{"id":5682,"date":"2014-05-28T01:31:51","date_gmt":"2014-05-28T01:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=5682"},"modified":"2014-05-28T01:31:51","modified_gmt":"2014-05-28T01:31:51","slug":"dewhurst-taken-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=5682","title":{"rendered":"Dewhurst taken down"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>They&#8217;re still counting votes in 254 Texas counties as I write this post, but Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has been declared a lame duck.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s been defeated in the bitterly fought Texas Republican runoff by state Sen. Dan Patrick, a tea party favorite, hardline conservative, former sportscaster and all-around tough cookie.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"hXaPWepgBc\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/ballot-box\/governor-races\/207349-tea-party-topples-texas-lt-gov\/\">Tea Party topples Texas lt. gov.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Tea Party topples Texas lt. gov.&#8221; &#8212; The Hill\" src=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/ballot-box\/governor-races\/207349-tea-party-topples-texas-lt-gov\/embed\/#?secret=pSAEgUlsuk#?secret=hXaPWepgBc\" data-secret=\"hXaPWepgBc\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Bring on Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, who knows Patrick well and is figured by many observers to be the Democrats&#8217; best chance this year to crack the GOP&#8217;s vise-grip on every statewide elected office.<\/p>\n<p>As I noted in an earlier blog post, I am curiously sorry to see Dewhurst&#8217;s political career end like this. I am pretty sure he won&#8217;t run again. He&#8217;s in his mid-60s and figured to be sitting in the U.S. Senate next to John Cornyn &#8212; until he got beat in 2012 by another tea party golden boy, Ted Cruz.<\/p>\n<p>Dewhurst&#8217;s defeat suggests the tea party wing of the Texas Republican Party is a lot healthier than it appears to be in many other states. Then again, the tea partiers have pulled mainstream Republicans &#8212; such as Dewhurst &#8212; so far to the right that there appears to be little difference between the two branches of the once-Grand Old Party.<\/p>\n<p>Van de Putte won&#8217;t roll over in the upcoming fall campaign. She&#8217;s tough, smart and is no one&#8217;s fool. Patrick is all of those things, too. This could be on fiery campaign.<\/p>\n<p>I hope it brings as much light onto the issues as it&#8217;s sure to bring heat on the two candidates.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They&#8217;re still counting votes in 254 Texas counties as I write this post, but Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has been declared a lame duck. He&#8217;s been defeated in the bitterly fought Texas Republican runoff by state Sen. Dan Patrick, a tea party favorite, hardline conservative, former sportscaster and all-around tough cookie. Tea Party topples Texas &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=5682\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Dewhurst taken down<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1255,1275,2770,4655],"class_list":["post-5682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dan-patrick","tag-david-dewhurst","tag-leticia-van-de-putte","tag-texas-lieutenant-governor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5682","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=5682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}