Depending on what happens in November, the nomination of Mitt Romney will be widely regarded as a safe and therefore wise choice, or else as a historic blunder. Either way, his nomination is bound to be seen as a fluke: after a years-long conservative insurgency, Republicans somehow selected a candidate who can’t plausibly present himself as one of the insurgents—most days, Romney campaigns as if the Tea Party doesn’t exist.

But away from the Presidential campaign, the insurgency has continued; plenty of conservatives, returning the favor, are campaigning as if Mitt Romney doesn’t exist. This spring, in Indiana, Richard Lugar, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, was blown out in the primary election by Richard Mourdock, who accused Lugar of having “left behind his conservative Hoosier values.” And right now, in Texas, David Dewhurst, the Republican Lieutenant Governor, who once seemed like a prohibitive favorite, seems to be trailing his insurgent opponent, Ted Cruz, in the Republican primary for the state’s open Senate seat. (The Republican incumbent, Kay Bailey Hutchison, isn’t running; there’s a Democratic primary, too, but no one seems very interested in it.) In the first round of voting, in May, Dewhurst won forty-four per cent of the vote, and Cruz won only thirty-four per cent. But because neither won a majority, they are competing in a runoff election this Tuesday; one recent poll gave Cruz a five-point lead.

Both candidates proudly and convincingly proclaim their conservatism, and neither can be accused of having once governed Massachusetts. In a column in the Washington Post entitled “Splitting Hairs in a Texas Race,” George Will suggested that either man would make a fine senator—but he seemed amused, too, by their vituperative disagreements. He explained the phenomenon with a quote from “Phineas Redux,” the Anthony Trollope novel: “The apostle of Christianity and the infidel can meet without a chance of a quarrel; but it is never safe to bring together two men who differ about a saint or a surplice.” The Dewhurst campaign has called Cruz “a trial lawyer helping a Chinese conglomerate kill American jobs.” (The allegation seems to be related to an appeal filed in a dispute over the design of “underground mining tires.”) And the Cruz campaign, using even more incendiary language, has called Dewhurst a “moderate.”

On Monday night, Dewhurst and Cruz held their final debate, and it was a spirited fight, though perhaps not a fair one. “I’m not a great talker,” Dewhurst said, and he explained that the death of his father, when he was three, caused a persistent stutter that left him feeling uncomfortable about public speaking. “We’re going to agree on virtually every issue,” Dewhurst said, rather hopefully—the more agreement the better, so far as he was concerned.

By contrast, Cruz was a championship debater in college, and he mounted a precise, lawyerly attack, deftly switching registers to keep his audience’s attention. “I intend to lead the effort to repeal every single word of Obamacare,” he said, squeezing his thumb against his index finger and jabbing in time to the words. For the next sentence, he arched his eyebrows to suggest sad disappointment: “The Supreme Court’s decision upholding it was a tragic day for liberty,” he said. Then, for the hopeful conclusion, he allowed himself a slight smile: “But at the same time, I think that decision was throwing gasoline on the fires of the great awakening, of the American people rising up and saying, ‘We want our liberty back!’ ”

The race between Dewhurst and Cruz is sometimes framed as a race between an establishment candidate and an outsider, but it might be more accurate to frame it as a race between candidates supported by two different establishments. Dewhurst has support from many of the state’s leading Republicans, including the governor, Rick Perry, whose support might have been worth more if not for his remarkably uninspiring Presidential campaign. On Monday, Perry posted a picture of himself with Dewhurst, and asked his Facebook followers to “help us elect conservatives like David Dewhurst.” One response, not at all atypical: “Gov keep this crap up and I may have to unfriend you. I’ve always supported you and believed in you but you r pushing it with the Dewhurst endorsement. Are u reading any of these comments? The majority of your fans including myself support Ted Cruz.”

Much of Cruz’s support has come from a network of conservative leaders who have come to constitute a kind of movement establishment. He has been helped by national small-government groups, like FreedomWorks, led by Dick Armey (the former House Majority Leader), and the Club for Growth Super PAC. Glenn Beck is a fan, and he has conducted a series of sympathetic interviews with Cruz; Beck and Cruz were booked as two of the featured speakers Thursday night at FreePAC, a conservative rally in Dallas. (Beck is in town this weekend for Restoring Love, which is the third event in his “Restoring” trilogy, following Honor, in Washington, and Courage, in Jerusalem.) Sarah Palin has called Cruz “a strong conservative fighter who will protect and defend our Constitution and not just go along to get along with the reckless spending of the permanent political class in D.C.” Palin is scheduled to appear, alongside Jim DeMint, the influential senator from South Carolina, at a rally for Cruz tonight in The Woodlands, a planned community north of Houston.

Many of the people and groups supporting Cruz have been less enthusiastic in their support of Romney—or, in the case of Palin, conspicuously unenthusiastic. And that’s precisely why Romney’s candidacy seems so flukish. It’s not easy to explain how this alternative establishment, which has been so effective in the Texas senate race, was so ineffective in the Presidential primary. Perhaps the right candidate simply didn’t come along. (Less than a decade ago, liberals who bitterly opposed the President faced a similar quandary.) Or perhaps the new, anti-establishment establishment hasn’t quite become the establishment yet.

Photograph by Michael Paulsen/Houston Chronicle/AP Photo.