In Texas politics this week, Emily Ramshaw, editor of The Texas Tribune, speaks with Texas Standard’s David Brown about The 2014 Texas Tribune Festival, Ted Cruz, Wendy Davis, and medical marijuana.
Here are some highlights from the Q&A:
On Ted Cruz:
“Ted Cruz was speaking to a group of Middle Eastern Christians and he got onstage and quickly transitioned to remarks about Israel and remarks about how ‘if you don’t stand with Israel, he [Cruz] can’t stand with you’ and there were some really loud boos. He made some more remarks about how there was a lot of hatred in the room which brought even more boos, and eventually he just had to sort of shuffle offstage.”
I saw a lot of social media around Israelis and Jews in the United States saying this was yet another sign that Ted Cruz has their back.”
On Wendy Davis:
“We were just getting to a point in the campaign where Wendy Davis had a lot of big policy issues to talk about. She had really transitioned from the biography we had two legal rulings that might have been seen to hurt Abbott around school finance and also abortion, and then suddenly Wendy Davis’ preplanned book launch come onto the scene and we’re all talking about her biography again.
I think it could help bring her campaign full circle—remember she rose to prominence with her abortion filibuster, and now [she has revealed that] she’s had personal experiences [with abortion]—but at the same time Abbott may sort of like this because yet again we are back talking about Wendy Davis’ biography and not issues that could potentially hurt him.”
On Medical Marijuana:
“Joe Allbaugh, who’s the republican consultant who came in and worked on the tail end of Rick Perry’s failed presidential bid, [who] also worked for George W. Bush, has a pretty decent sized stake in, and is on the board of directors of, a medicinal marijuana lab company. [This] is pretty interesting to see from somebody who has really worked on behalf of all of these social conservative candidates.
I think this is a sign, sort of like what you’re seeing with gay marriage, that conservatives, particularly consultants, are interested in working on these issues that may be a sort of a swing-vote topic.”
