Search Results for: The State Of The Race In Texas"

A reader writes:

You mention that incoming Senator Ted Cruz "might" be the GOP answer to moderation in the party. Your skepticism could've run a lot deeper, since Cruz criticized his opponent for marching in a gay pride parade, thinks Shariah Law is an "enormous problem," and wants to triple the Border Patrol with "electronic surveillance, a wall, helicopters and, most importantly, boots on the ground" to fight immigration. That doesn't strike me as a guy who will successfully push Republicans towards libertarian positions or successfully reach out to and mend relationships with the gay community, Hispanics or other groups.

Another:

You quoted Munisteri: "You cannot have a situation with the Hispanic community that we’ve had for forty years with the African-American community, where it’s a bloc of votes that you almost write off…" Yet, Texas seems poised to continue its current trajectory. One of the four "emergency items" on the state legislative list from Gov. Perry's office is banning "sanctuary cities". One of last session's emergency items, Voter ID, was blocked in court. Three main legislators in Texas recently came out against offering in-state tuition to children of undocumented immigrants.

In the recent US Senate race here, both Cruz and and his main primary opponent, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, opposed the DREAM Act.

Last week, voters in San Antonio approved an initiative to fund pre-K education for poor children by levying a city-wide sales tax – a coup for Julian Castro, the San Antonio mayor and keynote speaker at the DNC. Paul Burka calls it "the most important thing that happened on election night in Texas":

We may look back on that in future years (and not too future, say 2018) and realize that it was the essential first step for a future governor or senator. Full confession: I wrote that I thought Castro was taking too big a risk too early in his career, but fortune favors the bold in politics.

Overview of the pre-K program here. Prior to the election, Burka emphasized that while Castro "has the benefit of time," the Dems face a slow path forward in Texas:

Bill Kristol, not exactly a Romney fan, begins to come around:

Rick Santorum is entitled to stay in the race, and to offer voters in the remaining states an alternative. But it's probably time for him to do what Mike Huckabee did in similar circumstances in 2008—basically to stop attacking the almost inevitable nominee, and instead to adjust his own message going forward to a positive and issues-based one.

Conn Carroll agrees:

Jim Antle assesses what's next for the scrappy libertarian:

Paul's caucus strategy for delegate maximization clearly isn't panning out as hoped (even granting the Paul campaign's contention that conventional counts are missing a lot of the delegates they are picking up behind the scenes). Given Paul's improved numbers almost everywhere, one wonders in retrospect if they might have been better served by trying to gain momentum by running up their popular vote in key contests.  

What happened in Virginia is nevertheless a pretty good example of what might have been for Paul: he was able to pull a sizeable anti-Romney vote.

by Zoë Pollock

John Heilemann spots an upside to Perry's entry:

What was needed … was a clear contest between the Establishment and tea-vangelical wings of the party. … What [Perry] brings to the race is a welcome clarity, and the prospect of a kind of challenge to Romney that has been lacking until now. How Romney handles that challenge will tell us all we need to know about him. And how the Republican electorate ultimately judges them will tell us everything we need to know about the party.

And, on cue, Perry surges ahead in Iowa. Alex Roarty and Beth Reinhard shed light on Romney's hands-off approach:

The reason I've been a little circumspect in judging the Perry candidacy is that it's very hard to tell if a candidate this Texan and this far right has any traction in the middle of the country. Perhaps in hard times, he does. But then you examine his actual positions – social security is unconstitutional, … Continue reading Perry: We’d Lynch Ben Bernanke In Texas

A reader writes:

Perry has indeed been a driving force in favor of that pre-abortion ultrasound requirement bill. By doing so, I wonder if he hasn't lost himself some votes even among pro-life women. That bill doesn't just require the woman to undergo an ultrasound prior to abortion. It requires, among other things, that the ultrasound be trans-vaginal in many cases (that is exactly what it sounds like) rather than the external sonogram most pregnant women are given.

A reader writes:

Don't underestimate Perry. It’s easy to do, and people down here have been doing it for years at their peril. Perry is great on the stump, where he has a talent for connecting with people. In many ways he’s a lot like W was coming out of Austin, but more conservative. Perry has won more tough races then anyone in modern Texas history (Jim Hightower, John Sharp, Tony Sanchez’s $60 million, KBH when she was the state’s most popular politician, and Bill White when he was the latest hope of Texas Democrats) and he would be very attractive as a national candidate. He’d be by far the most conservative candidate in the race and he’s a gifted campaigner who knows how to go for the jugular. In this rather pathetic GOP field, I don’t know who could stop him.

Erica Greider, from Austin, doesn't expect Perry to run:

The "niche" here is socially conservative rather than Southern, and it's not really a niche. The conceptual division in the party is between the people who prioritise economic issues and those who are more interested in the social side. All of the candidates that have been mooted so far, except for Mr Barbour, have been clearly aligned with one side or the other. That's why there's not a clear frontrunner. If there was a candidate who had credentials on both sides (like Mr Perry) he or she would post a strong showing. In the absence of such a candidate, the eventual nominee will probably be one of the business types.

Another Texan writes:

I wouldn't be shocked if Perry decided to run, but I don't think that will happen.