Posted on 10/01/2014 4:22:23 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The Texas senator stands for conservative principles. Unfortunately, that's all he does with them.
Is Ted Cruz good for conservatives? Or is it the other way around?
The answer matters a lot, because it's not impossible that this guy could be the next GOP presidential nominee. A close adviser to Texas' junior senator told National Journal that there is a 90 percent chance the Tea Party star will run for president in 2016. "And honestly, 90 is lowballing it." Cruz denies that he has made plans past the midterms. But boy, he sure does look like a man preparing for a run. He goes to Iowa and makes foreign-policy heavy speeches. He makes trips to New Hampshire to stump for GOP candidates there. And so on.
Cruz was wildly popular at last week's Values Voters summit. Of all the Tea Party senators, he has the most polished presence on the hustings. He has the best nose for the grassroots. He booms that a Republican president will be "repealing every word" of ObamaCare in 2017.
But from where I sit, Cruz looks like another Sarah Palin. He is gifted at polarizing a debate in a way that gratifies the base of the party. But then what? Ted Cruz will "stand for" conservative policy goals, but standing for them is very different from realizing them.
Compare Cruz's persona and rhetoric to his Tea Party peers, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul. Each of these men have devoted themselves to conservative ideas, but they also seem to have absorbed political lessons from the last two decades. It has inspired in them a creativity in policy thinking that also seeks to enlarge the Republican tent. Rubio enfolds the story of immigration and assimilation into a larger conservative narrative about American greatness; it's an effort that could make republicanism seem less hostile to voters from the last great wave of immigration.
Rand Paul has framed libertarian policies meant to appeal to black and other urban voting blocs. Paul has attracted younger voters with his foreign policy vision, his pro-digital privacy stances, and his filibuster against unlimited drone warfare.
Finally, Mike Lee, probably the least likely in this group to run for president, has gone deep in the weeds on tax policy, in an effort to give some material benefit to the middle- and working-class families who ought to be the backbone of a conservative voting majority.
Now, no politician should be ashamed of his willingness to be disagreeable in the name of a disagreement. Ted Cruz opposed the nomination of Chuck Hagel to secretary of Defense for the simple reason that he disagreed with Hagel's view of foreign policy and defense. Fair game, I say.
But for all his advertised "commitment" to the conservative cause, Cruz's approach seems like a xerox of a fax from the 1980s, on which he has drawn some cursory scribblings. We have been told over and over how smart and intellectual Ted Cruz is, by professors like Harvard's Alan Dershowitz and Princeton's Robert George. But where is the evidence of fresh thinking, of applying conservative principles to existing problems?
Take health care. Cruz has put a ton of his energy into defeating ObamaCare. He quixotically shut down the government over this issue last fall. But for all the great intellectual firepower said to reside in Cruz, his policy ideas on health care amount to this: raising the eligibility age for Medicare, tax credits, and a promise to "throw my body in front of a train" to stop ObamaCare. Good luck with that.
Do you like Cruz? Then I have a disclaimer. I have idiosyncratic views on presidential candidates. I supported Ron Paul in 2008, and was sympathetic to Jon Huntsman in 2012. Other than the Huntsman thing, I'm a black-banners reactionary. Cruz had never made much of an impression on me, until he trolled a conference of Christians raising awareness of persecution in the Middle East. Perhaps Cruz is simply being wise and he is simply advertising his loyalties now in a run-up to the primary. Once he captures a base of voters he'll unveil creative, vote-attracting, and constructive policies. But he hasn't yet. And I just don't believe he will.
If you're a Cruz fan, ask yourself: Can you imagine a voting bloc of "Cruz Democrats?" Isn't Ted Cruz's unique appeal precisely that such a bloc is unimaginable? If that's the case, he's better suited as a firebrand in the upper-chamber than as your candidate for president.
Well.... He is the 2nd Shadow President....
Just saying...
And THAT tells you everything you need to know about this ditzy, RINO apologist author. They ALL fear Ted Cruz.
Cruz is a bright, personable, succesful and popular politican on the Right; look for the Left to shift into full and rabid attack dog mode as soon as he firmly tosses his hat into the ring.
Any skeletons in his closet?
Did he tease any girls in grammar school?
Does he lift his pinkie when he drinks tea?
It was all be shouted from the rooftops if he runs, while the media ignore the Democrat candidate’s sins even if he/she is a communist, drug-addicted child molester who wipes his/her butt with the American flag.
I will vote for Cruz as many times as I can!
Go Cruz.
The New York Times should be the New Hiroshima
Ted Cruz did not shut down the government, he has no such power. Only Harry Reid and Barack Obama can do that.
I’ll raise a million dollars to help him get his message out.
Boy, the liberals are wetting themselves here..
That’s it? The best they can do to slam Senator Cruz is to compare him to Sarah Palin?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
What’s next? 500 words of hate because they found he left the toilet seat up last night?
This “The Week” seems to publish back door liberalism and hits on conservatives.
Ted Cruz will be the next president.
We are headed into dark days. I don’t want anyone else at the helm.
The GOPe is going to try to do to Cruz what they did to Palin, and then expect us to still support them. On the contrary; another Thad Cochran debacle at the national level will split and finish this party.
It’s either Cruz, or lose.
Michael Brendan Dougherty is senior correspondent at TheWeek.com.
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He early on indicated that Rubio and Paul were supported by the TEA Party, then later described each of them to show why they are not favorites of the TEA Party. He’s a goofus!
Wake me up when the writer gets to a point.
It's hard to imagine a more brainless criticism of a senator in the minority party.
Palin, Cruz, or LOSE.
Michael, some of us don’t consider that an insult.
Polarizing = Anybody who disagrees with pure Marxism.
Pray America wakes
Liberals love to claim that Cruz single-handedly shut down the government.
If a Junior Senator, not in the leadership of the Minority Party in one-half of one-third of the government has that kind of power, it sounds to me like he is more of a leader tha anyone else in DC
For right now, I’m fully expecting Ted Cruz to be our next POTUS. Just in the nick of time.
The only thing that might change my mind would be if Sarah chooses to run. Sarah or Cruze? That would be a tough decision to make.
Maybe they could flip a coin, winner runs for POTUS, loser runs for VPOTUS.
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