Well, the last televised debate of the long campaign to replace retiring US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has come and gone. The end is near. The decision is up to you – will you choose Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, with his long record of business and conservative legislation success? Or will you choose Ted Cruz, a candidate with no record of business or legislative success but one that many think has a huge upside because of his rhetorical ability that would benefit conservatives twenty or thirty years from now?

There was a moment near the end of the debate last night that defined the contest between Lt. Gov. Dewhurst and Mr. Cruz. A question was asked about the Castle Doctrine, a common term for the law that allows citizens to defend themselves without having to retreat. Mr. Cruz answered first, stating that he had once debated a lawyer from DC about the need for the law in the capital city. Mr. Dewhurst said simply, I passed it in Texas.

And that, in a nutshell, defines the two campaigns and the debate last night.

First off, congratulations are in order for the King Street Patriots, and specifically founder Catherine Engelbrecht and executive director Mark Antill, for garnering the trust of both candidates to hold the debate and then for pulling it off without a hitch. Roughly 400 people packed into the King Street headquarters in Northwest Houston and for the most part, followed the rules! I was worried about Robin Lennon from the Kingwood Tea Party, thought she might jump out of her seat and rush the stage, but her husband Jim told me he had a good grip on her arm. 😉

I had the opportunity to meet Marine Corps Capt. Dan Moran (ret.).  Capt. Moran is an ardent Dewhurst supporter that has had to put up with terrible attacks from a  prominent Cruz supporter because he was burned in an IED explosion in Iraq. He greeted me with an enthusiastic hug and his zeal for life is inspiring. I was humbled that he even recognized me. This man is a true.

As for the debate itself, I thought that Lt. Gov. Dewhurst started strong and won the first half of the debate but that Mr. Cruz finished strong and took the second half. That has nothing to do with substance, it is just a reflection on how they seemed to come across in the room. If it is substance you want, then Lt. Gov. Dewhurst is clearly your candidate. If it is style and the ability to quickly answer a question with a series of bullet points, then Mr. Cruz is your guy.

Perhaps it is a debating technique of Mr. Cruz but he seemed to lose his composure a couple of times. I say that it might be a debating technique because it did seem that the Lt. Gov. wasn’t as strong after the two incidents. The first incident is widely reported and has to do with a flyer that Mr. Cruz claims questions his patriotism. He moved away from his podium and clearly got into the Lt. Gov.’s space. And, he wouldn’t let up even after the moderator reminded him that there were no rebuttals allowed.

The second incident has not been widely reported, so you should watch the debate and see for yourself. The question was about who influenced the candidates and how would they instill conservative values in their daughters. Lt. Gov. Dewhurst talked about his mother and the values that she instilled in him and that he was doing his best to pass them on to his daughter.

Mr. Cruz decided to use this simple question to attack the Lt. Gov., basically saying that he was raising his daughter better because he wasn’t saying negative things about the Lt. Gov.  Bizarro to me, especially since I’ve followed this campaign very closely for over eighteen months and the Cruz camp has been far more negative on the whole and has attacked much more personally, again, on the whole. How many times has Mr. Cruz himself called Lt. Gov. Dewhurst spineless, weak, timid, tired, or old? Mr. Cruz himself set the tone that causes his supporters to be so vicious in their attacks. Pot meet kettle and I think that to use a man’s child as a political target is way over the top.

Like I said, I don’t know if Mr. Cruz actually loses his composure that easily or if it is some sort of debate technique but either way, it doesn’t look good for him when he does it.

Most people in the room had already made up their minds for one candidate or the other and nothing said was going to change that. Just like most of you reading this have made up your minds and nothing I say will change that. But as I learned at the Greater Houston Pachyderm meeting last week, some people are still deciding and need to know why people support one a particular candidate.

I support Lt. Gov. Dewhurst because I don’t think that we have twenty or thirty years to wait to see if Mr. Cruz’s potential is realized. That doesn’t mean that I hate Mr. Cruz – as the title says, I think that for the most part he wants the same things that Lt. Gov. Dewhurst does, he is simply on a longer path. I think that our country needs someone right now that has the ability to negotiate without compromising core principles and I think that Lt. Gov. Dewhurst has proven time and time again that he has that ability. He started the debate last night by saying that he was a “doer”, not a talker, and he hammered that point home all night long. I think that we need “doers” and we need them now. Sure, rhetoric is fun and it sells books and gets people to rallies, but the plain truth is that that is all rhetoric does. It doesn’t “move the debate” as people claim. In fact, the debate moves right past those that are shouting the loudest and the longest.

I’m a conservative. I demand more from politicians than loud, angry rhetoric. That is why I’m voting for a man that has a record of significant accomplishments in his personal life, his professional life, and his political life. That man is Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and I’m proud to support him.