The Brief: Top Texas News for June 1, 2012
The Big Conversation:
It's becoming clearer just how vicious — and expensive — this summer's U.S. Senate runoff may get.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Ted Cruz have wasted no time this week jumping back into the ring ahead of the July 31 runoff. On Thursday, the two squared off in back-to-back appearances on Fox News, where they hit on their campaign talking points in front of a national audience.
But information has also begun to trickle out about the groups planning to work on their behalf this summer.
As the Tribune's Aman Batheja and Jay Root report ...
Comments (3)
Mike Openshaw via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Cruz has DC 'insiders'?? Yeah, if you consider DeMint, Tea Party groups and other fiscal hawks 'insiders'. Also tens of thousands of small, grassroots donors that Dewhurst does NOT have.
Hope the Grin logs this piece appropriately as an in-kind contribution to Dewhurst.
Mike Openshaw via Texas Tribune on Facebook
*Trib* (I hate the phone's auto-correct!)
jaime
Actually, what Donna Campbell said was broader. She promised to take no money from ANY lobbying group, not just Texans for Lawsuit Reform. She is an active physician, so it's hard to believe that she would be opposed to the tort reforms passed in the last decade or so. But that said, she must state her support for those laws in no uncertain terms.
Sen. Wentworth is one of the poster boys for the left-leaning Texas Trial Lawyers Association. But this one issue may put Campbell in a tight spot. She followed Wentworth's lead in the first primary and in radio spots criticized Elizabeth Ames Jones for taking money from the TLR, which both fashioned as a "big business lobby in Houston." So it's unclear if the TLR would contribute to her at all. The dual attack on Jones, the best qualified conservative in the race, may have accounted for the slim margin that put Campbell in the runoff. She has asked Jones and her supporters for their help this time around. Campbell's electoral efforts could be hurt if she doesn't somehow find a way to revise her opinion on TLR, an organization that has played a vital role in our state's recent prosperity.