I accept your premise. Bad optics and bad politics.
However, I also submit that part of our problem as a nation is that we look towards DC to fix our problems. Texas is one of the largest states and one of the largest economies in the world. How/why this falls to the feet of a US Senator is beyond me.
I further submit that this is the kind of hit job BS our media uses to deflect the follies of green energy madness and weaken republicans. It works every time.
It is a diversion. Instead of talking about how bad the green energy grid has been in Texas and how utilities and the governor’s administration has focused on that rather than making sure the grid and production would not completely collapse during a rare, but entirely predictable, weather event here we are bashing Ted Cruz.
What is the solution for Cruz’s lack of political sensitivity? Oh, I know, a democrat senator for Texas would make things much better.
As someone who has responded to disasters of this type I can tell you first-hand that the last thing you want are VIP’s running around pulling resources from those on the ground trying to help. While I suppose it makes for good media and politics if he ladles some soup at a kitchen or drops off bottled water somewhere it really does not amount to a hill of beans.
I am not even so much defending Cruz as simply pointing out how ridiculous it is that we expect congress to fix a problem within a powerful state. Cruz does not even make the top 1000 list of people responsible for this and yet the media is successfully using this story to deflect attention from the real failures in Texas and in their energy grid.
What is he supposed to do to end the problem? He can talk with his staff and help with constituent issues, but Senators rarely if ever get personally involved in those and he can do that by phone.
If this were Cory Booker the media would be fawning about how/why he is monitoring the situation by phone as he fulfills a promise to his daughters to take them on a vacation. Probably a bad example since Booker would be rushing to get in front of every camera he could find to blame Trump, but you get my intent.
“What is the solution for Cruz’s lack of political sensitivity? Oh, I know, a democrat senator for Texas would make things much better.”
Bundled up and wandering in the cold. . .an obvious and blatant political ploy and posturing. Imagine the media and dem (one and the same) howling if he did the same thing Robert did.