The echos from Ted Cruz’s victory over Dewhurst are still echoing not only around the state, but the nation as well. Here’s just a small sampling of the most important reactions:
“It’s difficult to overstate the achievement of Cruz beating Dewhurst,” said Democratic strategist Harold Cook of Austin. “That Cruz won amplifies the extent to which tea partiers are at war with establishment Republicans, and at the moment, winning it.”
This bland “Hispanics are our future” thumbsucker does have one standout line that deserves repeating: Cruz’s victory demonstrated that “Texas Republicans are more interested in conservative ideals than in ethnicity.”
A Democratic analyst’s look at Cruz’s victory. Don’t agree with it 100%, but it’s focused on technical analysis and free of liberal bile (unlike the column of certain former Texas Agricultural Commissioner I’m not linking to).
If I really, really wanted to make modern feminists look bad and out-of-touch, how could I do it? Well, I could create a fictional character that a New York City writer call Ann Romney a “traitor” for daring to raise children rather than getting a job. But suppose even that weren’t enough. Suppose that I really, really wanted to make people hate this character. How far would could I push it? How about I make her a narcassitic drug-addict! (The Frisky nails it as Linkbait.)
Speaking of loathsome liberals, how about this Internet Tough Guy of the Year berating a poor Chick-fil-A drive through attendant over gay marriage?
That’s some industrial strength stupidity right there, Mr. Adam Smith: videotaping yourself being King of the Douchebags and then putting it up on YouTube yourself. What possible go wrong? Beside, you know, your company firing you for being King Douchebag.
Thanks to his runoff victory Tuesday, Ted Cruz is now a political figure with clout, and, as this video shows, he’s already making the case for controlling spending and limited government to a national audience:
I intend to do a comprehensive roundup of why Ted Cruz won the Senate race, and why David Dewhurst lost, but it’s such a big subject I’m having trouble getting started. There’s entirely too much to talk about, and I’m still digesting all the ramifications.
So instead, here are a few other random observations from last night’s runoff:
Republicans now have two Hispanic candidates running for statewide office: Ted Cruz at the top of the ballot (just below President) for United States Senate, and Elsa Alcala for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8. Number of Democrats nominated for statewide office in Texas in 2012: Zero. (Even the Libertarians have more statewide Hispanic candidates than the Democrats this year, which is to say they have one.)
Donna Campbell stomped Jeff Wentworth, taking two-thirds of the vote against a long-time incumbent which (absent a serious scandal) is almost unheard of. However, the result isn’t the “upset” some newspapers are proclaiming it, since Elizabeth Ames Jones split the anti-Wentworth vote in the primary, indicating deep dissatisfaction with the very establishment incumbent.
As expected, Paul Sadler beat Grady Yarbrough for the Democratic Senate nomination. Sadler is about to find out that when members of the national Democratic Party promised him adequate funding if he won the primary, they were engaged in what is commonly known as “lying.”
Republican U.S. Congressional Race runoffs: Ron Paul-endorsed Randy Weber beat Felicia Harris in CD14, Roger Williams beats Wes Riddle in CD25 (Last Williams Standing, and I think the only Senate race dropout to win their new race), once and future congressman Steve Stockman (part of the Gingrich wave in 1994) beat Stephen Takach in CD36. Plus longshots in two heavily Democratic districts: Dale A. Brueggemann over Eddie Zamora in CD15 to face incumbent Ruben Hinojosa, and Jessica Puente Bradshaw over Adela Garza to take on Filemon Vela in new “minority opportunity” CD34.
Pete Gallego beat former congressman Ciro B. Rodriguez for the chance to take on Republican incumbent Francisco “Quico” Canseco in CD23. Canseco took the seat away from Rodriguez in 2010, and CD23 is essentially the only realistic opportunity Democrats have to flip a Texas U.S. congressional seat this election.
The Tea Party is alive and well not only in Texas, but also in Georgia, where voters rejected a consultant pocket-lining mass transportation tax hike supported by the Republican governor.
There’s a lot to digest and discuss about Ted Cruz’s victory over David Dewhurst, and I’m sure I’ll have more tomorrow. But here are a few myths that Cruz’s victory laid to rest tonight.
Hispanics can’t win statewide Republican primaries in Texas. This one was born in Victor Carrillo’s defeat in the 2010 Railroad Commissioner’s race. It was sour grapes by Carrillo (and wishful thinking by the liberal media) then, and was debunked tonight.
The Tea Party has peaked and is in decline. Cruz is just the latest Tea Party candidate to knock off an establishment Republican. And Sarah Palin looks more and more like the most powerful kingmaker in the Republican Party.
Big money will always trump grassroots enthusiasm. Dewhurst was a quarter-billionaire who outraised Cruz (at least initially) and dumped a ton of money on TV advertising. It didn’t help.
Social media isn’t nearly as important as TV and newspaper ad buys. The Cruz campaign was far more adept and nimble using Facebook, Twitter, etc., and it was a big factor in locking up grassroots support early. And many observers have noted that Dewhurst’s ad buys probably hurt him.
Negative campaigning is the key to victory. Dewhurst went negative early and often, and it not only raised Cruz’s profile, but backfired when people found out the issues they were hyping were trivia (the Chinese tire case) or outright lies (the amnesty and kids-for-cash smears). Honest negative campaigning is still a useful tool, but the Internet makes it so easy to debunk lies that obvious falsehoods no longer have time to take root before they’re debunked.
Media endorsements are vital to winning voter support. Dewhurst got the lion’s share of MSM endorsements. It obviously didn’t help him.
Both AP and Politico are calling the race for Ted Cruz over Dewhurst!
David Dewhurst came into the race with high name recognition, incumbency, several successful statewide races under his belt, and a $250 million fortune…and lost to a guy who had 2% name recognition a year ago.
Hey, MSM, you might want to hold off on those Tea Party obituaries for the time being. And has any Sarah Palin endorsed candidate lost this year?
Now that polls have closed, runoff voting results are trickling in, and Ted Cruz is currently beating David Dewhurst by a little more than 52% to 48% in early voting results. Remember, Dewhurst dominated early voting results in the primary; if the same pattern holds, Cruz should win decisively.
Democratic results are here. If early results hold, the Grady Yarbrough dream dies tonight…
One way or another, the Ted Cruz—David Dewhurst battle ends today. Texas voters: find your voter registration card and vote before 7 PM (if you haven’t already).
Tomorrow’s election day! Get out there and vote! And if you’re still making up your mind, you might want to read my endorsement of Ted Cruz.
Now the final roundup of pre-runoff Senate race news:
Evan at Perry vs. World debunks Cruz’s role in Dewhurst’s last-minute “cash for kids” ad. “Ted Cruz was trying to help the Kids for Cash victims get the money they deserved from an insurance company.”
The more detailed explanation that Evan links to is here. “In either case, Cruz had nothing to do with the creation of the fund or how much it pays victims. He was not one of the attorneys listed on the agreement. If anything, Cruz’s only involvement in the case would have resulted in more—not less—money for victims.”
Even Paul Burka can see the writing on the wall: “Nothing Dewhurst has tried has changed the dynamics of the race at all. If anything, the millions Dewhurst has spent on TV have hurt his own campaign. The China ad and the Kids for Cash scandal ad have not achieved anything. Dewhurst’s array of consultants has never been able to lay a glove on Cruz.”
Politico joins the list of those expecting a Cruz victory. “We’re on the 2-yard line. We have marched the entire length of the field. We started out up in the hot dog stands.”
Final day of campaigning: “At Dewhurst’s stopover at an Austin Chick-fil-A franchise early Monday, about a dozen supporters waved Dewhurst placards—and close to half of them were lobbyists.”
Q: So Dewhurst, are any of your staffers working for the SuperPACs slamming Ted Cruz? A: No. Q: Former staffers? A: Uh….
Fox Houston: “Early voting numbers show Cruz ahead by 10 percent.” I assume they mean the PPP poll, as they usually don’t release actual vote totals until the polls have closed on election night.
Dewhurst is still campaigning. Here’s his last-minute-push video with Rick Perry:
At least it’s refreshingly free of dishonest slime attacks against Cruz…
And yes, the Democrats are having their own runoff tomorrow. The Texas Democratic Party all but says “Screw neutrality, you better vote for Paul Sadler if you know what’s good for you.” They also commit a factual error. As readers of this blog know, Grady Yarbrough has been endorsed by a newspaper, The Austin Villager. Since the The Austin Villager is a black community newspaper, if a Republican omitted them, you know they would be accused of racism…
Yarbrough comes out for illegal alien amnesty, which might be a we tad inconsistent with his previous stance on putting the Berlin Wall on the border.
If Yarbrough does win the Democratic runoff, $20 says Sadler and the TDP try to get him thrown off the ballot for not filing his FEC forms…
Today the editors of National Review unloaded on David Dewhurst with both barrels:
Mr. Dewhurst’s vulgar and dishonest campaign of scorched-earth ad hominem against Mr. Cruz raises serious questions about his judgment and his commitment to conservative values.
He has transformed himself from second-best to flailing embarrassment. He has run campaign ads that are clearly predicated on the notion that Texas conservatives are rubes — ads that treat national conservative groups such as the Club for Growth as out-of-state interlopers, and that attack Cruz for taking on unpopular clients as an attorney.
They also pigeonhole Dewhurst’s politics with scorching accuracy:
Mr. Dewhurst is an undistinguished, go-along/get-along creature of the GOP leadership’s seniority-oriented model of politics. He is a student of the school of thought that rallied party operatives behind Indiana’s too-long-lived Richard Lugar when a credible conservative alternative was available in the person of Richard Mourdock. His views — though perhaps not his temperament — would make him an ideal candidate to represent a state such as Maine, where the only other option would be a Democrat to his left. But a strong conservative can win in Texas, and we have one in Ted Cruz.
In summation:
Texas deserves something more than another time-serving Republican placeholder, and Ted Cruz is as fine a candidate as is seeking office today. Republican primary voters rarely are presented with so obvious a choice or so rich an opportunity.
Read the whole thing. And those comparisons of the Cruz-Dewhurst race to the Pat Toomey-Arlen Specter race are going to leave a scar…