Man, the Houston Chronicle editorial board must really hate David Dewhurst: he skipped their meeting, but they went ahead and endorsed him anyway. Ouch!
The left-leaning PPP poll has Dewhurst at 46% and Cruz at 29%. Don’t see any reason to trust this more than the UT/TT poll, though both show Dewhurst shy of 50%.
Ross Ramsey looks at what happens if Dewhurst doesn’t win. Also, what’s the deal with liberals like Ramsey and Paul Burka prattling on about how Texas is some sort of uninhabited wasteland during the summers? Yeah, it’s hot. Those of us who were born here just deal with it. I believe we might even be able to make it to our local polling stations for a runoff without melting.
Democrat Sean Hubbard gets some love from the Houston Chronicle. But it’s ruthlessly realistic love: “Hubbard’s chance of taking the oath of office in Washington next January is even less likely than the Astros sweeping this fall’s World Series.”
Since it’s possible people who haven’t been following the race until now are tuning into this blog, you might want to take a look at:
He’s already got Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, Sean Hannity and Ron Paul, among many others. Who will be the next big name to endorse Ted Cruz? Phil Gramm? (Possible) Bush41 or Bush43? (Unlikely) Marco Rubio? (Probably would have happened by now.) Rush Limbaugh? (Nope. He avoids endorsements as a matter of policy.)
You know who should endorse Ted Cruz? In all seriousness? Craig James. With polls showing him around 4% and his latest FEC report showing he had only $9,000 cash on hand, it should be obvious to everyone (James included) that he won’t be the next Senator from Texas.
If James wants to run for office again (and I think he does), he should ask himself which looks better: 1.) Running a no-hope campaign to the bitter end and getting 4% of the vote, or 2.) Announcing Sunday night or Monday morning that he’s ending his campaign and endorsing Ted Cruz? In the later case, he’ll probably still pull 2-4% of the vote, and he can always point out the fact he ended his campaign early as the reason why. The Guy Who Dropped Out is a lot more viable than The Guy Who Got Slaughtered So Bad He Pulled Single Digits. Plus it wins him the gratitude of the conservative activists he’ll have to work with in the future, and maybe a nod for, say, a congressional race down the road. Not to mention depriving legions of disgruntled Texas Tech fans from their expected allotment of schadenfreude on election day…
Leppert also gets the nod from The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram editorial board.
Speaking of Leppert, a true story: At a party this past weekend, a friend (who is not the political junkie I am) asked “Who’s that creepy old guy with the suits?”
Craig James picks up two San Antonio endorsements. Just because I haven’t heard of these people doesn’t necessarily mean no one else has…
According to the UT/Texas Tribune Poll released today, David Dewhurst is at 40% and Ted Cruz is at 31%. In April, the same poll had Dewhurst 38%, Cruz 26%. In January, it was Dewhurst 36%, Cruz 8%. So Dewhurst has gone from an 18 point lead to a 12 point lead to a 9 point lead. And this during the same period Dewhurst has been spending more than $1 million a week on the race, much of it in negative advertising aimed at Cruz. That would explain why Dewhurst felt compelled to drop another $6 of his own money into the race.
The poll also shows that all Tom Lepeprt’s spending has done is allow him to solidify his grip on third: he’s at 17%. Craig James languishes within the statistical range of Lela Peitinger and Glenn Addison.
Right now the race is exactly where the Cruz team wanted it to be: heading for a runoff between Dewhurst and Cruz.
State Senator Deb Fischer was sitting in third place in the race for Nebraska’s U.S. Senate seat. Then Sarah Palin endorsed her. Now? She just won the GOP nomination.
Both Ron Paul and Rand Paul have endorsed Ted Cruz. Rand Paul, of course, has been in Cruz’s corner a while. Not as big as the Sarah Palin endorsement, but not chopped liver either.
I still don’t see how highlighting his father’s World War II service is supposed to convince me to vote for Dewhurst. (Cruz’s story of his father (who was at Sunday’s rally) at least dovetails nicely with his campaign themes.)
Any new information in the Texas Tribune round-up of the race? (scans it) Nope.
Even by the previous lame standards of Team Dewhurst leaks, this “internal poll leak” that shows Leppert about to overtake Cruz is lame.
Heh. Team Dewhurst has that “Ted Cruz on Chinese currency ad” appearing on the sidebar of National Review Online. You know, the magazine that just endorsed Cruz. I don’t think that ad will be winning Dewhurst any new supporters…
I missed this from a few days ago: “The Dewhurst for Texas campaign today announced the endorsement of John Gordon of Round Rock, former Texas State GOP Committeeman.”
Unless you live in Williamson County, the name John Gordon might not mean a lot to you. In Williamson County, John Gordon is most know for running as the favorite in the House District 52 race in 2010…and getting trounced by Larry Gonzalez. One reason he got trounced was his reputation as a hothead, like suing former business associates and taking a crowbar to a police boot on his car.
Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge. But it does suggest a certain paucity of Dewhurst endorsements when a guy most famous for losing a state house race is worthy of a press release…
It’s been a few days since I went down to the south capitol steps to watch the Tea Party Express featuring Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Ron Paul. It’s a bit late for me to do a comprehensive write-up of the speeches there. I caught all of Rand Paul and Ted Cruz’s speech, but could only stay for about ten minutes of Ron Paul’s, because I had to get back home to write my review of the Avengers. The crowd was friendly, enthusiastic, and about 75% Ron Paul supporters, with the other 25% there either for Ted Cruz or various other candidates, including Richard Mack and the Libertarian candidate for the U.S. 25th congressional district Betsy Dewey, who was running around in one of those Firefly cunning hats and has the virtue of being quite cute.
Rather than a blow-by-blow description of what was said, or an attempt to construct a coherent Venn diagram depicting conservatives, Libertarians, Republicans, the Tea Party, and Ron Paul supporters, I’m going to just put up some pictures:
“Just four days before the start of early voting in the Texas Senate primary, the Ted Cruz campaign announced the endorsement of Governor Sarah Palin and her husband Todd Palin.”
In response to a letter from Ted Cruz, Governor Sarah Palin wrote: “We’re proud to join conservatives in Texas and throughout the nation in supporting your campaign to become the next Senator from the Lone Star State.”
“Your conservative principles, passionate defense of our Constitution and our free market system come at a time when these cornerstones of our freedom and prosperity are under attack,” Governor Palin added. “Our shared goal isn’t just to change the majority in control of the Senate, but to assure principled conservatives like you are there to fight for us.”
Palin is not only a superstar, she’s also a Tea Party kingmaker; numerous of the candidates she endorsed in 2010 won their primary and general election races over GOP establishment types, even when the challengers weren’t initially favored. Expect a lot of donors (both large and small) to look at contributing to Cruz, as well as a lot of on-the-fence Texas voters who hadn’t been paying attention to the race yet seriously considering Cruz. So this endorsement is just a wee bit more important than my own.
