Agenda 21 paranoid Ted Cruz won his runoff

Yesterday, I noted that Agenda 21 conspiracy theorist Ted Cruz was leading in the latest polls in his runoff for the Republican nomination to succeed Kay Bailey Hutchison and made the following promise.

Looks like I'm not done with blogging about politicians exploiting Agenda 21 paranoia, even after I said "Goodbye, Gingrich!"

I'll check back after the votes are tallied tonight.

I was right. Cruz won. USA Today reports.

Texas Republicans picked Tea Party-backed candidate Ted Cruz in Tuesday's Senate runoff election, knocking out long-time Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in a race being watched nationally.
...
Cruz competed against a better funded and known establishment favorite based largely on his appeal to grass-roots conservatives and endorsements from national party leaders including former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.

"What we've found is, if you've got grass-roots energy, all you really need is enough money to get you on the radar," DeMint said.

That was 2 hours ago, when the AP called the race with less than half the precincts reporting. Since then, Cruz's margin has expanded with today's walk-up vote building on the lead he had in the early vote, as the Texas Secretary of State reported at 11:00 PM CDT (Texas local time) that Cruz was leading Dewhurst 56.20% to 43.79% with 86.36% of precincts counted.

As for what this means, I'll let the New York Times explain.

Mr. Cruz, 41, is the latest conservative rebel to bring down an established party leader, tapping into simmering anger and anti-incumbent frustration within the Republican ranks nationwide.

These dissident triumphs include, in this year’s primaries, the defeat of Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana by Richard E. Mourdock and Deb Fischer’s win over a veteran Republican for the Senate nomination in Nebraska. They also echo Marco Rubio’s Senate victory in 2010 over a sitting Republican governor, Charlie Crist of Florida.

Mr. Cruz, who is Cuban-American, has drawn comparisons to Mr. Rubio, another 40-something Cuban-American who quickly became an icon of fiscal and religious conservatives around the country. Mr. Cruz’s rapid ascent has already shaken up the Texas Republican Party.

“Mr. Cruz’s success shows that the center of the state party has moved decisively to the right,” said James Henson, a political scientist at University of Texas. “The Republicans are in much more treacherous terrain, not because of threats from Democrats, but threats from within the party.”

Since Paul Krugman was the one who alerted me to Ted Cruz, I decided to return the favor by leaving this comment on his blog.

Speaking of paranoia striking shallow, do you remember Ted Cruz, who you wrote about in "First, they came for the golf courses"? He managed to survive the Texas senate primary at the end of May. He's in a runoff election for Kay Bailey Hutchinson's U.S. Senate seat in Texas today. Back in May, he lost by 10 percent. As of the most recent poll, he was ahead of his opponent David Dewhurst by 10 percent. The guy who thinks Agenda 21 is a U.N. conspiracy to take away "golf courses, grazing pastures, and paved roads" is likely to be the GOP nominee and therefore the favorite to win in November. He is, as I'm fond of saying one of the GOP's maniacs who are promising people that they can keep their cars, McMansions, and commutes this year. Care to use him to make a point about how crazy the Republican Party has become--again?

Krugman read the comment and published it. It's now up to him to follow through.

The good news is that I was proven right. I'll be blogging about Agenda 21 paranoia up through November. The bad news is that he's likely to win, as the N.Y. Times article concludes.

Mr. Cruz is expected to have a large advantage over his Democratic opponent. In the Democratic runoff, which was also held Tuesday, former State Representative Paul Sadler defeated Grady Yarbrough, a retired educator. Texas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988.

I now know how liberal comedians feel about the possibility of a Romney victory.  It is not sweet.