Today was going to be the day Texans went to the polls, but the redistricting lawsuit put the kibosh on that plan. Now we get six more weeks of winter twelve more weeks of campaigning.
David Dewhurst denies that the meeting he attending in Washington, DC at Democrat Tony Podesta’s house was a fundraiser, and he says the people attending were Republicans who worked for the Podesta Group, not Democrats. I would link directly to Dewhurst’s denial, but the recent reorganization of the Andrew Breitbart empire (evidently already planned before his untimely death) has broken the links.
David Dewhurst also hits Cruz for (in their words) “Ted Cruz’s close ties to the Obama Administration.” How close? Big donations to Democrats from…partners at the Morgan, Lewis and Bockius law where Cruz is also partner. Given that there are some 1,300 lawyers employed by Morgan, Lewis and Bockius, of which some 469 are partners, and the firm isn’t named Morgan, Lewis, Bockius and Cruz, this is pretty weak sauce. (Weaker even than the working for Red China slam, which at least had the virtue of involving Cruz directly.)
Cruz won three more straw polls: the Downtown Houston Pachyderm Club, Brazos County GOP and New Braunfels GOP Women. However, do note that the Cruz campaign’s claim that Cruz “has now beaten all the major candidates in 20 straw polls by wide margins” is carefully phrased to omit the fact that Glenn Addison won two straw polls in that timeframe…
The “insiders” polled by the Texas Tribune were somewhat split, but 62% think the Republican Senate race will end up in a runoff. They also think Greg Abbott can take Rick Perry in the 2014 Governor’s race, should Perry run again. Also this from one respondent to the “biggest surprise” question: “Doggett switches to U.S. Senate race.” I’ve had similar thoughts myself. With his $3 million war chest and name recognition, Doggett could easily win the Democratic primary…only to be creamed by Cruz or Dewhurst in the general election. Hmmm, lose a Senate race in the general election, or potentially lose your congressional seat in the Democratic primary? Decisions, decisions. (It’s not to be, as Doggett, as expected, filed for the District 35 race today.)
Lawrence Person is a political commentator and science fiction writer living in Austin, Texas. His political work has appeared in National Review, Reason, The Freeman, Liberty and The World & I. His SF has appeared in Asimov's, Analog, F&SF, Postscripts, Jim Baen's Universe, Fear, and several anthologies. He owns such a large library (mostly science fiction first editions) he had to buy a two-story house to put it in, and then adopted a golden retriever to drag him out of his house on a regular basis.
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