In the end, both candidates looked petty and small.
While there's sure to be much chest-pounding and victory-claiming by both sides, last night's made for Texas Tribune immigration debate between Texas Senator and Lieutenant Governor front-runner Dan Patrick and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro was more about regression than advancement.
Certainly partisans of a "my side is always best" type, political bloggers hoping to touch the hem of the King's garment and the Texas Lock Step Political Media will prance around claiming their pugilist of choice was clearly the winner in a debate that had no winners, only losers.
Julian Castro lost because he lowered himself to Patrick's level. Not only did he attempt to one-up the Senator in bombastic name-calling but he, quite often, allowed Patrick's radio-friendly style of debate to cause him to lose his cool. For a rising political star on the left Castro showed that he could be baited into name-calling over policy fairly easily and by a politician without strong debate skills to boot. State Senator Dan Patrick is a fine orator, he's good at a monologue but he is not a candidate for captain of the debate team. If you can't work in a reasoned, fact-supported argument against this guy you're probably not the shining-star you've been made out to be by the TLSPM and the Texas Democratic Party.
State Senator Dan Patrick lost because his grasp on the facts and his previous rhetoric made this an impossible debate for him to win. Throw away lines like "illegal invasion" and "disease-riddled immigrants" play very well to a certain highly-irascible segment of the base, but they are very hard concepts to defend in a room full of adults, using facts instead of hyperbole. Under the Dan Patrick school of politics you find a hot-button issue, make a series of grandiose statements designed to inflame the base, act reasonable after the furor dies down, then move on to the next hot-button issue without really accomplishing anything (see: property taxes).
That said Mr. Patrick was a winner in this debate as well. In part because it was live streamed on Texas Tribune, which meant only about 1% of the Texas population was paying even the slightest bit of attention. Even IF you assume that most major media outlets run with the story today, the percentage of Texans who will be exposed to this is (I'm guessing) well under 10%. In order to face severe trouble in the Republican primary run-off for Lieutenant Governor against incumbent David Dewhurst Patrick would have to commit a horrendous error along the lines of Clayton Williams "if rape is inevitable then why not just sit back and enjoy it" stunner that ushered Ann Richards into office. That didn't happen in this debate so the big loser is.........
Lt. Governor David H. Dewhurst.
I really think this was the last gasp for Mr. Dewhurst. I don't see how he has any path to victory now that Patrick has survived the trap created by his own ego. Given the tenor and tone of statements coming from Team Starched Shirt, I don't think Dewhurst is going to drop out but I might go as far to say he should consider it.
Tuesday night was Dewhurst's last gasp, by continuing to move forward his campaign is just animating a corpse and blowing through a small piece of the Lieutenant Governor's not insignificant personal fortune.
Last night did provide some clarity on three fronts. We now know that the political career of David H. Dewhurst is coming to an end, that we're soon to have a blowhard sitting in the Lieutenant Governor's office and that the ceiling for Julian Castro is much lower than we thought.