GOP Establishment “HandPicked” Candidate Set to Lose to Tea Party Favorite in TX Senate GOP Runoff Primary

Former state solicitor general Ted Cruz appears favored to win the Republican Senate runoff in Texas on Tuesday, which would hand the tea party a significant underdog victory in a massive state.

Tea party support stretching from high-profile figures like Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum and Jim DeMint down to grassroot volunteers helped catapult Cruz to the top slot in Tuesday’s primary race. And he held his lead, despite beginning the election with less name recognition and less money than his wealthy and well-connected opponent Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

Matt Mackowiak, a Republican consultant who divides his time between Washington, D.C. and Austin, T.X. is a Cruz supporter and gives “enormous” credit to the tea party for Cruz’s come-from-behind success.

“Look, this is a low turnout primary runoff late in the summer– it’s hot, we’ve never had a primary this late– it’s the most committed folks that are voting,” Mackowiak told Yahoo News, “and in many ways it’s the tea party activists who are not only voting but who are really acting as multipliers.”

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/ted-cruz-appears-likely-win-texas-senate-runoff-093410098.html

GOP Leaders Need to Pay Attention to Ron Paul and Rick Santorum’s Concession Speeches

     While it is still too early to count Rick Santorum out, or Ron Paul for that matter, the GOP nomination process will focus, albeit by the media coverage, on Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.

      But the GOP establishment, as it prepares for the Tampa convention in August, needs to be paying close attention to both Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. In the primaries this year, the delegates are being awarded not as a “winner take all”, but on the percentage basis of the candidate’s performance in the primary. If I understand it correctly, Newt Gingrich won 40% of the votes in the South Carolina primary last night, and will this have 40% of the state’s delegates.

         This is important, because it means that as Ron Paul or Rick Santorum continue to add more delegates to their column, despite the heavy odds of not having enough for the  nomination, they are “banking”  them for their “voice” on the GOP platform. Ron Paul knows that he can use his delegate count to force the “audit the Fed” issue into the GOP platform. Likewise, Rick Santorum can parlay his delegate count into his voice for the social issues and the manufacturing jobs platform he has been running on.

         So the GOP establishment needs to pay close attention as the primaries continue, and heed the words of the “non-winning” candidates, for they are not going “quietly into the night”!

Hillbuzz: Does the GOP Establishment Understand It Is “Not Business as Usual” Anymore

http://hillbuzz.org/2010/11/08/does-the-cocktail-party-gop-establishment-realize-it-cant-run-business-as-usual-anymore/