The New York Timesdiscovers Ted Cruz. It’s generally a solid piece, though I do want to quibble with one part, even though it’s an opposition citation: “Mr. Dewhurst’s aides say that unlike Mr. Rubio, Mr. Cruz has been unable to translate the national attention into big increases in fund-raising and polls. While Mr. Cruz has raised $2.8 million to Mr. Dewhurst’s $2.64 million, Mr. Dewhurst has been in the race only since July.” Two points: 1.) Cruz is actually ahead of where Marco Rubio was in at this stage of the 2009-2010 election cycle, and 2.) Cruz’s National Review cover appearance (the most important part of that national attention) was just hitting newsstands at the very end of the Q3 fundraising period, so I wouldn’t expect to see any real fundraising bump until the Q4 numbers are released in January.
The Texas Tribune talks about David Dewhurst’s Ivory Tower strategy, which he seems to have gone back to. Dewhurst had this to say in his defense: “I’m not conservative enough, some say. They don’t know me. When they get to know me, they’ll know I am.” With all due respect, Lt. Governor, you’ve been in your current office since January of 2003, and many complaints come from conservatives in Texas. The problem is not lack of familiarity.
He also continues to garner hit pieces from the keyboard of The Dallas Morning News‘s Robert T. Garrett, who wonders at length why Cruz actually wants to be a conservative and dares to call out the Republican Senate leadership, rather than being one of those get-along-to-go-along Republicans DSM and other MSM outlets favor. Garrett asks several myopic questions, one of which I’ll actually answer for him: “Won’t opponents David Dewhurst and Tom Leppert say he’s undermining his effectiveness for Texas?” No, because whatever their other flaws, Leppert and Dewhurst both realize they’re trying to win the approval of Republican voters, not Dallas Morning News reporters. These days, approval from those two groups bear an obviously inverse relationship…
The Southern Political Report offers up a hefty does of Consensus Opinion on the race. If I had more time, I’d like to dissect the “People With Hispanic Surnames Can’t Win Statewide Republican Races” myth, which is based on precisely one data point: Victor Carrillo’s loss to David Porter in the 2010 Railroad Commissioner race. Even that same year, Eva Guzman beat Rose Vela for Supreme Court place 9. Moreover, it ignores the fact that Carrillo himself beat out the very-anglo-named Robert Butler in 2004. Carrillo lost in 2010 because he ran a very lackluster campaign and because Porter’s answers to the League of Woman Voters survey seemed more conservative, especially given the politically correct nods Carrillo gave to environmentalism and alternative energy in his answers, which was the deciding factor for me personally. However, I do get the impression that one factor did unfairly impact Carrillo’s campaign: the unpopularity of Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor proposal, which, even though the improperly named Railroad Commission had jack all to do with, probably did marginally hurt his candidacy because he was the incumbent.
Cruz has another low-budget animation aimed at Dewhurst. I don’t think it’s as effective as the Chupacabra spot, but I think these cheap Internet animations are very cost effective for building awareness.
No Ricardo Sanchez news this week, but he’s probably still recovering from his house fire, so I’ll give him some slack this time around.
Tom Leppert picked up the endorsements of the mayors of Corpus Christi, Arlington, Sugar Land, Richardson, Denton, and several other Texas cities. Though some of those are from his Metroplex base, those are good pickups for him, and it is interesting that he picked up the support of mayors of high-growth, suburban “ring” cities.
Robert T. Garrett of The Dallas Morning News calls Ted Cruz a “social conservative spearchucker.” (I can just picture Garrett using this phrase about Michael William or Herman Cain, and then Having a Little Talk with his editor.) Potentially offensive phrasing aside, “social conservative” is not quite accurate, since Cruz is a classic “fusionist” conservative Republican candidate, as both a social and economic conservative. In this race, Glenn Addison and Curt Cleaver fit the mold of social conservatives more fully than Cruz. And it does make one wonder, yet again, why Garrett insists on pushing the “Cruz sucks/Dewhurst is invincible” angle that has become his recent stock-in-trade…
The Houston Chroniclehas a poll for which Senate candidate you support.
USA Today deigns to notice Sean Hubbard. That’s probably the political highlight of his week, although last week he attended Occupy Dallas, which seems appropriate, since both will be entirely forgotten by this time next year. Judging from the pictures, I’ve thrown parties that had more attendees than Occupy Dallas…
Many candidates have offered up thanks to veterans today, but it took Ricardo Sanchez to turn it into an election pitch. I have no problem with Sanchez running on his military record, or if he had mentioned it in passing in a post appreciating veterans, but to turn a Veterans Day message into a pitch of Democratic talking points while hustling for votes seems…unseemly.
I suppose I should do these updates some day other than Friday night Saturday morning, since few people read them then or over the weekend, but it’s been a busy week…
Mario Loyola discusses Ted Cruz and his father Rafael as part of a longer story on the Cuban exile experience in America, the widespread Cuban opposition to the Batista regime, and how Castro betrayed the revolution to impose Communism. And he delivers such a complete and utter bitchslapping of The Dallas Morning News that I have to quote the last few paragraphs:
Cubans here and there have had to endure the calamities of the Revolution alone. Conservatives in America reached out to us and supported us, and our parents found solace in their enmity to Communism. But they weren’t really with us either, because they had no idea how awful Fidel Castro really was. It simply isn’t within the comprehension of any American that someone could actually choose to be as evil as Castro. The sheer depravity of his crimes against the Cuban people helped to keep the depredations of his rule a secret hiding in plain sight, where only other Cubans could see them.
It’s no surprise that liberal papers such as the Dallas Morning News now think they’re in some position to judge which families are truly exiles and which aren’t. It was liberal papers — particularly the New York Times — that originally built Castro up into an international hero and persisted in romanticizing him long after he offered Cuba’s young men to the Kremlin as a Third World army. It was liberal papers that blamed the U.S. embargo for the economic catastrophe into which Castro plunged Cuba. It was liberal newspapers that helped to occlude the unspeakable daily abuses of Castro’s regime beneath the fantasy of a romantic nationalist who was bravely willing to stand up to imperialism.
“There is power,” the Dallas Morning News tells us, “in linking your past and your future to this unending struggle [against Fidel]. But because the fathers of both these men [Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio] migrated several years before the revolution, as is now clear, the link is at best a stretch. In the case of Cruz, the situation is even more complicated because his father originally supported Castro.” What utter nonsense. It would be offensive if the editors actually had any idea what they were talking about. No Cuban exile would for a second say that the Rubio and Cruz families were any less exile than anyone else. All of our families lost their homeland. That some were already here when it happened is irrelevant — nobody meant to forsake Cuba by coming here. We lost Cuba because Castro took it from us, from all of us, born and unborn, both here and back there.
Among Cuban-Americans, having been an early supporter of Castro in no way diminishes your anti-Communist credentials. On the contrary, it is the typical story for almost every family. Virtually all of our families opposed the dictatorship of Batista. Virtually all of our families believed Castro’s rhetoric of democracy and liberty. The first thing everyone hated about him was his evident relish in betraying his most ardent supporters. That was the first of many very personal reasons he would give us to hate him, reasons that only we can really understand.
What makes us exiles is not merely the fact that our families can’t go back to Cuba. It is that Castro wantonly ruined the land that our families grew up in, the land of our forefathers, and now that land exists only in the fading black-and-white pictures and memories of the happy childhoods of a generation that is dying now. Compared with that, what possible difference could it make that our grandparents arrived one year and not another? Senator Rubio didn’t know exactly what year his father first got here because it doesn’t matter.
Still, I can’t say that I’m terribly surprised by the Dallas Morning News’s display of presumptuousness and ignorance. The editors are decent people, and if they knew even 5 percent of what I know about the Revolution and its exiles, I’m sure they would be deeply ashamed of what they’ve written. But they don’t and they never will — Castro has already seen to that.
Read the whole thing.
Speaking of people that Mario Loyola just made look like petty, misinformed idiots, The Dallas Morning News‘s Robert T. Garrett (who we talked about last week) covers Cruz’s accusations of MSM outlets like The Dallas Morning News targeting conservative Hispanics. Tune in next week for Garrett reporting on Cruz’s complaints about Garrett’s reporting on Cruz’s complaints. Presumably from the inside of a mirror box.
The Ted Cruz campaign has challenged David Dewhurst to five one-on-one Lincoln-Douglas debates (and the King Street Patriots were quick to agree to host at least one). This is a smart way for Cruz to help break further away from Tom Leppert and Elizabeth Ames Jones, and turn the race into a two man contest between him and Dewhurst…which is why Dewhurst would be foolish to take Cruz up on the offer. And, indeed, he does not seem so inclined.
ABC News notices the hit pieces on conservative Hispanic politicians in this interview with Cruz:
New Revolution Now emailed to say that Cruz won the straw poll at the Tuesday’s Texarkana senate forum. The total results were:
Ted Cruz: 54%
Glenn Addison: 21%
Lela Pittenger: 20%
Andrew Castanuela: 5%
David Dewhurst: <1%
Speaking of polls, this David Catanese Politico piece says that Dewhurst’s “internal poll” has Dewhurst at 50%, Leppert at 9%, and Cruz at 6%. I’m sure it does.
The Texas Tribune says “Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is running a state version of a Rose Garden strategy.” As indeed he is.
I get the distinct impression that someone at D magazine doesn’t like Leppert. They also evidently don’t like using anything that’s actually funny in their “comedy.”
This page on possible Senate race takeover targets had the Texas race down at 21st (i.e., not bloody likely), and had this to say: “Ricardo Sanchez hasn’t made the impact the local Democrats hoped he would.” Indeed.
Evidently all tuckered out from his 18-minute interview October 23, Sanchez seems to have returned to hibernation this week.
Other than appearing in that poll and turning 55 on October 29, Elizabeth Ames Jones doesn’t seem to have been much more active than Sanchez. Hey, here’s an idea: They’re both from San Antonio. Why not meet each other for a weekly debate? Nothing else they’re doing seems to be attracting donations or attention, and both need to bone up on their public speaking skills…
