Southern State Legislative Chambers Up in 2012

[Indy Texas]

Republicans will pick up Wendy Davis's seat in the Texas Senate since they tore her district to shreds with redistricting. Democrats will make gains in the House, probably for something like 92 GOP seats and 58 Dem seats.

The big questions in Texas will be: (1) Will the Tea Party attempt another palace coup against Joe Straus, and how horribly wrong will it go?; (2) When David Dewhurst goes to Washington, who in the Senate will replace him?; (3) Will Greg Abbott finally grow a pair and decide to run against Rick Perry in 2014?; (4) Will the Democrats be able to pit the Establishment Republicans and the Tea Partiers against one another the way the Republicans used to do with the liberal and conservative Democrats?

[Indy Texas]

Will the Democrats be able to pit the Establishment Republicans and the Tea Partiers against one another the way the Republicans used to do with the liberal and conservative Democrats?

Well the idea is to run an Ed Brooke like republican and convince him to switch to the democrats and run for the senate. . He could then make the case that he shares your values and being a former republican, could win over some republican votes. The only problem is that a lot of Ed Brooke types in Texas are probably already democrats.

The closest Texas ever had to an Ed Brooke Republican in elected office was George H. W. Bush as a Houston congressman in the 1960s. They ran quite a few Republicans who were arguably to the left of their Democratic opponents at that time, but none of them won. In 1968 and 1970, Paul Eggers ran for governor and made a higher state minimum wage part of his platform. And Ray Hutchison (state legislator in the '70s; husband of Senator KBH) was the only Texas Republican I can think of who was unequivocally pro-choice. 
Texas doesn't really have much of a moderate Republican base, with the exception of certain upscale neighborhoods in Dallas and Houston, and some Texas Germans in the Hill Country who vote more like Midwestern Republicans than Southern ones.

[Indy Texas]

I have heard from some Paulite activists that there is indeed an underground movement to take out Joe Straus

There is an underground movement, but it doesn't involve the Paulites (who don't have any members in the Lege). The Dan Patrick/Wayne Christian cabal tried to pull this last session and it fell apart because they didn't have the votes and even if they did, they couldn't decide on a non-Straus alternative; and because the nasty viral emails about the House needing a "good Christian" speaker (Straus is Jewish) made them look like knuckle-dragging bigots (and the bar for that is set pretty high in Texas). The Democrats like Straus and their votes combined with the Not-Batsh**t-Crazy Republicans will be enough to keep him as speaker for two more years.