Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

Lawrence Person’s BattleSwarm Blog endorses Ted Cruz for United States Senator. I believe that Cruz is the best candidate, that he has a long, strong, and deep commitment to conservative principles, and that he will make a great Senator for Texas.

I originally endorsed Cruz on April 30, a month before the Republican primary, and gave extended reasons why Cruz was the best candidate of all those running in the Republican primary, weighing the strengths and weaknesses of each. This post reiterates that endorsement, and explains why Ted Cruz is a vastly superior choice for Senator than Democrat Paul Sadler.

Sadler had a reputation as a “moderate” Democrat in the Texas House, which meant he wanted government to get bigger and spend more at a slightly slower rate than his fellow Democrats, and was reportedly a skilled legislator on education issues. But I don’t want a “skilled legislator,” I want a conservative fighter. I want someone to fight for shrinking the size and scope of the federal government and reign in the insanely bloated federal spending that’s holding down the economy, not manage the bloat. There are quite enough Democrats in Congress who pretend to be moderate until the votes really count (see also: ObamaCare); we don’t need another one.

Like his party, Sadler has moved steadily left over the years. After failing to win a U.S. House seat, Sadler worked first as an asbestos trial lawyer, and then as head of a Texas wind power coalition putting him in not one but two of the biggest recipient groups for liberal big government crony capitalism largess. This suggests that he would try to roll back tort reform and would make a very poor representative for Texas’ vital oil and gas industry.

Further, given the positions Sadler has taken in interviews and debates, there seems to be very little of that old “moderate” patina left on him. He’s for higher taxes, bigger government, green pork, public employee unions, illegal alien amnesty, and ObamaCare. He’d fit right in among the big spenders in a Harry Reid-led Senate.

By contrast, Ted Cruz is not only the unquestioned Tea Party representative for shrinking big government, he has a broad, deep and impressive conservative background. You don’t specialize in 9th and 10th Amendment studies because you want to be rich, and you don’t work at the Texas Public Policy Foundation if you want to be a squishy moderate. Cruz is not only exceptionally sharp, an excellent debater and a gifted public speaker, he’s also a classic fusionist candidate with both strong free market and social conservative credentials. He beat all his Republican opponents despite millions spent to smear him and came out of the runoff not only unscathed, but with a national reputation. He was a great Texas Solicitor General, and I think he will make a great Senator. I urge all my Texas readers to cast their votes for him as the next United States Senator from Texas.