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Blogs FeedElection Watch Weekly: Cruz wins in Texas
3 August 2012
Mike Keefe / Politicalcartoons.com
News
Ted Cruz claimed the Republican nomination for the US senate seat from Texas vacated by the retiring Kay Bailey Hutchison. The Tea Party backed Cruz, will now be the overwhelming favourite to win in the general election. A few months ago, it seemd a foregone conclusion that Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst would be the Republican nominee. However, when Dewhurst failed to get the requisiste 50 per cent of the vote in the May 31st primary it opened the door for Tuesday's runoff election that Cruz won handidly. Erik Eckholm says Cruz is "poised to be the Senate's Tea Party intellectual" Ed Kilgore thinks this will make the upper chamber a lot more conservative and David Frum questions the whole narrative of Tea Party candidates verses the establishment.
Mitt Romney wrapped up his week-long trip abroad in which he stopped in the United Kingdom, Israel and Poland. In the Canberra Times I examine what Romney's choice of destinations tells us about his foreign policy and over at the Conversation I chronicle his gaffes in the UK.
New polls show Obama leading in the three critical swing states.
"A snapshot of the race, taken during a burst of summer campaigning, found that Mr. Obama holds an advantage of 6 percentage points over Mr. Romney in Florida and Ohio. The president is stronger in Pennsylvania, leading by 11 percentage points."
The American author and political activist Gore Vidal passed away at the age of 86.
A study by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center finds that Mitt Romney's proposed economic reforms would cause 95% of Americans to pay higher taxes.
"Our major conclusion is that any revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed would provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers."
Several US mayors indicated their desire to stop Chik-fil-A from relocating to their cities due to the ownership's opposition to same-sex marriage.
Around the Web
Rick Lowry says it was the media not Mitt Romney who performed poorly on last week's trip abroad.
"The fact is that the press doesn't need any excuse to be either superficial or unfriendly to Romney. Consider the “culture” comment. Whatever else you think of it, it is interesting. It could have been the occasion for news analysis pieces on the debate over the sources of economic development in general and the economic travails of the Arab world in particular. Instead, all the press cared about was that a Palestinian functionary reflexively deemed it racist."
Former Australian PM John Howard says America's needs to follow his country's lead and enact stricter gun control laws.
"Australia is a safer country as a result of what was done in 1996. It will be the continuing responsibility of current and future federal and state governments to ensure the effectiveness of those anti-gun laws is never weakened. The US is a country for which I have much affection. There are many American traits which we Australians could well emulate to our great benefit. But when it comes to guns we have been right to take a radically different path."
Part 1 of my interview with former US senator Slade Gorton
Looking Ahead
The July jobs reports will be released on Friday and Jonathan Bernstein says the anticipation of the economic figures has gotten a little out of hand.
San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro will deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.
Trivia: What US state has the highest population density?
Answer to last week's trivia: The Bull Moose Party
Fun Fact: George Washington was the only US president to not be a member of a political party.
Have your say
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