The Week

• The Democrats are ramping up the invective. In just the first week of August, they called Romney a tax cheat, a murderer, and George W. Bush.

• In a victory for principled conservatism, upstart Ted Cruz won the Texas Republican primary to fill the Senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison. Cruz defeated Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, a longtime Republican time-server anointed by Governor Rick Perry. Dewhurst’s familiar name, party backing, and personal fortune had caused many to dismiss Cruz’s campaign as a vanity project. Cruz (knock wood) is almost certainly headed to the Senate: His Democratic opponent is an obscure ex-legislator who has already been informally written off by the national party. Cruz was carried to victory in part by rowdy tea-party energy, in part by support from national conservative groups, including the Club for Growth, and in no small part by his obvious merits. Sarah Palin endorsed him, and National Review endorsed him (twice, in fact). He is a full-spectrum, ideas-oriented conservative with a compelling biography and a great deal of political talent. Texas is not Maine: It can sustain a conservative in the Senate, and now it will have one. The one niggling question about the race: With Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, the Club for Growth, James Dobson, Eagle Forum, FreedomWorks, Fred Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Robert P. George, and the Tea Party Express all lined up on one side, why was the Republican party on the other?