The Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate campaignaccepted an invitation to a series of debates by Grassroots Texans, a non-partisan network of conservative activists across the Lone Star State.Yesterday, the organization sent letters to both campaigns officially inviting Cruz and David Dewhurst to a series of five debates. The group, in a statement published online, said it would identify local hosts and venues across Texas.
“Lt. Governor Dewhurst promised Texans he would debate, and we take him at his word,” said James Bernsen, the Cruz campaign communications director. “Even though he skipped 35 debates during the primary period,Dewhurst stated on Wednesday that he would accept ‘any and all debates’ in the runoff, and so we assume this invitation will be acceptedby his campaign as well as ours.”
“This is a job interview with the people of Texas,” Bernsen added. “You wouldn’t skip a job interview with your employer, but in the primary period, David Dewhurst acted like a character from ‘Office Space’ and blew off the voters. We hope his campaign has heard the message and will abandon its strategy of ignoring the people.”
Asked at a press conference on Wednesday if he would agree to five debates, as Cruz had proposed Tuesday night, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst said,“Is he scared? I’m not going to limit the debates I do with Mr. Cruz to only five.”
Later that day, Cruz said he’d do as many as the Lt. Governor wanted, suggesting one a week for the next nine weeks. During the primary period, Cruz participated inover 40 debates.
Cruz has earned endorsements from many of the top conservative leaders in Texas and nationally, including Governor Sarah Palin, Former Senator Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Tea Party Express, Senators Rand Paul, Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, Mike Lee and Pat Toomey, as well as Mark Levin, Dr. James Dobson, Gun Owners of America, Family Research Council Action PAC, Concerned Women PAC, Cathie Adams, Texas Home School Coalition PAC, Kelly Shackelford, David Barton, Peggy Venable, Young Conservatives of Texas, over 200 Texas Republican women leaders, and more.
HERE is the aforementioned letter from The Grassroots Texans Network:
Gentlemen:
We write to you to follow up on our letter of last November offering our assistance in arranging a series of debates to be conducted in the classic Lincoln-Douglas style. We thank Mr. Cruz for formally
responding to our offer. Unfortunately, we did not receive a formal response from Mr. Dewhurst.
Accordingly, we are following up. With the primary behind us, we write to both of you, again, to offer to serve as a host of five debate events, and to provide our assistance in identifying local co-hosts, securing
venues, negotiating dates and times and actively promoting the events to the public.
We bring to this endeavor a number of assets, including a wealth of organizing experience and existing relationships with local grassroots organizations across the state. We are already in the process
of reaching out to local grassroots organizations across Texas in order to identify potential venues and dates for the debates.
As both of you have correctly expressed, the people of Texas are best served when they are provided with ample opportunities to get to know, full well, the candidates presented to them for election. We write to both of you today, in good faith, in the pursuit of that goal.
We look forward to working with both campaigns to make these debates a reality. Please contact us at your earliest convenience to discuss.
Thank you and best regards,
Kenneth Emanuelson
The Grassroots Texans Network
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