Michael Meved, who I rarely listen to anymore, was trashing Cruz. His reasoning is that McConnell is a patriot and forcing him and a few brave self-sacrificing other Republicans to have to vote for the debt increase instead of letting the rats own it completely was a destructive trick Cruz pulled on the GOP that accomplished nothing but satisfy Cruz’s ego.
Personally I don’t totally understand why Cruz did this but I figured he must be wanting to expose RINOS...I guess. That being said....I trust Cruz more than the others - but that doesn’t mean I understand what he did.
It’s easy to understand. TRUST.
The last two presidential elections were lost because the demographic needed to put the GOP over the top sensed a certain dishonesty in the ranks of the republican leadership; the groups that can win elections stayed home because they DID NOT TRUST the candidates. They stayed home.
There is now definitive demographic proof that Romney lost because he failed to bring out the Perot bloc of blue collar voters and they number more than 6 million.
So it’s easy. Build trust at every level which is what Ted Cruz is doing.
McConnell and the Republican Leadership WANTED to raise the debt. THEY WANTED IT! They also want to be re-elected (McConnell especially).
The problem is that in order to close off debate/amendment on the clean budget hike bill (no amendments), it takes 60 votes. That meant some Republicans would have to vote for Cloture. McConnell certainly didn’t want to do it; he wanted Republicans not running in 2014 to do it. But Cruz’s exposure of this scam by filibuster essentially forced McConnell to vote yes, which he didn’t want because it sends a signal to his constituents that he’s for more unchecked debt.
So the Cloture vote passes, and now McConnell and every other Republican will vote no on the plurality floor bill. Only needs 51 votes to pass.
I ask you this. McConnell and all the other 10-12 Republicans who voted for cloture had a chance to kill the bill, or at least change it and they did not. Why? Also, what good was his eventual floor vote of NO?
Cruz wasn’t doing what he did for ‘ego’ or any of that. Cruz was being an American and exposing those RINO traitors for what they were.
McConnell had made a promise to the American people that he would not allow the democrats to push through a clean blank check debt bill.
he thought he could pretend to fight it by simply voting in favor of unanimous consent to bring it to the floor where it would be assured of passage by the democrats and all the republicans could then lie to their constituents by claiming they fought against it. It was a lie and a ruse. Ted Cruz was not going to play that game and allow the RINOs to run on a lie.
What Cruz did took a lot of courage. What McConnell and Cornyn did was an act of cowardice.
You can't win a war when your Generals are afraid to fight.
Perhaps one way to think about it is this.
He promised Texas he would fight for us, wherever he goes. In the SEnate, that means fighting with every tool in the box. And in the past, that meant on big issues, you could filibuster and procedurally require them to get 60 votes.
He promised he would fight, and did so very publicly.
So when the time came, what did he do?
He fought.
And yet again, he fought and lost, because not enough Republicans would stand with him. But he did exactly what he said he would do.
Now the GOP’ers like Cornball are upset because they look bad for blocking his filibuster.
But Cruz said all along, this is what he is going to do. For him to do otherwise would be for him to fail to do what he promised us he would do.
The bad consequences are something Cornyn will have to deal with for himself.
I voted for Stockman a few days ago, incidentally.....