Posted on 02/19/2014 4:18:55 PM PST by servo1969
A leading tea party intellectual has turned against the tea party movement’s favorite senator.
Economist Thomas Sowell, who has long been revered among conservatives, has slammed Sen. Ted Cruz in his last two columns, accusing the Texas Republican of being self-serving and comparing him to President Obama.
“Freshman Senator Ted Cruz says many things that need to be said and says them well,” Sowell wrote in his syndicated column Tuesday, before going on to compare Cruz to President Obama. “Moreover, some of these things are what many, if not most, Americans believe wholeheartedly. Yet we need to remember that the same was true of another freshman Senator, just a relatively few years ago, who parlayed his ability to say things that resonated with the voters into two terms in the White House.”
Sowell continued, suggesting Cruz is only looking out for himself.
“Senator Ted Cruz has not yet reached the point where he can make policy, rather than just make political trouble,” Sowell wrote. “But there are already disquieting signs that he is looking out for Ted Cruz — even if that sets back the causes he claims to be serving.”
Sowell seems to have been most recently irked by Cruz’s actions surrounding the Senate vote to increase the debt ceiling. Cruz threatened to filibuster, forcing several Republicans to either vote for cloture or force a fight over the debt ceiling increase. Republican leaders were seeking to avoid such a politically-risky fight and another possible government shutdown in order to focus on the failures of Obamacare heading in to the 2014 midterm elections.
“Senator Cruz’s filibuster last year got the Republicans blamed for shutting down the government — and his threatened filibuster this year forced several Republican Senators to jeopardize their own reelection prospects by voting to impose cloture, to prevent Cruz from repeating his self-serving grandstand play of last year,” Sowell wrote in his Wednesday column. “The Republicans need every vote they can get in the Senate — plus additional votes by defeating some Democrats who are running for the Senate this fall. It can be a very close call. Jeopardizing the reelection of current Republican Senators is an act of utter irresponsibility, a high risk with zero benefits to anyone except Ted Cruz — and the Democrats.”
In his Wednesday column, Sowell also lashed out against the so-called Republican establishment.
“However unjustified Senator Cruz’s actions, the very fact that a freshman Senator can so quickly gain so many supporters, with so much enthusiasm, ought to be a loud warning to the Republican establishment that they have long been a huge disappointment to a wide range of Republican voters and supporters,” he wrote.
2) I know it's not libertarians. It's me, too. But structurally we are a two party system in America. If you need to understand why that is, you can read the chapter in my "Seven Events" on how Martin Van Buren created the party structure. We can ONLY be a two-party structure. So, to replace the GOP (as the Whigs were replaced) you have to have an equally powerful force to step in. I'm all for the Tea Party being that force, but so far, it isn't there yet. And then, as soon as we elect "Tea Party" people---Rubio, Paul---half the people here think they are "RINOs." So it's a serious problem.
That’s an understatement of the problem. “Tea Party” is not merely what one calls oneself. Rubio demonstrated he rode in on the bandwagon with his support for amnesty. It may be a “devil you don’t know” situation with candidates that pander to the Tea Party to get elected—but that shows what the electorate wants, versus what the establishment wants.
It isn’t the people that want to eliminate the two-party system, but the two parties themselves.
I like Cruz's tactics, but I think any objective person would have to say it's entirely unproven as to whether they are effective or not. It's certainly not obvious. Since Cruz engineered the shutdown, we lost one governor's race that was entirely winnable---and some polls show that it was due in large part to the shutdown. We won a governor's race we didn't care about. So the net is, the worth of Cruz's tactics have yet to be proven.
It's entirely possible that the very thoughtful Sowell thinks that the evidence is on the side of harming rather than helping.
It's the same debate people have about the value of Palin's endorsement of a candidate. I think the record in the last primary season was mixed. Some of those she supported won, some didn't.
At any rate, it doesn't matter: for Cruz to BE successful at being a leader, he has to at least convince a majority of Republicans that he IS successful, and so far that hasn't happened. I wish it had, but I know enough (as does Sowell) not to confuse wishes with reality.
At any rate, we will never have a critical mass for change if half the people WE put in (not all the voters, but us) end up as quasi-Dems.
To me having a sayso in the dissemination of information
to the masses is key. Establishment Republicans are guilty
of being afraid of what the MSM says about them. But the
Tea Party and their supporters are guilty of pretending
that the MSM does not exist or that the MSM has no
influence. The Conservative movement and the Conservative
Lite movements take on each other but not the real enemy,
the media. A pox on both their damnned houses.
bkmk
Clearly it's the GOPe tactics that have been a failure. And Sowell agrees.
If one reads the article to the end one can see that Sowell doesn't like Boehner's and and the GOPe tactics and he ultimately blames them.
(Excerpt)
One of their most maddening qualities has for decades been their can't-be-bothered attitude when it comes to explaining their positions to the American people in language people can understand. A classic example was Speaker of the House John Boehner's performance when he emerged from a meeting at the White House a while back. There, with masses of television news cameras pointed at him, and a bank of microphones crowded together, he simply expressed his disgust at the Obama administration, turned and walked on away.
Here was a golden opportunity to cut through the Obama administration rhetoric and set the record straight on the issues at hand. But apparently Speaker Boehner couldn't be bothered to have a prepared, and previously thought out, statement to present, conveying something more than his disgust.
Unfortunately, Speaker Boehner is just the latest in a long line of Republican "leaders" with the same disregard of the need to explain their position in plain English.
Then he blame the GOPe for Cruz.
(Excerpt)
Ted Cruz filled a void. But the Republican establishment created the void.
Not discussing the GOP elites. The question is whether or not Cruz’s tactics have been effective, and I think to be a true leader he will have to not only BE effective but be perceived as being effective. That’s sometimes a harder trick. Right now, though he has to prove that his tactics work, and we’ll get a sense of that in the upcoming election.
Sowell was taking about the tactics of both Cruz and the GOP elites. He clearly complained about the tactics of both.
As I said, it's the GOPe tactics that have been a failure. About Cruz his tactics and what you said, sure there is no guarantee that Cruz's tactics will work, but we already know what doesn't work.
You’re right, we know constant conciliation and compromise don’t work. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Cruz’s scorched earth works either. Reagan didn’t believe in either approach. I think Cruz will come around, especially as he gets experience-—and I don’t mean being bought off, but rather learning whose buttons to push, when.
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