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Election eve for Ted Cruz: country music, staff photo, and final jabs at Beto O'Rourke

Election eve for Ted Cruz: country music, staff photo, and final jabs at Beto O'Rourke Don't miss a story. Like us on Facebook. ...

Election eve for Ted Cruz: country music, staff photo, and final jabs at Beto O'Rourke

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STAFFORD - Sen. Ted Cruz capped his reelection effort Monday night at the Redneck Country Club, returning to the comfort of a saloon where he launched the campaign and where, in 2016, he watched Super Tuesday returns.

He delivered the same speech he's been delivering for weeks, poking Rep. Beto O'Rourke as too soft on illegal immigration, too extreme on socialized medicine, too reckless on foreign policy, and too eager to impeach Donald Trump.

His dad watched approvingly. When there no more hands left to shake, no photos left to pose for, they hugged. The senator and his campaign manager and their staff gathered for a family photo, tossing friendly heckles at a reporter they'd deemed less than friendly.

Better than saying, "Cheese."

Aides said 500 people came through the door. However many there were, they were plenty noisy, cheering at all the right spots and booing lustily at mention of O'Rourke.

"Do you know who Beto is? He is the next Democrat running for statewide office that's going to go down and lose," said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, taking the stage before Cruz. "You know what Beto' stands for? Border Enforcement Totally Optional.' He is the nightmare. The nightmare of Texas."

Patrick secretly went to the White House mid-summer to implore Trump to come to the rescue in Texas. Cruz's poll numbers had rebounded by the time that rally came around two weeks ago, but it's back to nearly a dead heat in the final hours.

With polls opening in 10 hours, the mood at the Redneck Country Club ranged from stiff upper lip to cautious optimism and even, in a few cases, uncautious optimism.

'No brainer. Done deal," said Mark Willingham, 64, sipping a can of beer. As for all those Democrats flocking to O'Rourke, he said, "There's always going to be a group in society that wants free things. They want socialism."

Proprietor Michael Berry, a conservative talk show host and former member of the Houston City Council, is a longtime Cruz friend.

The senator held his Super Tuesday election night party here in March 2016. He returned last April for the formal kickoff of his reelection bid. The Big Ass Burger goes for $13 and Texas-sized pretzels sell for $10 -- they are, in fact, huge.

Berry warmed up the crowd with an elegy to Cruz's take no prisoners style in the Senate -- rough edges that his core supporters admire, even if they rubbed nearly all fellow senators the wrong way at some point.

"So many folks go to Washington D.C. and forget the folks who are here this evening who sent them there," Berry said. "They criticized Ted Cruz because he had no friends in Washington D.C. and he said that's exactly right. My friends are back home in Texas."

Cruz, he recalled, "had the audacity to shut down the government" in an effort to defang Obamacare back - a 16-day episode that put a $20 billion dent in the nation's GDP, without actually rolling back Obamacare.

"He did not go to Washington D.C., to make friends. He went there to make a difference," Berry said, and "we're going to send him back."

Berry told another story, about Dan Pastorini, former quarterback for the Houston Oilers, grumbling to him that "in his neighborhood there were Beto signs everywhere." He eventually hand-delivered a Cruz sign to the NFL retiree.

The anecdote seemed intended to illustrate how deeply he and Pastorini feel about Cruz. But the subtext was somewhat sobering: that Cruz's opponent is both more popular and better organized in the senator's hometown.

Patrick asserted -- falsely â€" that 70 percent of O'Rourke's donations come from California. More than h alf of his funds actually come from donors in Texas, a higher instate ratio than Cruz's.

The caustic message came with an undercurrent of worry.

"I trust our country and this state with Ted. He loves this country and the Constitution and he loves each and every one of you," Patrick said, his tone conveying something short of complete confidence. "I can't imagine him not being there, standing in the Senate, fighting for us and fighting for America. I know it's not going to happen. ­Â­Ã‚­Ã‚­Ã‚­I know he's going to win."

Cruz, as he always does, stuck around for a long time, patiently posing for photos and shaking hands and taking in the hopes and concerns of supporters, sometimes sharing a quick prayer.

In the balcony, finishing one of those huge pretzels, Jake Kress, 29, a salesman from Missouri City, and his aunt, Susan Wilson, 60, a hairdresser from Sugar Land, pondered what they're most worried about if O'Rour ke does pull it off.

'The border," Kress said. "And taxes."

"The border," said Wilson. "And socialism."

How optimistic are they that this scenario is averted, that Cruz survives?

"I'm a cynic, so I am cautious," said Wilson. As for the polls, she added, they're unreliable and easily manipulated.

"All you can do," she said, "is vote."

Source: Google News | Netizen 24 United States

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