The late, great U.S. senator, Lloyd Bentsen, was fond of calling politics “a contact sport.”
Granted, he didn’t create the description. He was accurate in describing it to those of us who follow politics and government.
David Dewhurst has just taken a body blow from a long-time ally, illustrating just how much contact can be delivered during a heated campaign season.
http://www.texastribune.org/2014/04/18/analysis-betrayal-roils-top-political-race/
Texans for Lawsuit Reform has bailed on the Texas lieutenant governor. It has long backed him in previous campaigns, right up through this year’s Republican primary for the seat he’s seeking to hold. But as Ross Ramsey writes in the Texas Tribune, the group likely has redefined “political treachery.”
It’s looking more and more as though Dewhurst is toast.
Ramsey writes: “The standard for good old-fashioned treachery in politics is pretty low — in fact, many people think politics is a synonym for treachery. Even with that, the latest move by one of the state’s biggest business groups against the sitting lieutenant governor was breathtaking.”
Texans for Lawsuit Reform now is backing state Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston in the May GOP runoff. Patrick finished far ahead of Dewhurst in the primary, but failed to reach the 50-percent-plus-one-vote threshold to avoid a runoff. Now it’s Patrick and Dewhurst going head to head in the May 27 runoff; the winner will face Democratic nominee state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte this fall.
Ramsey calls the reversal “jarring.” He continues: “This group has stood beside Dewhurst through one successful race for land commissioner and three for lieutenant governor. After he lost to Ted Cruz in the 2012 race for the United States Senate, many supporters urged him not to seek another term in his current post. He tuned that out, and TLR stuck with him through a March contest that included, along with Patrick, the state’s sitting land and agriculture commissioners. The other candidates saw a vulnerable incumbent, but the lawsuit reform group hung on.”
There are frontrunners and then there is this. Texans for Lawsuit Reform has hitched up behind Patrick, apparently believing he’ll win the runoff and then go on to become the state’s next lieutenant governor. Van de Putte is a lost cause in the eyes of the lawsuit reformers, given that she’s from that other party, the one that favors plaintiffs.
Dewhurst has been a friend of TLR for many years. He doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment, even in the rough-and-tumble world of Texas politics.