Texas Tea

The Tea Party’s huge victory in Texas. Congratulations to all of the Ted Cruz supporters who saw their man come from behind in the Republican primary in Texas and score a smashing victory over his opponent. Cruz trailed the establishment’s choice, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, 45 percent to 34 percent, in the May 29 primary. But less than three months later, he easily won the runoff, 57 percent to 43 percent. The results should be a wake-up call for anyone who has written off the Tea Party in this year’s elections.

The Romney money machine is working. The Republican National Committee says it collected $101.3 million in July for the Mitt Romney campaign, making it the third month in a row that the Republicans raised more money than the Democrats. Barack Obama supporters said they raised about $75 million in July and warned, “Make no mistake, we will be outspent.”

More bad news on the jobs front. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July. This looks like an improvement over previous months, until you read the fine print and realize that 348,000 people stopped looking for work in July and are no longer counted among the unemployed. If all of these discouraged workers are added to the “official” numbers, the true unemployment rate in this country is well above 10 percent.

Playing to lose at the Olympics. Thus far, there has been a heartening lack of scandals at the London Olympics. About the worst we’ve seen was the four doubles teams who were disqualified from the badminton championships for not trying hard enough to win. Seems the pairs — two from South Korea, one each from China and Indonesia — deliberately threw preliminary matches so they would face a weaker opponent in a subsequent round. Not exactly in the Olympic spirit of giving it your all.

–Chip Wood