Texas Lieutenant Gov. David Dewhurst said that he had not supported a guest worker program during his debate with Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz last month. After Dewhurst was called out for misleading voters on this issue, a 2007 speech available on the lieutenant governor's website showing his support for a guest worker program disappeared from the official state government website.
The timing led people to believe the Dewhurst campaign was literally trying to erase his past.
The Cruz campaign took a screenshot of
the the 2007 speech, delivered in South Texas in which Dewhurst said he
supported a guest worker program for illegal immigrants.
“I support a guest worker program for those here today illegally,” Dewhurst said then.
They were smart to have done so because the link to the speech -- on the official state lieutenant governor website, no less -- no longer exists and has been taken down.
"David Dewhurst has gone from whitewashing his record to
literally deleting it, but Texans aren't fooled,” Cruz Campaign Manager
John Drogin told Breitbart News. “Thanks to the wonders of modern
technology, the following words from the Lt. Governor in 2007 were
preserved: 'I support a guest worker program for those here today
illegally.'"
During the debate with Cruz, Dewhurst said, “I don’t
support a guest worker program, never have, until and unless Congress
addresses this — but after, and only after, we have secured our border.”
These words -- like Dewhurst’s denial at
the same debate that he never supported a payroll tax when his office
released a press release touting his
support for the payroll tax -- ring hollow in light of the evidence and
are more proof of a candidate trying to remake his image for Republican
primary voters.
A spokesperson for Dewhurst told the Texas Tribune that the campaign did not know when the speeches were taken down. The spokesperson told the Tribune that
someone in Dewhurst’s office asked the secretary of the Texas Senate to
remove all of his speeches a year ago, but Dewhurst aides insisted the
links to the amnesty speech be disabled immediately after reporters
started to call their offices inquiring about the 2007 speech in which
Dewhurst supported amnesty for illegal immigrants in Texas.
The runoff between Cruz and Dewhurst is
on July 31 and, according to a poll conducted by the Cruz campaign, Cruz
leads Dewhurst 49%-40% primarily because of Cruz’s dominance among Tea
Party voters and voters who identify themselves as “very conservative.”
