{"id":32826,"date":"2018-10-14T19:37:31","date_gmt":"2018-10-14T19:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=32826"},"modified":"2018-10-14T19:37:31","modified_gmt":"2018-10-14T19:37:31","slug":"entering-crucial-stage-of-midterm-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=32826","title":{"rendered":"Entering crucial stage of midterm campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I’ve seen this kind of thing happen before. A “wave election” occurs when the least likely incumbent takes a fall, signaling a dramatic change in fortunes for the halls of Congress.<\/p>\n

In 1994, I had a ringside seat for one of those events. Longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Jack Brooks of Beaumont represented one of Texas’s last Democratic bastions in the Golden Triangle. He’d been in Congress for more than four decades. His foe that year was a guy who came out of nowhere.<\/p>\n

Steve Stockman shocked the political world by beating the late “Sweet Ol’ Brooks” to take his House seat as part of the Contract With America GOP delegation.<\/p>\n

I figured at the time if Brooks was to lose, the entire House was going to flip. Sure enough. He did. The House did flip.<\/p>\n

Stockman lasted one term before being defeated for re-election in 1996. He was elected again much later, but then lost again after another single term. He’s now facing prison time for fraud.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to the present day. Texas’s U.S. Senate seat is in play. Democrat Beto O’Rourke is trying to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in a state that is as Republican as it gets.<\/p>\n

The way I figure it today, if somehow O’Rourke manages to pull off what looks like the Upset of the Ages, then the U.S. Senate stands a good chance of flipping from Republican to Democratic control.<\/p>\n

It’s a steep hill for the El Paso congressman. He trails the Cruz Missile. But not by much. I see polls that swing from 2 points to 8 points. Cruz should — by standard political measures — be way up. He’s not.<\/p>\n

O’Rourke well might lose on Nov. 6. I don’t want him or his allies to claim some sort of “moral victory” by making it close. A loss is a loss. For my money, Cruz needs<\/em> to lose. He might represent a lot of Texans’ values. He doesn’t represent mine.<\/p>\n

If the Cruz Missile gets blown out of the sky, then I am betting that the entire Senate turns over.<\/p>\n

Believe me, stranger things have happened — just as it did in the Golden Triangle all those years ago.<\/p>\n\n

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I’ve seen this kind of thing happen before. A “wave election” occurs when the least likely incumbent takes a fall, signaling a dramatic change in fortunes for the halls of Congress. In 1994, I had a ringside seat for one of those events. Longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Jack Brooks of Beaumont represented one of Texas’s … Continue reading Entering crucial stage of midterm campaign<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14,18],"tags":[8044,7043,1145,1936,2385,4426,4537,7585],"class_list":["post-32826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-political-news","category-state-news","tag-1994-election","tag-beto-orourke","tag-contract-with-america","tag-golden-triangle","tag-jack-brooks","tag-steve-stockman","tag-ted-cruz","tag-wave-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32826"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32828,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32826\/revisions\/32828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}