Lobbyist vs Tea Party in Cruz-Dewhurst contest

Tim Carney:

You know things have changed when a Texas Republican attacks his primary opponent for being cozy with lobbyists and big-business donors.

The primary runoff for Texas’s open U.S. Senate seat has become another battle along the GOP’s major fault line: the Tea Party vs. K Street.

Former state Solicitor General Ted Cruz is the candidate of the GOP’s Tea Party wing. A poll last week, which found Cruz beating Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst 49 percent to 44 percent, showed Cruz dominating 71-26 among voters who identified as Tea Partiers — a bloc including two of every five likely voters polled.

Cruz’s financial support comes from the same sources that funded the 2010 insurgent Senate candidacies of conservative Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Marco Rubio of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah in their primaries against establishment-backed Republicans.

The Club for Growth has spent $2.5 million helping Cruz. Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund has put about $773,000 behind Cruz. FreedomWorks is backing Cruz to the tune of $350,000 already, according to data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Dewhurst has pointed to this flood of D.C. money to attack Cruz as the candidate of the Beltway.

Both candidates have their backers in D.C. Cruz’s corner is full of ideological conservatives who have made headaches for the leadership of both parties. Dewhurst’s corner is packed with lobbyists and the political action committees of major corporations.

Dewhurst has hauled in more than half a million dollars from business PACs, which is 33 times Cruz’s take from business PACs. K Street lobbying firms are siding with Dewhurst, too. The PACs of Greenberg Traurig, K&L Gates, McGuire Woods and other lobbying firms have donated to Dewhurst.

Late last year, Dewhurst held a reception at the townhouse of powerful lobbying firm Podesta Group. Last week, GOP lobbyist Rick Murphy threw a Capitol Hill fundraiser for Dewhurst. A Dallas Morning News reporter wrote of last week’s event: “Dozens of donors — many wearing nametags indicating they work for lobbying firms and government contractors, as is typical at high-dollar campaign events in Washington — filed out of the townhouse near the Capitol as Dewhurst schmoozed inside.”

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There is much more.

The Dewhurst donors are tied to the rent seekers looking for more government money.  Cruz donors are groups that want to reduce spending.  It makes for a stark choice for Texans.  I think reducing spending is critical to a US recovery.  I also think Cruz will be a fighter for Texas values.