Ted Cruz to Beto O'Rourke: It's Debate Time

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, attends an Air Traffic Control Reform Initiative meeting in the East Room at the White House, Monday, June 5, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

As Ted Cruz is wont to do, he’s challenging his current political rival, Beto O’Rourke to face him in a series of one on one debates.

Cruz is no stranger to the debate stage and is rather good at getting down into the details of the issues, sometimes running laps around his opponents. O’Rourke, meanwhile, is known to have a weird nickname.

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Also, he’s a George Soros backed failed punk-rocker who utilized his position on El Paso’s city council to use eminent domain to seize land and split cash with the developers he handed it over to…twice. He’s also a politician who spent a good deal of time learning the political trade in New York just like his former Texas Democratic “rising stars,” Wendy Davis and Julian Castro.

And like Davis before him, O’Rourke seems to get a lot of help outside the state from the likes of Elizabeth Warren, Rosie O’Donnell, Al Franken, and everybody’s favorite Twitter meltdown artist, Chelsea Handler.

According to the Texas Tribune, Cruz wants to take O’Rourke to the mat on the issues in five different debates:

Cruz strategist Jeff Roe sent a letter Wednesday to O’Rourke, an El Paso congressman, proposing the following debate schedule:

  • Aug. 31 in Dallas on “Jobs/Taxes/Federal Regulations/National Economy”

  • Sept. 14 in McAllen on “Immigration/Border Security/Criminal Justice/Supreme Court”

  • Sept. 21 in San Antonio on “Foreign Policy/National Security”

  • Oct. 5 in Houston on “Energy/Trade/Texas Economy”

  • Oct. 12 in Lubbock on “Healthcare/Obamacare”

Cruz and O’Rourke have had a back and forth about debates between their offices for some time, and are only now getting around to organizing anything. As Emily Zanotti writes at the Daily Wire, O’Rourke was attempting to get in some cheap shots by first challenging Cruz to two Spanish debates

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Sensing that he might be in for a bit of trouble, O’Rourke did not immediately agree to Cruz’s proposal. His team had sent a request for a series of debates to Cruz’s team earlier in the spring, but included two Spanish-language debates, knowing that Cruz’s Spanish probably wasn’t strong enough to use in a debate setting. O’Rourke’s team followed up, but seemed to be satisfied with Cruz’s inevitable response, turning down Spanish-language debates.

Now that things are more urgent, O’Rourke’s team is less committed to the idea of debates.

“I am encouraged that Sen. Cruz has decided that he’s ready to debate the issues. Our campaign looks forward to working with his campaign to finalize mutually agreed upon details,” the Democrat said in a statement.

It’s safe to assume that Cruz’s experience and knowledge would make him a tough opponent for O’Rourke, who doesn’t seem capable of understanding how the office he’s running for works as evidenced by his declaration that he’d vote to impeach Trump, a power reserved to the House, not the Senate.

Despite the fact that Cruz currently leads O’Rourke in the polls, it’s no time to get lazy for Republicans. O’Rourke is likely to come at Cruz with personal attacks that will be played ad nauseam from every outlet that would love to see someone like Cruz brought low. While Texans may find themselves rolling their eyes at O’Rourke’s ignorance and lame attacks, massive migration from blue states to Texas has occurred over the past few years by the hundreds of thousands.

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While some of this migration may have been to escape oppressive tax systems and unjust regulations, some of it was for jobs. These people may very well have brought their voting habits with them. O’Rourke is getting the treatment one would expect from the mainstream media, and as election time draws closer you can bet they’ll turn it up to 11.

Cruz has something of a fight ahead of him. Don’t forget to show up on election day.

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