“Troublesome Ted”: Ted Cruz Is The Symptom, Not The Disease
Ted Cruz seems to be becoming something of a Republican bogeyman. One can imagine Republican lawmakers trudging home and telling their recalcitrant kids that if they don’t brush their teeth and go to bed, Ted Cruz is going to bring a mob of torch-bearing tea partiers over to take them away. But they should remember that Ted Cruz is a particularly irritating symptom, not the problem.
So per the San Francisco Chronicle (h/t Hot Air’s Allahpundit), House Republicans lay the blame for immigration reform stalling in their chamber at … Cruz’s feet:
Then there was the debt ceiling near-fiasco – or, depending on your point of view, actual fiasco – this week. The House passing the clean debt ceiling suspension teed up Senate Republicans perfectly: They could all vote against the legislation but it would still pass. The GOP would avoid crashing the economy but still get an issue with which to beat Democrats.
It was Cruz who put the kibosh on that plan, compelling a 60-vote threshold for passage (as is his prerogative as a senator), prompting the vote to last an hour before GOP leaders Mitch McConnell (facing a serious primary) and John Cornyn (facing a farcical primary) fell on their proverbial swords and cast the votes necessary to nudge the majority north of 60.
These antics have won Cruz no friends among Senate GOPers, but as Byron York points out today, he’s a cipher for a particularly problematic part of the party:
Many in the GOP believe Cruz is just out for himself. But even if that’s true, they have to remember that he represents more than just Ted Cruz. There are a lot of Republicans — it’s not clear how many, but a significant portion of the party’s base — that cheers Cruz on when he battles with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. They want to see a Republican throw a wrench in the Washington spending machine, even if it creates chaos and damages the GOP’s standing with independent voters. And it is that conviction that is really behind the party’s problems; it is why Republicans would not enjoy smooth sailing even if Cruz were to retire tomorrow.
Cruz is adept at whipping up that section of the GOP and is equally skilled at self-promotion. But make no mistake: He’s riding a wave of sentiment, not causing it. If there was no Ted Cruz someone else would fill that role; it might be someone in the Congress, like Utah Sen. Mike Lee, or it might be one of the professionally aggrieved outside conservative groups like Heritage Action or the Senate Conservatives Fund, who know a rich fundraising vein when they see one.
As Hot Air’s Allahpundit writes:
So go ahead, GOPers, roll your eyes at Troublesome Ted. But remember that there are many more where he came from.
By: Robert Schlesinger, U. S. News and World Report, February 14, 2014
“A Party Of One”: Ted Cruz Flips Off The GOP And The Country
Only a week ago Politico introduced us to a new Ted Cruz. The freshman senator who brought his party to historic public-approval lows by forcing last fall’s government shutdown had since worked on “thawing” his relationship with fellow Republicans. In “Ted Cruz plays nice,” we learned the effort was paying off: The firebrand was already “getting along reasonably well with most of his GOP colleagues.”
That was then. Now Cruz is promising to filibuster the debt-ceiling bill passed by House Democrats with 28 GOP votes. He wasn’t expected to scuttle the deal, but he will force at least five of his GOP colleagues to join the Senate’s 55 Democrats to get it passed. Already, as the Senate votes, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell and Texas’ John Cornyn, both facing primary challenges from their right, had to flip no votes to yes to defeat the filibuster. The actual measure still hasn’t passed. (Update: The Senate evaded the filibuster with additional Republicans joining Cornyn and McConnell to make the final vote to advance the bill 67-31; then all 43 Republicans voted against it.)
“Under no circumstances will I agree to the Senate’s raising the debt ceiling with just 50 votes. I intend to object and force a 60-vote threshold,” Cruz told reporters Tuesday. “They don’t have to vote for it, I think Republicans should stand together and do the right thing. We should have every Republican stand together and follow the responsible course of action, which is to insist on meaningful spending reforms before raising the debt ceiling.”
So what happened to Politico’s new Ted Cruz? Well, he’s probably looked over at Chris Christie and realized that another 2016 contender has self-imploded more spectacularly than he did. Although Cruz saw his own national-poll standing drop after his shutdown histrionics, it was nothing compared with Christie’s plunge. Tragically for Christie, he now trails Hillary Clinton, in a hypothetic 2016 matchup, by more than the wildly polarizing Cruz does.
In a February Texas Monthly profile, Cruz hardly seems worried about the enmity of his fellow Republicans. He’s unapologetic about his role in the hugely unpopular government shutdown. He considers himself vindicated by the Affordable Care Act troubles that emerged after the shutdown, from glitches in the website to the controversy over canceled plans. And he remains the most popular statewide figure in Texas politics.
Politico’s case for a kinder, gentler Cruz was never convincing anyway. The only evidence mustered was that he’d dined with Sen. John McCain, who famously called him a “wacko bird” last year, and cracked jokes with Sen. Lindsey Graham, who subsequently praised him to reporter Manu Raju.
It’s clear that Cruz has 2016 fever again, and a debt-ceiling filibuster is just what he needs to cement his status as the Tea Party standard-bearer (he’s in a virtual tie with Sen. Rand Paul in the latest Tea Party polls). Cruz is heading to Iowa yet again next month, and in April he’ll visit the first-primary state, New Hampshire, for a “Freedom Summit,” along with Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee.
A few Republicans have criticized Cruz’s debt-limit showboating. “Maybe Ted Cruz should spend a little time trying to win the Senate instead of attacking his fellow Republicans,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said Tuesday. “I thought that Ted Cruz was past [that], but maybe he isn’t.”
On CNN’s “Crossfire” Nevada GOP Sen. Dean Heller also opposed Cruz’s filibuster plan. “I don’t think it’s right,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’re going to pass a clean debt ceiling increase with Ted’s or without Ted’s support, with my support or without my support. But at the end of the day, there’s going to be a debt ceiling increase and it’s going to be clean.”
That’s true. We now know one thing: Ted Cruz is no longer playing nice. He forced 12 of his fellow Republican senators effectively to go on record in favor of hiking the debt limit, votes that will put them on the bad side of Tea Party primary challengers and the nihilistic right-wingers at Heritage. Ted Cruz has proved that he’s a party of one, unable to work effectively with his fellow Republicans, or on behalf of his country.
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, February 12, 2014
“On His Way To Irrelevance”: Ted Cruz, Suddenly The GOP’s Biggest Loser
Sen. Ted Cruz’s fearless crusade to defund what he calls Obamacare ended with a whimper not a bang Thursday, as the junior senator from Texas dropped his demand that the Senate vote on amendments to defund the Affordable Care Act before passing the $1.1 trillion spending bill.
“The majority leader and Senate Democrats have chosen not to listen to the American people,” Cruz said. The Senate voted 72-26 first to cut off debate, then to pass the bill.
Apparently Cruz’s Senate GOP colleagues spent the Thursday lunch hour begging him to drop his plan for a defund-Obamacare vote, according to the Washington Post’s Lori Montgomery. He still tried, but he didn’t try that hard.
Concerned that the freshman senator’s quick surrender might be interpreted as backing down – which it was – his office issued a statement later saying “he remains committed to keeping the conversation about Obamacare front and center as the law continues to harm more and more Americans by raising their premiums, canceling their plans and keeping them from their doctors.”
Sure. The Affordable Care Act is on its way to stability, as the number of signups continues to surge in advance of the March 1 deadline, and as people who lost coverage find better plans and/or subsidies. Ted Cruz, meanwhile, is on his way to irrelevance.
Cruz made some headlines Wednesday for picking up the right-wing staffer fired by the House Republican Study Committee (for leaking their deliberations to right-wingers in Congress). Hiring Paul Teller his deputy chief of staff was supposed to be a stick in the eye to his moderate colleagues, but nobody outside the wingnut blogosphere seemed to really care. Teller, who tried to sabotage his House GOP bosses but got caught, might be a good hire if Cruz planned to run against John Boehner for speaker, as he seemed to want to do last fall. Sadly for Cruz, he can’t do that as a senator.
His presidential hopes don’t look much more encouraging. Let’s stipulate that national 2016 polls have little predictive power in January 2014 – in fact, they’re rarely predictive later in the cycle, because the primary and caucus delegate count is the only poll that matters. Still, they tell us something about each potential candidate’s national appeal. And Cruz’s is diminishing.
Just a month ago, he was tied for fourth place in the NBC/Marist Poll, with the support of 10 percent of those surveyed. Now he’s down to 5 percent, and way behind the top-tier candidates, in seventh place – he even trails Rick Santorum. (He came in first in a late-September Public Policy Polling survey done at the height of his government-shutdown showboating.)
Interestingly, Christie is still the GOP front-runner in the Marist Poll, although he’s slipped badly in a head-to-head matchup with Hillary Clinton – from 3 points behind just a month ago to 13 points behind now. As a journalist, the stumbles of Christie and Cruz sadden me a little bit, selfishly: It would be a lot of fun to cover them going head to head in 2016. And imagine if they teamed up as running mates: Mean and Meaner. On the other hand, as a human being, it’s a relief to see two men renowned for their self-regard and nastiness get undone by it.
There’s even bad news for Cruz in Texas, where state Sen. Wendy Davis is actually outraising Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott in advance of their 2014 contest for governor. Democrats are more than ready to make Texas a blue state again, and it may not happen in 2014, but it could by the time Cruz has to run for reelection in 2018.
Ted Cruz may still run for president, but in reality, he’s mainly in the running to become Jim DeMint, the former senator and current Heritage Foundation head – a right-wing firebrand who makes enemies out of even some ideological friends, establishes no Senate legislative legacy, and moves on to a lucrative, flattering wingnut welfare sinecure.
They’re buddies now, but DeMint might want to watch his back. Cruz is smarter than he is, and makes sure everyone knows it. He’d run a crackerjack think tank, making sure to hire nobody from the “minor” Ivies.
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, January 17, 2014
“One Trick Pony”: Ted Cruz Cements His Position As The GOP’s Master Troll
On the Internet, a troll purposely inflames anyone he can to attract attention to himself, in hopes of wasting everyone’s time and energy. In the Republican Party, a troll does the same thing and he becomes a hero of the far right and a frontrunner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced on Monday that he had hired Paul Teller as his deputy chief of staff.
Teller — a favorite of outside conservative groups like Club for Growth — was swiftly fired from his position as executive director of the far-right Republican Study Committee in December after leaking conversations between House members.
Cruz’s new hire immediately won praise from Red State’s Erick Erickson, a leader in the movement to push the Republican Party further to the right by demanding continued standoffs in Congress and supporting primary challenges to incumbents, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) joined McConnell in speaking out against outside conservative groups in December, after several opposed the budget deal Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) negotiated with Senator Patty Murray (D-WA). By hiring Teller, Cruz cements his allegiance with the groups who championed his effort to shut down the government over Obamacare, which he was able to pull off with the help of the House GOP’s so-called “suicide caucus,” many of whom are members of the Republican Study Committee.
Cruz’s willingness to spurn his party’s leaders represents just one trick in his impressive arsenal of trolling tactics.
The Harvard-educated lawyer, who argued in front of the Supreme Court nine times, recently published a 10,000-word article in the Harvard Law Review that speaks to one of the darkest fantasies of the Tea Party movement: How the United Nations is coming to take our golf courses.
The Daily Beast‘s Ben Jacobs points out that Cruz is artfully speaking to the fear of a world government, a fringe idea that’s surprisingly widespread among the Republican base. If he spoke about his concerns about the UN on network television, he would be deemed “wacky” or “wackier.” So instead, he’s presenting them in one of the most prestigious law journals in the world.
The senator’s immense intellect gives him the ability to frame his extremism in acceptable venues. And it also enables him to make convenient arguments against the president that serve his agenda but crumble under scrutiny.
In an attempt to brand Obama as “imperial,” Cruz attacked the president for ignoring federal law in effectively allowing Colorado and Washington state to legalize marijuana.
This critique raised the hackles of Jacob Sullum at Reason.com, who points out that the federal government has virtually never prosecuted personal marijuana use. The Department of Justice has retained the right to crack down at any time, something the senator decided not to point out. But for now, the DOJ has decided to use its “limited investigative and prosecutorial resources to address the most significant threats in the most effective, consistent, and rational way” — as it always has.
But since Cruz lumped his concerns about marijuana legalization in with a screed against Obamacare, he knows that few in the audience he’s trying to reach will parse out what he’s saying.
The shutdown that the senator championed has led to new lows in popularity for the Republican Party.
However, a big chunk of the GOP’s unfavorable rating comes from the party’s base.
In a recent YouGov/Economist tracking poll, 37 percent of Republicans viewed the members of their own party unfavorably, compared to 10 percent of Democrats. Many Republicans believe the party actually gave up too soon in the government shutdown standoff. They want constant, unwavering opposition and charges of lawlessness against the president.
Essentially, they want the party to be made up entirely of Ted Cruzes.
We’ve been telling you about the remarkable descent of Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) from Republican savior to Tea Party troll.
But Rubio’s problem is that compared to Cruz, he’ll always be a squish. He’s dabbled in bipartisanship and proposed “amnesty” for “illegals.” Even if the junior senator from Florida ultimately votes against his own bill, he’ll still be the kind of Republican Ted Cruz lives to crush, even if the senators agree on almost every conceivable issue.
This isn’t because Rubio is not intent on being disruptive or contentious or a “walking press release announcing a no vote.” It’s because he’ll always be in the shadow of a true master of the form.
By: Jason Sattler, The National Memo, January 14, 2014
“Rolling Back A Century”: What Sort Of “Conservative Populist” Besides Ted Cruz Would Want To Do That
I was looking around Google today to see if Ted Cruz had ever come forth with the Obamacare Replacement proposal that was supposed to be imminent back in November, when I saw some other News of the Cruz I had missed:
Sen. Ted Cruz, elected 13 months ago by actual voters, said Thursday he’d prefer to see state legislators pick U.S. senators – as they were until a century ago, when the 17th Amendment came along.
Direct election of senators has eroded states’ rights, Cruz argued, speaking to a ballroom filled with conservative state lawmakers from around the country.
“If you have the ability to hire and fire me,” he said, “I’m a lot less likely to break into your house and steal your television. So there’s no doubt that was a major step toward the explosion of federal power and the undermining of the authority of the states at the local level.”
Most of the limited coverage of Cruz’ December 5 ALEC appearance focused on his choice of the words “Stand your ground!” in defending the lobbyist-driven source of right-wing cookie-cutter state legislative proposals from recent criticism, some of it derived from the organization’s heavy responsibility for the spread of “Stand Your Ground” laws of the sort that made George Zimmerman’s acquittal for the killing of Trayvon Martin much more likely.
But repealing the 17th Amendment, ratified 100 years ago? Taking voters out of the process of selecting senators? What sort of “conservative populist” would want to do that?
Technically, Cruz didn’t endorse any particular repeal proposal, and technically, ALEC’s own idea is to create a “soft repeal” of the amendment, whereby state legislatures would be allowed to sponsor Senate candidates on general election ballots.
It so ain’t happening, of course, but it says a lot about Cruz’s notion of his “base” that he felt compelled to talk about rolling back a 100-year voting rights precedent.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, December 18, 2013
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