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A Grassroots Success Story
How Women Launched a Political Movement
(Austin, Texas) How did ordinary women build a political movement that took over the second largest state in the union? Grassroots activist Meg Grier collects the stories and wisdom of 250 women from more than 80 Texas cities who helped change Texas politics in Grassroots Women: A Memoir of the Republican Party of Texas.

"Everything good that has happened to Republicans in Texas is a result of the work of these women," said Mary Matalin, a current advisor to President George W. Bush. "And no one should forget it."

As recently as 20 years ago, the Democratic Party ran Texas as a one-party state. However, the 1998 election resulted in Republicans taking every office across the state-the first time that had happened since Reconstruction. In the 1950's, an entrenched and complacent Democratic Party ruled the Lone Star state, with nary a Republican in sight. But sparked by the candidacy of Gen. Eisenhower for President and the changing tilt of the Democratic Party, women began entering the GOP in droves.

"The women who built the Republican Party are everyday women, women with kids, women with jobs," said Grier. "But they're also women who believed the world needed to change, and that they could do it."

Former First Lady Barbara Bush writes in the book's foreword, "Their stories are remarkable for their candor, their sense of history, and above all else, their determination to bring two-party politics to the state of Texas."

Surprisingly, Grier's research unearthed that there are no "women's issues." "Women care about all issues, not just childcare," said Grier. "Defense issues and tax rates affect women just as much as men. Your whole life is politics, from finding a school for your children to finding insurance for your small business."

Grier, a grassroots activist with a master's degree in public affairs from George Washington University, currently serves as a party precinct chairman in Boerne, Texas.

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