TX-SEN: True to Form

[Stranger in a strange land]

If I were running O'Rourke's campaign, I'd hit Cruz hard about being so slavishly loyal to Trump after Trump humiliated him and insulted his wife during the campaign. That's not Family Values and it's not Texas Values.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Ted Cruz isn’t like Thom Tillis or Roy Blunt, and won’t get caught sleeping at the wheel before panicking in September after doing f all.

He knows how to campaign well.

Does he really though? He ran against a nobody in 2012, and he couldn't win the GOP primary vs Trump despite an impressive ground game, a far superior organization, and the RNC trying to rig the process for him and tilt the field in his favor, far more than the DNC did for Hillary.

[Stranger in a strange land]

If Beto pulls it off this fall, Trump is DEFINITELY in trouble come 2020.

If Cruz somehow loses then I think Trump is not DOA, but bordering close to it. If those 38 electoral votes are tossup or Lean R instead of Safe/Likely R that changes the dynamics of 2020 in the Democrats favor. Trump could win the state in 2020 but it could come at the expense of spending and campaigning more there than a NC or a FL perhaps.

Drawing conclusion from an O'Rourke victory for 2020 would be a big mistake. Just because everything aligns perfectly in a Senate race doesn't mean the state has become competitive at the presidential level. Remember a Republican won Illinois in 2010.

Republicans won an unfortunate special election in Massachusetts too.

Massachusetts is more elastic than Texas, though. Democrats haven't won statewide in Texas since Ann Richards in 1990. Since 1990, Massachusetts has only had one Democratic governor.

Well, the Democrats haven’t won a senate race in Alabama for 25 years until they won with Doug Jones. And Texas votes in the left of Alabama so Texas is more winnable for the Democrats than Alabama is.

At the same time though, Jones' win was kind of a fluke based on Roy Moore being an alleged pedophile. Ted Cruz is a pretty reprehensible, unlikable person; but not to the point that he has  a major liability that is associated with him like Moore did.

I know this is the narrative that's taken hold in the Beltway Political Press, and it's true to a certain extent, but it's important to remember that:

1) Alabama Republican voters largely didn't believe the allegations against Moore
2) To the extent that they did believe them, the Right Wing Media Machine and Evangelical Pastors made excuses for his conduct
2a) Moore's most devoted supporters devolved to using the abortion crutch: OH YEAH MAYBE MOORE DOES DIDDLE LITTLE KIDS, BUT DOUG JONES SUPPORTS KILLING THEM IN THE WOMB!!! MUH ABORTION GENOCIDE!!!
3) The allegations distracted from Moore's positions on the issues, which are extreme even for Alabama, just like Cruz's are for Texas
4) Jones was actually a good candidate, and Beto is an even better one

[Stranger in a strange land]

Lol.

https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1036669764846977025

Guys is it just me or is Ted Cruz not good at this politics thing

He couldn't defeat Trump in the Republican primary even with the RNC rigging it in his favor even more than the Dems did for Hillary. In retrospect, that should have been a huge warning sign for his political future.

[Stranger in a strange land]

It seems crazy to me that Beto is only 2 years younger than Cruz.

Ted Cruz gives the illusion of a spectral figure who has silently presided over every conflict since the start of humanity and urged for the most destructive response. He floats from century to century, his plastered smile and grating voice at the corner of every room. And though he is in everyone's peripheral vision, when they turn their heads in his direction, he is gone, and only his creepy aura remains.

Ted Cruz Jokes to Oil Lobbyists About Eating Someone’s Son

“I was really tempted to tweet, ‘He was delicious,'” he said

Stuff like this and the "hair dye and silicon" remark show why Cruz is a uniquely terrible candidate, why he lost the 2016 primary even with the RNC rigging it in his favor, and why he would have lost the general in 2016, even against Hillary.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Dallas Morning News endorses O'Rourke, for whatever that's worth (Not much, of course, as no one cares about endorsements anymore). DMN is traditionally a very Republican newspaper.

Pretty much every newspaper of note in the country either endorsed Hillary or declined to make an endorsement, aside from tabloid trash like National Enquirer. Fat lot of good it did her.