"Hello Texas" was Sarah Palin's greeting on a robocall I just received. She has endorsed the Tea Party favorite Rafael Edward (Ted) Cruz.
This could be another fail for Sarah and the Tea Party but Kossack TDDVandy gives Cruz a good chance at getting second place in the Primary where he will have a good shot at winning the nomination even though a recent Dewhurst Poll shows Dewhurst at 57% with Cruz at 16%. HT/ DK Elections.
Cruz has emerged as the main rival to Dewhurst, and has the backing of the usual far-right suspects: FreedomWorks, Tea Party Express, the Club for Growth, Citizens United. Basically, Cruz's supporters are all the people who think the Perry/Dewhurst model for Texas and the nation is not dystopian enough and want somebody even nuttier. Or they just don't like Dewhurst because he's part of the nebulous "Republican establishment." Cruz has been the main beneficiary of Republicans' reluctance to nominate Dewhurst, rising from low single digits in early 2011 to somewhere around a quarter of the vote. But lately, Dewhurst has begun a series of hard-hitting ads against Cruz. It's not entirely clear why Dewhurst would launch an assault on Cruz: in a fractured primary, Cruz bleeding support does not necessarily mean that those voters will go to Dewhurst.