One has to feel sorry for David Dewhurst. Has any recent Texas politician ever suffered through a worse year? He lost a Senate race that he was heavily favored to win; his campaign account is missing hundreds of thousands of dollars, allegedly due to the actions of his own campaign manager; he put his future, to the extent that he has one, in the hands of Dan Patrick and Michael Quinn Sullivan; he compromised himself by announcing to one and all that he was going to sell out to the far right.

Dewhurst has been lieutenant governor for ten years, but what does he have to show for it? What monument solidifies his place in the political firmament? He is a decent man, but he is lacking in core beliefs and basic political skills. For example: No shrewd politician would announce that he is moving hard to the right (or to the left, for that matter). You don’t voluntarily put yourself in a box; you keep your options open. The right is not going to embrace him; they’re going to use him. They know he is still fundamentally an establishment politician.

Tagged: david dewhurst

Well, good for him. The proposal is to use $1 billion from the fund for water projects and for highways. A billion doesn’t buy you what it used to, but it’s a start. Dewhurst also proposed setting up a bank for water and transportation projects. I think he and Craddick had planned something similar at one point.

This is an important development. It represents a significant departure from the position taken by Governor Perry in the 2011 session, that the Rainy Day Fund should be treated as a sort of savings account in case of natural disasters. The silliness of this argument is that, in the case of a natural disaster, FEMA will provide the aid.

It can also be read as a signal that the state’s leadership recognizes that issues like water and transportation have been neglected in recent years, and that the time has come to reverse that trend–a view shared by the state’s business community.

Lest anyone start turning backflips over Dewhurst’s recent conversion to spending, we should recall that he told senators that he favored using the Rainy Day Fund last session, only to execute a quick about-face, to the senators’ dismay.

Tagged: david dewhurst, rainy day fund

The race has been moving in this direction for months now. 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. The most the campaign has been able to achieve is to establish the idea that Cruz is a lawyer who will take on any client who walks in the door, and that is just not enough to undermine Cruz’s positives.

The conventional wisdom concerning the numbers in this race is that the bigger the turnout, the better Dewhurst would do–the idea being that a large turnout would indicate that there is more to the GOP electorate than the tea party. But the fact is that the Dewhurst campaign never identified a constituency. The campaign was a mess from the start: Dewhurst, despite ten years in office, never really established an identity separate from Rick Perry.

And speaking of Perry, he’s the big loser in this race. He went all-in for Dewhurst, even lending him his own campaign organization. In effect, the Perry team portrayed Dewhurst as Perry’s alter ego. That was doomed to fail. In promoting Perry, the Dewhurst campaign diminished their own candidate.

What happens to Perry now? I think his political career may be over. The party he led is split, and the faction whose candidate he opposed appears to be winning the race. Perry’s ego is so huge that he thought he could get Dewhurst elected simply by endorsing him. How can he run for another term as governor (which he clearly wants to do) when he supported an establishment candidate against the tea party’s darling? Dan Patrick is in the same position. Both have lost credibility with their base. Everything is wide open now.

The big winner in this election (other than Cruz himself) is George P. Bush, Jeb’s son, who endorsed Cruz. That tells me two things: (1) he has inherited good political antennae; (2) his statewide political ambitions are on the fast track.

More from PPP:

Cruz’s [anticipated] victory is driven by 4 things: the Tea Party, the enthusiasm of his supporters, a generational divide within the Texas Republican ranks, and the lack of regard the party base currently holds for Rick Perry.

PPP is a Democratic polling firm and has every incentive to denigrate Rick Perry. Nevertheless, I believe PPP is right. There is a general lack of regard for Rick Perry among Republicans, Democrats, the tea party, and independents.

And Politico weighs in:

Runoffs, of course, are notoriously unpredictable and hard to poll. One example: Dewhurst adviser Dave Carney tells [Dave] Catanese, “I know we’re winning the early vote.” But PPP reports Cruz has a wide 55-40 lead among those who say they’ve already voted.

That fits. I don’t think anything I have heard from the Dewhurst campaign has proven to be accurate.

Tagged: david dewhurst, george p. bush, Ted Cruz

Dewhurst gave his best performance of the campaign, but it may not matter.  He still has a tendency to be stiff and wooden. It’s almost painful to watch him struggle to achieve fluency. Cruz has a big edge as a speaker; he reeled off points, “One…two…three…four.” It was good debating technique, but the look on his face seems to say, “Look how smart I am.” Dewhurst made a slip when he said he was endorsed by the NRA, which Cruz promptly pounced on.

Dewhurst said, “I’m the most conservative lieutenant governor in the history of Texas.” I tried to think of who the competition might be. Rick Perry might be one answer, although Perry had little to show for his year as light gov, other than his sincere but unsuccessful efforts to reach a compromise on the hate crimes bill in 1999.

Cruz accused Dewhurst of impugning his patriotism with an ad that included the Chinese flag. “You’re better than that,” he said to Dewhurst.

Viewers were able to post comments alongside the video feed. Almost all of the comments were pro-Cruz; a few were anti-Dewhurst. Dewhurst made a strong pitch for his conservative record, and deservedly so, but Cruz is just so much more steeped in the rhetoric of the far right. I suspect a lot of people in the audience–the debate was sponsored by the King Street Patriots, a tea party organization–were  thinking, “He’s one of us, and Dewhurst isn’t.” And it’s true. He’s not.

Cruz scored heavily when he brought up Dewhurst’s support for amnesty in 2007, in a speech that, Cruz charged, Dewhurst caused to be removed from his Web site. Dewhurst denied that he had ever supported amnesty or a guest worker program. Cruz also attacked Dewhurst for spending $10 million “flooding the airwaves with false personal attacks.”

For the most part, however, Cruz and Dewhurst had few disagreements on policy. Cruz brought up Dewhurst’s statement in the previous debate that Europe had better healthcare outcomes than the U.S. Dewhurst tried again and again to return to his record (“I  balanced five straight budgets”) and his passage of Voter I.D. and tort reform, but his efforts fell flat. Cruz has no record at all, other than his law practice, but that doesn’t matter to his supporters.

The truth is that, if elected to the Senate, Cruz and Dewhurst would vote alike 99% of the time. They would likely differ on only one vote that would matter, and that is the vote for Republican whip. Jim DeMint, of South Carolina, is seeking the position, and so is John Cornyn of Texas.* You would think that a senator from Texas would support a colleague from his home state, but DeMint got Cruz into the race and helped fund him. The odds are overwhelming that Cruz will vote for DeMint, perhaps casting the deciding vote that would rob Texas’s soon-to-be senior senator from achieving the number two position in the Republican hierarchy.

If Cruz wins the race, the Dewhurst campaign will go down in Texas political history as one of the worst that has ever been run–and one of the biggest upsets since Rick Perry defeated Jim Hightower in 1990. Dewhurst had every advantage–name I.D., money, conservative record, Rick Perry’s endorsement (if that’s an advantagte. Cruz had nothing except the ability to connect with the far right. But based on where the energy is in the Republican party, that may be all Cruz needs.

UPDATE: Earlier today, TEXAS MONTHLY received the following email from DeMint’s Senate office:

Senator DeMint has not sought and does not plan to seek a Senate leadership post and reports to the contrary are simply false. Please correct this story. Thank you.

Senator DeMint is in line to become chairman of the Commerce Committee, a powerful panel, assuming that Republicans honor his seniority. He has also expressed a desire to be a member of the Finance Committee. As for Cornyn, I also came across a reference to him in a story from Roll Call, which described Cornyn’s support from his colleagues as “a mile wide and an inch deep.”

I see nothing wrong with raising the issue of how Cruz will vote for Republican whip. This ought to be an easy vote for a Texas senator. If Cornyn is elected whip, he would be next in line to succeed Mitch McConnell as majority leader. The last Texan to hold that position was Lyndon Johnson. While many readers may scoff at “politics as usual” involving one’s home state, Texas sends a huge amount of tax dollars to Washington. Getting something back is important. Money for highways and the huge military installations at Fort Hood and Fort Bliss are crucial to this state. Whether DeMint runs for whip or not, Texas  needs a senator who will protect the state’s interests.

Tagged: david dewhurst, Ted Cruz

It’s Rick Perry. Well, not exactly. What has happened is that Team Perry has taken over the Dewhurst campaign. Dave Carney is in charge. Mark Miner has joined the communications team. Rob Johnson is heading up the Super PAC. Everyone understands what that means. It means that the Perry playbook will be the textbook for Dewhurst’s runoff campaign against Ted Cruz. And the contents of the playbook have never been a secret. Chapter One is “Always attack.” Chapter Two is “If the first attack doesn’t work, try another one.” Chapter Three is “The only good use for earth is to scorch it.”

The unsolved mystery of Perry’s deep involvement in the Dew’s Senate race is why he cares. He must think  he can benefit by Dewhurst’s going to the Senate.

How? In the first place, it is to Perry’s advantage to have an ally in the Senate, assuming he intends to remain active in state and national politics. Texas’s senior senator, John Cornyn, and Perry are not close. Nor does Perry have a lot of friends in the Texas congressional delegation. He won no allies in the delegation by running for governor against Kay Bailey Hutchison in 2010 with an anti-Washington message that irked all the members of the delegation, not to mention rubbing off on many of them. Most members of Congress work hard. They regard Perry as a show horse, rather than  a workhorse. Cruz is certainly no friend of Perry’s, and he is also a rival for Perry as the leader of the tea party in Texas.  That leaves only Dewhurst as a possible ally.

Finally, it’s possible that Perry can gain from Dewhurst’s departure by the simple possibility that Dewhurst would no longer be light gov. The Texas Senate would have to choose a successor, and Perry, as governor, would be in a position to influence that selection, which could prove to be useful if he remains in office as governor.

As I wrote in a previous post, the issue of how to run against Cruz is crucial. Cruz is a grassroots candidate. Dewhurst clearly is not. He is the establishment candidate. Cruz has an edge in using social media to contact his voter base and get them to the polls. Dewhurst’s failure to reach 50% in the closing days of the primary race indicates the campaign’s lack of a social media strategy that can identify and turn out his voters.

Carney will follow his usual strategy of attacking his opponent in the media. This strategy has the dual benefit of weakening Dewhurst’s opponent and providing consultants with more income from the placement of advertising. But how many bombs does Dewhurst have left to throw at Cruz? They have already hit him with an attack on his representation of a Chinese company that ended up having to pay a large jury verdict to an American competitor. A claim that Cruz supported amnesty for illegal aliens did not appear to have much credibility. What else is left? If the Dewhurst campaign is out of bombshell revelations, they could find themselves on the defensive in the closing days of the runoff.

Tagged: dave carney, david dewhurst, Ted Cruz

Dewhurst has no business being behind the eight-ball in this race. His campaign should have wiped the floor with Ted Cruz.

In late January, Cruz’s name ID was 40%. All Dewhurst had to do was stay with his message–that is, touting his record as a conservative light guv and basically ignoring Cruz. That’s when his campaign made the fatal mistake: On February 1, it hired Dave Carney. What kind of consultant is Carney? He’s an attack dog. Dewhurst ultimately went on the offensive with the China ad. It was very effective. It hurt Cruz, but it helped in even morem by raising Cruz’s name ID, which was around 40% at the time. That was the last thing Dewhurst wanted. The Dewhurst campaign stayed on the attack, including a late spot accusing Cruz of favoring amnesty, which had little credibility. The amnesty attack ad was so overdone that it caused Dewhurst to lose ground in the days before the primary. In effect, Carney’s tactics handed the initiative to Cruz.

Dewhurst should have stuck to his record. He could make a great positive case for himself. (If Cruz ever ran a positive spot, I never saw it.) Instead, he put his campaign in the hands of someone whose most recent credit was the failed Perry presidential campaign. All that got Dewhurst was an endorsement from Perry that hung a sign around Dewhurst’s neck labeled “establishment candidate.” Perry’s performance in the presidential race was evidence that Carney wasn’t the grand strategist he was reputed to be. (Remember, he worked for Craddick, too, in 2008, and didn’t have much to show for it either.)

Tagged: dave carney, david dewhurst, Ted Cruz

I wouldn’t put too much stock in this poll, which was commissioned by Conservative Republicans of Texas, a group headed by a prominent social conservative Dr. Steven Hotze. The Dewhurst camp’s fingerprints are all over it. The Houston Chronicle points out that the polling firm (Dresner, Wickers, Barber, Sanders) has previously done polling for Dewhurst, and that Wickers is a former consultant for Dewhurst. That said, the results seem plausible:

Dewhurst 51%

Cruz 16%

Leppert 7%

James 2%

I think it is reasonable to believe that Dewhurst has a shot to win this race without a runoff. If there is a runoff, all bets are off. The voters in the runoff will be hardcore conservatives.

Tagged: david dewhurst, texas polls

This ought to end any speculation about whether there is a real contest for Hutchison’s Senate seat. Now there is no race, though there never really had been one from the beginning. Dewhurst was a cinch to win. Too much money, too much name I.D, too insignificant opposition. He was able to employ a rose garden strategy, ducking debates and forums, without suffering any adverse consequences. The Ted Cruz campaign was a mirage. Dewhurst really wanted (and still wants) to be governor, but a Senate seat is a nice consolation prize. Of the lesser candidates, Leppert made the best showing.

Tagged: david dewhurst, rick perry

“Senate District 10 partners victorious in preserving&strengthening ’08 district. Lege damage repaired. Thanks to all who supported&believed.”

[tweeted @ 1:33 p.m.]

* * * *

Just pointing out the obvious: The saving of Davis’s seat could take on added significance if senators choose the successor to Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst.

Tagged: david dewhurst, redistricting, Senate District 10, wendy davis

This was Kate Alexander’s main takeaway from the Senate debate. I don’t think it was any surprise that the top-heavy favorite in the race was on the defensive. If anything, as I wrote in my report on the debate on Friday, I thought Cruz missed opportunities to attack Dewhurst. Cruz’s charge that Dewhurst’s support of the business margins tax amounted to backing an income tax would have been a lot more effective had the Texas Supreme Court not ruled that it wasn’t.

The most telling exchange involving Cruz and Dewhurst was this one, reported by Alexander:

Cruz, who has won endorsements from several tea party standard-bearers from Washington, said there is an ideological battle afoot and that Dewhurst is not on the side of tea party conservatives.

“There is a civil war going on right now for the hearts and minds of Republicans in the Senate,” Cruz said.

In my book, this is exactly the problem with the Republican party today. And it’s going to kill them. Too many Republicans put ideological purity ahead of addressing the country’s problems. Ted Cruz is a smart man and a good lawyer, but do Texans really want a senator whose foremost concern is fighting a civil war with other Republicans? Dewhurst is hardly the reincarnation of Daniel Webster, but at least he knows who the enemy is.

Tagged: david dewhurst, Ted Cruz