Why I Voted for Ted Cruz in the Texas Senate Primary (Updated)

Early voting is underway in the Texas primary, with election day next Tuesday the 29th. I did my civic and moral duty and voted this afternoon.

Texans have many choices before us, and the most important at the state level this year is the choice of who will represent our state in the US Senate. With Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison retiring, Texans have the opportunity to send a message, or several messages, with our votes. We need to send a serious, intellectual conservative to carry our principles and concerns to the nation’s capital on our behalf. We need to send someone who is a real conservative, and who will take Texas to Washington rather than bringing any of Washington to Texas.

I am not in the business of making direct endorsements on this blog, but I will tell you why I voted for Ted Cruz to become Texas’ next senator. Ted Cruz is a solid family man and a real Texas conservative. He believes in smaller government, he defends freedom, and he stands on principles. He is a brilliant litigator who already has the experience of representing Texas at the United States Supreme Court as the state solicitor general. He is young and represents the future of Texas. His family’s experience with totalitarianism in Cuba gives him the background and the desire to defend every inch of our freedom. Ted has also worked harder than any of the other candidates in the race. He spent the last two plus years of his life traveling all over this huge state, speaking to any club who would hear him, no matter how small their numbers or how remote they might be, to make the case for why he should be our next senator. No other candidate has come anywhere near Ted’s efforts. He is a tireless worker who will defend conservative ideals, which he sees as his duty.

My voting for Cruz should not be taken as a negative on most of the other candidates. I have friends and former colleagues on at least two of those campaigns, and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Craig James are good men. My vote for Ted Cruz is a positive statement about what I think of Ted Cruz. He’ll be a great senator for Texas given the chance. Texas Republicans should give him that chance. Ted Cruz deserves to win on Tuesday.

And another thing: If you’ve seen any of the ads being run by one of the other campaigns, you’ve seen Ted Cruz accused of being weak on border security. That’s absurd. A lot of wrong, inaccurate and frankly dishonest things get said in the heat of a campaign. This accusation is one of those things. It’s nonsense. Scurrilous nonsense.

More: Did I mention that the ad accusing Cruz of supporting amnesty is scurrilous nonsense? Because that’s exactly what it is.

Update: The ad in question was played on the Mark Levin Show tonight. The Cruz campaign responds to it:

David Dewhurst is a shameless desperate and sad career politician so hooked on power that he thinks Texans are stupid enough to believe that the same Ted Cruz who successfully defended Texas’s right to execute an illegal alien for raping and murdering two teenage girls is somehow soft on illegal immigration.  Dewhurst’s latest lie would be laughable, if it wasn’t such a sad reflection of his contempt for voters and the truth.  With this last minute desperate attack, David Dewhurst has earned a color photo in the dictionary next to hypocrisy, as Dewhurst supported in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, waffled on a border fence, and refused to pass legislation fining Texas employers who hire illegal immigrants at the expense of hard-working Texans.