Teddy Makes Me Sweaty
He’s in. I know, it’s
one of the more profoundly surprising moments of the 2016 Presidential
campaign. Ted Cruz wants to be our
Fearless Leader. And that unhinges me a
little.
Does he have a chance?
That is for Republicans to decide.
If they want Ted Cruz, then Ted Cruz they will have. Right now, he’s not exactly a real
contender. Polling shows him 8th. Larry Sabato puts him in his Second Tier,
behind Jeb, Walker, and Rubio, and with a passel of “outsiders” that include
Huckabee, Rand Paul, Santorum, and Ben Carson.
But Sabato’s Third Tier includes Governors such as Christie, Perry,
Jindal, Mike Pence of Indiana, and John Kasich of Ohio, some of whom have more
of a chance then the Second Tier. Still,
a WSJ poll indicates by a 42%-40% plurality that Republican primary voters
would consider voting for him.
Cruz is another side of the Scott Walker phenomenon. Both Ross Douthat and David Brooks have
spoken favorably of Walker’s chances, particularly as someone they see as a
fresh face, battle tested, and saying all the right things to the base. Walker is an egg-breaker. He walks over to the refrigerator, takes out
the box, picks out the 6 that say “Democrats” and smashes them on the
ground. Cruz, good lawyer that he is, has
first done a background check on the chickens, so he snatches the box, stalks
over to the cook, and one by one, crushes the eggs in his hands—then wipes them
on her apron and stalks out.
Read the transcript of Cruz’s “I’m ready for love” speech at
Liberty University and you have a checklist of GOP passions. There’s the Good—Established
religion, guns, morality (his), Bibi, Ronald Reagan, drilling. And the Bad—well, you know, Obama, Obamacare,
ISIS, IRS, gays.
I don’t want to dismiss his ideas just because they aren’t
mine. They are certainly within the spectrum
of conservative thought. And he’s
unquestionably intelligent—he shares one thing with Barack Obama—they were both
on Harvard Law Review. Two things make Cruz different from any of the
other “name” candidates: First, his
record is devoid of any significant accomplishments, unless you count
obstruction as an accomplishment.
Second, and clearly related, his insistence on purity, and his intensely
confrontational approach isolate him from virtually everyone but his
acolytes. Cruz has virtually no friends
on either side of the aisle—there’s a touch of John Brown at Harpers Ferry in
him. He seeks not only freedom of the
enslaved, but Biblical vengeance on the “oppressors.”
Cruz presents a challenge for the GOP, and the GOP
commentariat. Ed Rogers is out today in the Washington Post with a “better not”
piece, as is Jennifer Rubin. Both have
their own agendas, but Cruz brings a different emotional challenge to the GOP,
something that no other candidate can match.
He’s the political equivalent of a new-drug trial, where efficacy is
matched against toxicity.
Think about the higher visibility “non-Rand Paul” Republican
candidates and you can see how they sort themselves out into three types. All are conservative (it’s not possible to be
otherwise) and most are conservative across the spectrum. Other than in minor variations in degree, and
a touch of populism from Huck, the only real differences are on the flashpoints
of immigration and Common Cause. Jeb is
the only one who supports Common Core, Jeb, Huck, and maybe Rubio are softer on
immigration. You could take Cruz’s
speech, omit the personal narrative, and it could serve for any of them.
Voting Republican in 2016 means choosing a very distinct
conservative ideology/theology. The
real differences between candidates are in temperament, roughly the
temperaments of Jeb, Walker, and Cruz.
Jeb is Establishment. He’s
reassuring. His demeanor, to the middle
of the country, is something akin to “don’t worry, things are going to be
different around here, but you won't really notice it, and I’m not arresting anyone.”
In Jeb’s group we can add people like Rubio, Kasich, Huckabee, Pence, and even
Rand Paul. Walker is the new broom. “Things are
going to be different around here, and I’m going to make an example of a few of
you who don’t go along with the program.”
In Walker’s group are Christie (and his “time for some traffic problems
in Fort Lee” side) and Perry. Cross
them, and they will make you pay. Cruz
is on his own island. He is just flat
out confrontational on everything.
When it comes to quotable, Cruz is, well, radio-shock-jock
quotable. He’s neck and neck with Rudy Giuliani
with over-the-line comments about Mr. Obama. He accused Chuck Hagel of taking
money from the North Koreans. Said there
were a dozen Marists on the Harvard Law faculty who advocated the overthrow of
the United States government. He’s
suggested that George Soros and the United Nations are on a crusade to close
suburban golf courses in America. And he’s an equal opportunity insulter—he
compared people who wouldn’t support his shutdown strategy to defund Obamacare
to Neville Chamberlain.
Yet, do we really know who Ted Cruz is, beyond supremely
ambitious? And, can he actually pull
this off? First, I would say it’s a
mistake to underestimate him. The choice of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University
was an important tactical stroke (and it didn’t hurt that Liberty made
attendance mandatory for all students.) Cruz
identifies four legs of the GOP—Tea Party, Libertarians, Establishment, and Evangelicals. The Teas are definitely gettable—they love
his scorched-earth demeanor. The Evangelicals
he’s working on-the preamble to his speech focused on the importance of faith
in his life. The Libertarians are Rand
Paul’s to lose, but Cruz made a nod to them at Liberty when he talked about
privacy. The Establishment? He’s
probably 21st out of 20, but Cruz understands something that some of
his opponents haven’t quite grasped. The
Establishment wants to win, period. They
would rather win with one of their own, but any Republican—even Cruz, is better
than any Democrat. If he’s the
presumptive nominee, they will hold their noses and open their wallets.
And yet, as I write that last sentence, I am not sure it’s
really true. A Presidential candidate is
a brand for a party. The Republicans
have 24 Senators up for reelection in 2016, the Democrats just 10. What is the impact of a Cruz nomination,
down-ballot? How would he balance his
ticket, and who would even want to be his running mate? How will Ted play in swing-states?
I think the Establishment (big “E”, not just Republicans)
would worry that a Cruz missile could go off course and hit all sorts of
things, even them. So here is my slightly conspiratorial, almost certainly
crazy hunch: If the Democrats nominate Hillary, or Jim Webb, or even Kirsten
Gillibrand or Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota (both of whom would only run if
Hillary dropped) a whole lot of big money, secret money, Wall Street money,
might be making a surprising left turn.
Crazy? Well, if Ted Cruz is ready to rally seniors in
three-cornered hats and muskets to protect golf-courses from United Nations
peacekeeping (or is it grounds-keeping?) forces, then I can suggest the
completely outlandish idea that wealthy folk might place a small bet on the
Hill and Bill show.
OK, I admit to being unhinged. While I might not yet be Ready for Hillary,
Teddy makes me Sweaty.
March 23, 2015
Michael Liss (Moderate Moderator)
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