The political battles in Texas are often not so much between conservatives and liberals as they are between the crazy right wing and the unbelievably crazy right wing. And Rick Perry is now finding himself attacked as not being crazy right wing enough.
The stage for Texas’s latest Republican civil war is the Senatorial runoff between Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, a Perry ally who is very conservative by most measures — he passed tax cuts through the State Senate and tightened abortion laws — and former Solicitor General Ted Cruz, who among his conservative beliefs, has said that the Council on Foreign Relations is “a pernicious nest of snakes” that is “working to undermine our sovereignty.”
Cruz surged into a surprisingly close second in the primary on May 29, forcing a runoff next month, and marking the arrival of the Tea Party revolution in Texas, where the unusual dynamic — Perry beat back challenges from both a relative moderate and a Ron Paul supporter in 2010 — had muddied the ideological waters. The Texas runoff is part of a national shift in the balance of power inside the Republican Party, and is centrally between Establishment figures like Perry and Dewhurst and populist outsiders like Cruz. And while the race probably won’t have immediate national implications — either candidate will be heavily favored to carry the state in November — Cruz’s emergence is a mark of the shift in how the Republican Party chooses its candidates.
“It’s a message to [Perry and Dewhurst] from the party that they need to move on,” Joe Barnett, a precinct chairman from Arlington, told BuzzFeed at the Texas Republican Party Convention at the Fort Worth Convention Center…
Perry and his aides, however, reject this narrative, and their fight for Dewhurst is also a battle to maintain the delicate balance between anti-government conservatism and the dexterous political use of government that was a running issue during Perry’s failed presidential campaign. Perry, the nation’s longest-serving governor, is taking yet another political risk just two years before he is to face reelection — and the outcome of which could determine the success of his political rehabilitation after his unsuccessful presidential run.
“We need more strong, conservative Texans in Washington, including my friend and colleague David Dewhurst,” Perry, among the most conservative candidates in the 2012 Republican presidential race, said in the middle of his speech, drawing boos and chants of “Cruuuuzz,” from thousands of conservatives in the audience.
Remember, you’re never pure enough. Ever.
25 comments
Skip to comment form ↓
d cwilson
June 14, 2012 at 10:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I live for the day someone says Michele Bachmann isn’t pure enough.
Subtract Hominem
June 14, 2012 at 10:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I… what!?
I think I did at least literal 3 double-takes while reading that.
Subtract Hominem
June 14, 2012 at 10:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
*at least 3 literal double takes. Does this count as another one?
mattand
June 14, 2012 at 10:50 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Anyone who did not see this coming either needs new glasses or a new set of eyeballs.
coragyps
June 14, 2012 at 10:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The ads that Dewhurst before the primary (they frequently popped up on this very website…..) were all attacking Cruz for not being a true conservative, but rather a trial lawyer (gasp!) trying to give away good American jobs to (gasp) China.
raven
June 14, 2012 at 11:09 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Texas has the highest child poverty rate in the USA at 24% and it went up a lot during the Perry regime.
Texas has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates. This is a key metric because it is highly correlated and causal with lifelong poverty.
I’d ask if they ever get tired of being ignorant and ridden with social problems, but why bother? It never seems to even occur to them.
Gregory in Seattle
June 14, 2012 at 11:11 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m not sure which burns more: the irony or the crazy.
okstop
June 14, 2012 at 11:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“I live for the day someone says Michele Bachmann isn’t pure enough.”
It’s coming.
My question is this – how long can the GOP sustain itself as a national party while operating under this logic? Doesn’t this sort of thing dangerously attenuate the candidate pool, or is the bench for wingnuts deep enough relative to the number of notable elected positions available that it doesn’t matter? How far from the mainstream does the logic of how they choose candidates have to drift before collapse? Or am I being optimistic?
ashleybell
June 14, 2012 at 11:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The authoritarin in-group/ out-group mind will always find/ create an enemy. Even if they were to control all levels of government, the factions would begin to percolate immediately rendering them just as ineffectual in total power as in partisan-held power. Remember, it’s not about us, it’s about them. They’re merely allies to each other out of convenience and expediency. Once the republicans effectively have control of everything, the real individual power grabs will begin.
raven
June 14, 2012 at 11:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
We all know the rules.
The Catholics hate the Protestants and vice versa. The fundies hate everyone. Everyone hates them back. The Mormons and JW’s get in a few blows.
This is an overstatement of the case right now today but is historically accurate.
It turns out they all hate atheists, Moslems, Democrats, science, and the modern world more than they hate each other and have a probably temporary alliance.
John Pieret
June 14, 2012 at 11:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He who lives by the unbelievably crazy right wing …
ashleybell
June 14, 2012 at 11:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Raven said
Trebuchet
June 14, 2012 at 11:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Ashleybell: First, I’m glad I’m not the only one who forgets the slash in the second “blockquote” command! And in answer to your question: Many, perhaps a majority, of those children in poverty are non-white. Some are “anchor babies”. Their parents tend to vote Democratic. And being poor is all their own fault, anyhow.
raven
June 14, 2012 at 11:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t know. Got me there. Ask a Texan Tea Partier if you can find one.
Texas also has the third highest teenage pregnancy rate and this explains a lot of their child poverty. It’s going up too.
So what have they done. Tightened up the abortion laws, defunded Planned Parenthood, and pushed abstinence only sex ed.
In other words, poured gasoline on the fire.
fifthdentist
June 14, 2012 at 12:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Anyone remember the old Texas tourism ad spots on TV: “Texas, it’s like a whole nother country?”
Why yes, it is. And that country is Somalia.
d cwilson
June 14, 2012 at 12:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But. . . but . . . Abstinence works.
And the winner of the internet for today is, fifthdentist.
Reginald Selkirk
June 14, 2012 at 12:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think Perry should consider secession again. Not for the entire state, but just for himself. Nothing stopping him from leaving.
naturalcynic
June 14, 2012 at 1:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
naturalcynic
June 14, 2012 at 1:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
blockquote fail:
Uhhh, no. Perry is the one with a morsel of sanity, which is about 3X as much as the TP’ers. Not enough to warrant non-secession. And there would probably have to be a West Berlin-like [1946-89] separation for the People’s Republic of Austin [the part that doesn't include the State Capitol].
Cliff Hendroval
June 14, 2012 at 1:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
When I was in high school in the mid-’70s, a couple of buddies and me went to the local American Opinion bookstore for the lulz (which shows just what a boring town I came from). We got a nice lecture from the owner where he said almost the same things about the Council on Foreign Relations that Cruz says here. The CFR was apparently a major bugaboo for the John Birch Society even back then.
d cwilson
June 14, 2012 at 2:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, it involves having relations with foreigners, so you can see why Birchers hate it.
The JBS is basically full of Frank Burns clones.
“We’re here with the UN, which I personally have nothing against except that it’s full of foreigners.”
baal
June 14, 2012 at 2:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My question is this – how long can the GOP sustain itself as a national party while operating under this logic?
Until the Koch Bros. and Adelsons run out of their petty cash funds? Irony being that the founders were well aware of the dangers of aristocracy and had a number of efforts to limit them. For example,they had a rule against perpetuities . The RAP is all but dead these days.
D. C. Sessions
June 14, 2012 at 3:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
On the contrary, they’re proud of both.
D. C. Sessions
June 14, 2012 at 3:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
How long can they keep a majority on the Supreme Court?
d cwilson
June 14, 2012 at 7:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If they keep up with their voter purges, indefinitely.