Early Voting in Texas

Early voting starts tomorrow for Texas in the primary run-off election. No, these elections are not sexy. They suck up a lot of money and create greater anxiety for candidates who would normally be gearing up for the general election in November. However, these are the cards we are dealt.

As much as I would love to devote a lot of time to all the runoff elections going on in the Republican primary, the two main ones are obviously the race for Senate - to fill Kay Bailey Hutchison's seat - and the race for Harris County Sheriff. These have been the two most contentious races, and have probably broken all kinds of records for shoe leather worn.

In the Senate race, I won't try to hide my disdain for David Dewhurst. I have called him everything from "Dew-Hurts" to "Dew-Nothing" to "Dew-Worst". He has done a shitty job (forgive me for the cursing, but I am calling a spade a spade here) as Lieutenant Governor. My fellow blogger and political junkie, David Jennings, calls Dewhurst the true conservative, but then again Jennings also has a love affair with renowned RINO Joe Straus, so how much credibility can you give ol' Big Jolly? Dewhurst, Straus, and Texas Senator Dan Patrick have made careers out of being passive-aggressive. Much of that was evidenced in the past debate, in a masterful turn by Mr. Ted Cruz, Dewhurst's opponent in this race.

Dewhurst, et al., has driven up the state budget while at the same time claims to have cut taxes. However, he was the advocate of a state income tax. He pushed for it and nearly got it. But seeing as he couldn't get anything that resembled a state income tax, he instead pushed for - and got - a new business franchise tax. If you don't believe me on this issue, then you can see all the dirty details here.

As for Cruz, his golden child story has been told often on every talk radio show from Glenn Beck to Mark Levin to Michael Berry. He is a great communicator and has an appealing message regarding his upbringing in Houston, the product of an immigrant from Castro-led Cuba. He became a lawyer and in doing so, Dewhurst has told some stories about how Cruz represented a Chinese tire company and in the process prevented jobs from being created or some such thing. The story is so convoluted you have to be Chinese to understand the connection. However, I can hear the GOP True Believers talking: "where there's smoke there's fire! He done somethin' with them thar Chinese! He's a damned Communist - his daddy's from Cuber, after all!" And so it goes.

A lawyer has to advocate for his side, regardless of his own biases. He must not only be an advocate, but a STRONG advocate, otherwise he can be disbarred. Dewhurst was a law school dropout, otherwise he would know these things. He also has about  150 million dollars at his disposal through his "business" which he has never gone into great detail about during the campaign. We hear all the time about how his FATHER was a bomber pilot in WWII and died when the Lieutenant Governor was young, but we never hear how he obtained all his money. Perhaps he may have done some business with the Chinese at some point, but who can really tell?

The bottom line is, that Ted Cruz is a tremendous advocate for the Constitution and he seems to "get it" as far as the problems that we face as a nation. Dewhurst - while pointing the finger at Cruz, calling him a Washington insider - doesn't realize that he has become a comic version of himself. All he would do is take his passive-aggressive, bully-and-pander nature to Washington. That is where he would shut out the tea party and anyone else that doesn't have a few million dollars in their hand. Then we would be told with whatever letters or phone calls that we write that he would "consider" our concerns come voting time. We have had enough of that from Hutchison, thank you. Time for a change! Cruz for Senate.