked him from the ballot.

Dingus sued, and on June 30, Travis County District Judge Margaret Cooper ruled that Dingus had not violated Texas law.

Democrats aren’t terribly optimistic that Dingus can beat Craddick, in a heavily Republican five-county district. But Dingus has name identification from seven years on the council, is a multi-millionaire who can self-finance his campaign if necessary, and may at least keep Craddick tied down somewhat and spending money and time in defending his seat at home rather than helping his minions in other districts around the state.

Cornyn Video . . . . A video prepared by Cornyn’s campaign for the Republican State Convention, featuring Cornyn in a fringed leather jacket and employing a re-worded “Big Bad John” song, has drawn national hoots from such places as Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central TV network, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic opponent Rick Noriega’s Web site.

Even while Democrats poked fun at Cornyn as a Rhinestone Cowboy, Cornyn campaign spokesman insisted the video “was a lighthearted, humorous piece.”

Nonetheless, it has rocketed around the Internet via YouTube and other means. You can see it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vcB7uCqdFk – 141k.

A poll taken June 12-20 for the non-partisan Texas Lyceum found that among 1,000 polled, 38 percent favor Cornyn and 36 percent Noriega. The rest were undecided.

The Cornyn campaign quickly derided the poll, insisting that Cornyn has a double-digit lead.

The poll, taken by University of Texas at Austin professor Daron Shaw, also showed Republican John McCain leading Obama, 43-38.