Why?
Because:
1) Principle: Conservative principle says keep government out of business. Cruz is right on conservative principle.
2) Separation: Cruz separates himself from the disastrous facts and image of the GOPe / RINO wing of the party that is clearly beholden to the Chamber of Crony Capitalists.
3) Mavericky: Cruz demonstrates his unwillingness to bend principle to political expedience, power, corporations, leadership, etc. You could call this “independence”.
4) Triangulation: Setting himself on the side of CITIZENS against CORPORATIONS is something lots of undecided, middle-of-the-roaders, blue dog democrats, Reagan Democrats, etc. want to hear. He steals liberal thunder by using a conservative position to rail against the same things the left hates: Corporate Welfare.
5) Ratings: Lots of good sound-bites in there. Presidential candidates have to stay in the news cycle.
6) Subject Matter: Cruz gets to set the table and win the game by creating an issue nobody else is talking about. Trump? Hillary? Jebster? Walker? Where do they stand on the conservative principle of getting government out of the business of business? If they are lucky, they can only play catch-up to Cruz on this.
7) Correcting: Cruz was on the wrong side of 0bamaTrade, and this helps offset that mis-step. While he did correct himself on 0bamaTrade (badly and too late imho), the people offended by 0bamaTrade are offended in the same manner by the Ex Im Bank. So he gets to apply an ointment to that self-inflicted wound.
Cruz was Brilliant on this, as on so much more.
Ted Cruz explained on Rush’s show today that he was wrong in voting for the trade vote the first time, and he explained that his very own staff was right, Ted Cruz said his staff told him that they ( Mitch and the GOPe leadership ) were lying to Ted Cruz.
He learned a valuable lesson, listen to your staff when they tell you things things.
I fault Ted Cruz for being to trusting of the GOPe leadership.
If he knew then ? What he knows now ? He would have never voted on the first vote of Obamatrade.
Good write up BTW.