Posted on 12/17/2014 6:56:18 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Yesterday at a lunch attended by members of the Senate’s Republican caucus, Ted Cruz reportedly made an unsolicited apology to his colleagues for ruining their weekend. It’s not clear whether most of his fellow GOP senators accepted the apology. As mad as some of them were for having to cancel their plans in order to stay in the Senate over the weekend, many were also furious about the way Cruz’s decision to oppose a deal that would have passed the Cromnibus on Friday led to weekend sessions that also gave Democratic leader Harry Reid the opening that he used to get some Obama administration appointees confirmed before the end of the lame duck session. But Cruz was unrepentant about forcing an up-or-down vote on immigration. Nor is he particularly upset about the way most members of the Senate seem to think about him. While we can debate the wisdom of his positions, no one should be in any doubt as to whether they are making him a stronger candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.
Cruz came into the Senate in January 2013 determined to oppose a business-as-usual attitude. But unlike most brash freshmen that eventually calm down and realize that the advantages that come from playing by the rules of one of the world’s most exclusive clubs generally outweigh the thrill of being a Capitol Hill bomb-thrower, Cruz hasn’t changed his tune. His is, as the invaluable Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News this week, a conservatism that revolves around making statements rather than “getting things done.” Most Republicans are rightly concerned about using their new majorities in Congress to show they can govern effectively. Thus, “statements” such as Cruz’s demand that every senator put themselves on record as opposing the president’s extralegal executive orders on immigration came at too high a price since it would have meant the possibility of another damaging government shutdown.
Most senators understand the shutdown Cruz helped engineer in 2013 was a bad mistake and want no part of a repeat performance. Even more to the point, they are outraged that Cruz has never acknowledged that his tactics were mistaken and furious about his belief that another attempt would be a good idea. After two years in his company, they like him even less than they did when he arrived, a sentiment shared by many pundits and party establishment figures. All of which seems to have made no impression on Cruz whatsoever. If everyone in Washington (except for a few fellow insurgents like Senator Mike Lee), hates him, that’s fine with Cruz.
Why doesn’t he care? The answer has less to do with his obviously thick skin than it does with his ambition and vision for his party. The whole point of his Senate career is to oppose getting things done in a system that he believes is set up to perpetuate liberal big-spending and taxing government. Cruz’s goal is to overturn all of that.
More to the point, his tactics are designed to establish him as the pre-eminent leader of the Tea Party movement and the conservative base. Standing on principle on every conceivable issue is a politics of statements rather than accomplishments, but it is potential electoral gold in terms of GOP presidential primary voters. Many Republicans believe with good reason that the key to winning in 2016 is in bringing in fresh voices and faces from outside of Washington, especially the party’s deep bench of successful Republican governors. But Cruz is running against the capitol from the inside and with more publicity than any of the governors has managed.
Indeed, the more hated he is by his Senate colleagues and the more opprobrium heaped upon him by party establishment figures or even wise pundits like Krauthammer, the better it may be for his potential presidential campaign. In a wide field of potential challengers, Cruz is still not taken seriously by many observers because they think him too inexperienced and, most of all, too extreme to win a general election.
Both assumptions may be true. Electing yet another freshman senator without executive experience (i.e. Barack Obama) may strike many people as an absurd idea, especially for Republicans who have spent the last six years lamenting Obama’s incompetence. But ideological purity is the sort of thing that will always play in a primary especially when someone as clever and relentless as Cruz articulates it. If Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and perhaps Mitt Romney are competing in a hidden establishment primary, Cruz is running to win the Tea Party/base primary. For those who hadn’t noticed, Cruz is winning that primary hands down right now. With every hate bomb tossed in his direction from offended fellow senators, his lead grows and his once laughable hope to win the nomination becomes a realistic if not necessarily likely scenario. Count on him spending 2015 reinforcing that image. Which means that fellow senators need to fasten their seatbelts and hang on for what should be an even bumpier ride over the course of the next 12 months.
Yes, it was so 'damaging' that Republicans won a landslide midterm election less than twelve months after the 'damage' took place. For once, Republicans were dragged kicking and screaming into being different from Barack Obama. And look where it got them. Into majorities that will NEVER be used for the purposes voters intended when they were elected.
Which, of course, is utter BS. Does anyone think that Harry Reid would relinquish Democrat power in the United States Senate without first squeezing every ounce of blood out of the turnip? The nominees would have gotten votes regardless of anyone's precious weekend schedules.
Are you kidding? Ted is awesome! Stranglehold is my favorite song that he does.
Be glad you didn’t hear Lou Dobbs tonight. He declared his show to be “Cruz free zone” because of the fake idea that Cruz got those judges approved. I tried to email his show but the message I got back said it was overloaded or something. I thought I liked Dobbs, but his true colors came out tonight. Disgusting.
Harry Reid needs Ted Cruz to approve nominations? The Democrats are still the majority in the senate until January.
Why?
Nobody answers that question. Nobody asks, either. Except, of course, Ted Cruz. He refuses to accept the "inside the Beltway" presumptions of their own indispensibility, and it make the apparatchiks heads just explode.
What collective empirical wisdom was handed from on high that says a population that considers the government as a huge obstacle in their life, also vehemently opposes shutting it down or scaling it back? I missed that memo.
“Most senators understand the shutdown Cruz helped engineer in 2013 was a bad mistake and want no part of a repeat performance. “
Why is this true? How many votes did it cost the Republcians in 2014, an election in which they DEMOLISHED the dems?
I see this written as if it were true all the time. Outside the beltway and the offices of the NY Times, no one even remembers it.
Go Ted & Mike.
Honey badger don’t care.
I stand with Ted
Ted Cruz all the way.
And you liberals stop your racist criticism of him.
Just watched him on Hannity. Can’t get enough. Keep it comin’ Senator Cruz!
I listened to Cruz last night with Bret Baier. Cruz said he did not apologize for his reason for keeping the Senate over the weekend. He said he apologized that they had to stay, as in “I’m sorry you had to stay and miss your plans, BUT there was an important constitutional point.”
He also pointed out that those nominees were slated for Monday anyway, and as of YESTERDAY the Senate still wasn’t in session. He had nothing to do with those nominees being passed. That was happening anyway.
So, this author is wrong right out the gate. Too bad he cannot research
Hey liberals, that is just racist!
Reagan was hated mostly by GOP-e Rino Establishment types. I live in the bastion of Liberalism surrounded by Lunatics and I never hear a word against Ronnie ! Unless it is a drooling leftist brain damaged Moonbat.
This gives another meaning to “everybody”. The list of slime varieties who fit in that column is pretty long, but leftards provides a pretty good umbrella.
I really respect and like the dude.
Watched Cavuto today. He had Nicole Nickpour on and she said that a millennial fundraiser from Texas was all out for CRUZ. There are many Cruz folks out there,possibly more than the Republican heads realize. Go CRUZ GO.
He does not care. Good. Why should he?
His job is to defend the constitution not the majority not the polls not the chamber of commerce and not the GOP and it’s touted non existent base.
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