The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the original $26 million jury verdict in favor of Jordan Fishman, an American businessman who contended that his intellectual property had been stolen by a Chinese company represented by Ted Cruz.
In a statement issued earlier today, the Dewhurst camp sought to portray their runoff as “a choice between a Texas conservative businessman and a lawyer funded by Washington special interests.” Another way to portray the race is the question of who has the deeper pockets, and I don’t think the answer is Dewhurst.
In any case, I’m not convinced that media and money are the keys to winning a runoff. You can blow a lot of money and still reach only a small fraction of the runoff electorate. Robocalls and identifying and turning out voters are a more efficient way to approach a runoff. Will Cruz suppporters continue to run the ad that charges Dewhurst is a “moderate”? That was one of the most bizarre TV spots I’ve ever seen. Here was a candidate for the U.S. Senate practically shouting that he was an extremist.
The Dewhurst team blew the primary by going negative at the wrong time and in the wrong way. He needs to go back to the basics, which means emphasizing his conservative record, which is his strength. And the verdict is a good break for Dewhurst, because it reinforces the claims he made in his TV spots about the lawsuit and gives him credibility.
