TED'S CRUZADE- THE POLITICAL OUTCOME

TED CRUZ’S CRUZADE 

A phenomenon has emerged on the American Political Scene that has grabbed center stage in what is shaping up to be one the biggest changes in the American political fabric in history. (Blog: America at the Crossroads, September 22, 2013).

Ted Cruz has emerged as the undisputed leader of the new Republican Party. Sooner or later a coherent politician had to emerge to lead the Tea Party. Up till now the only possible one was Sarah Palin. She could have assumed the mantle but did not have the discipline or the desire to do what it takes to take on the job. For the rest there was a freak show including Caine, Perry, Bachmann, Santorum and Gingridge- all of who were chanceless and parodies of themselves.

 CRUZ’S STELLAR RESUME

Cruz is charismatic, articulate, intelligent and persuasive. He graduated cum laude from Princeton and Harvard. He also was the winner of several national debating competitions and in 1992 won the US National Speaker of the Year. He was the first Hispanic appointed to being Solicitor General in Texas. He assisted the Bush legal team in the latter’s successful challenge to avoid a recount in Florida. Since then he has written 80 briefs in actions in the Supreme Court. He was the lead Counsel in the Supreme Court in crucial gun law cases, the constitutional challenge to the State of Texas’s redistribution of Congressional Districts and several other Conservative Cases. Several of the cases he litigated were won 5-4 in the Supreme Court. For his efforts he was recognized as one of the leading litigators in the USA and one of the 25 best Texan lawyers ever.

POLITICAL CAREER

He did not mess around with the usual political foreplay and went straight for the US Senate as his first objective. He beat out the sitting Republican Lieutenant Governor in the Republican Primary and then went onto win the Senate. His victory was regarded by the Washington Post as the “biggest upset” of the 2012 election. Needless to say it was full press operation from the Tea Party operatives that allowed this to happen in addition to the skills and talents of Cruz.

SENATE AND THEREAFTER

Cruz let nothing stand in his way to establish himself as the spokesman for the new Republican Party in Congress. He defied every tradition in the staid Senate that has hallowed traditions as to the behavior of its members. There was no way that he was going to pay his dues and be the junior senator for Texas. He would not listen to the party elders. He ignored them and dictated the agenda.

Even more amazing Cruz defied convention and worked against his own Party’s Speaker of the House to support his campaign to defund Obamacare or shut Government. Cruz, defied the Senate Hierarchy and indulged himself to a 21-hour filibuster to defund Obamacare or shut down the Government. In the whole process he humiliated Boehner and McConnell the elected Republican leaders of Congress. To add insult to injury Reince Priebus, the GOP National Chairman, told the Republicans members of Congress to follow Cruz!

So in less than a year Cruz became the de facto leader of the Republican Party.

CRUZ AND OBAMACARE AND THE CURRENT  SHUTDOWN

The Heritage Foundation and its CEO, Senator Joe De Mint – the former, the major unelected megalomaniac institution dictating Republican Party Policy and the latter the chief unelected megalomaniac doing the same – decided, cynically, to use Obamacare as the bludgeon to break the President and take control of the US Congress. (Blog Obamacare and Obamascare Explained, September 28, 2013).

The Heritage Foundation sponsored Ted Cruz to do a countrywide tour to whip up support amongst the grassroots for this project. The public would be educated as to the perils of Obamacare. The tactic would then be to link Government funding bills and or the creditworthiness of the Country to the ending of Obamacare. Cruz by skillfully using a minority in the House to see that his bidding was done and almost single handedly in the Senate, trashing every unwritten rule as to Senate traditional behavior, saw to it that this occurred.

CRUZ THE PERSONALITY

Television talk shows now almost always include someone or other that went to College with Cruz. It is difficult to know whether these have been pre -selected because they all have the same refrain. He was either admired or despised. It appears nothing has changed.

He has the charisma, without the histrionics, of a TV evangelical preacher. There is never the slightest trace of doubt in what he says and does. He is convincing and on occasion mesmerizing. It is his way or the highway.

In Jay H Ell’s experience he has seen only one politician like him. Hendrik Verwoerd, South African Premier in the 1960’s, who was the architect of the philosophical and practical aspects of apartheid, also had this messianic glow. He too never ever gave the slightest indication that he was anything but a hundred percent correct. He never budged an inch. Harold MacMillan, the British Premier of the time, stated that he was the only political figure he had dealings with that nothing you could say or do would have an impact of him. This is rare in a politician as by the very nature of politics compromise is the order of the day. Chris Matthews of MSNBC’S HARDBALL has likened him to Joe McCarthy the infamous Senator of the 50’s.

There is one behavior Cruz has that Verwoerd didn’t exhibit. Cruz can debate effectively and convincingly on a position that he has changed on within a short space of time. This occurred, for example in the recent Affordable Care Act debates. Initially, Cruz maintained that Obamacare was the essence of all that was wrong with America and should be defunded - period. Then when the motion was changed to defunding it for one year he adapted his arguments to meet the situation. With equal conviction he maintained that all the Republicans were after was leveling the playing field. Big Business had been allowed an additional year to comply while ordinary individuals were being discriminated against by having to comply by January 1, 2014. All he was asking for was equal treatment for the individuals to study their options!

AT THE END OF THE DAY.

·      Cruz has effectively and finally divided the Republican Party in two. You have to take sides now.

·      Each day the shutdown continues makes things worse for the Republicans as more and more examples of the impact of their intransigence emerge. The Republicans in Congress trying to fund individual popular projects gains some traction but it also creates anger among the groups that are not so favored.

·      Three quarters of the population do not believe in the Republican position.

·      The Republicans are also the Party of big business. This financial uncertainty is not helping big business and several donors from that quarter have withdrawn. Business pressure will build as the date to ratify the Debt Ceiling nears. Also the electorate will join business in protest as Social Security and Medicare, for example, will not be funded if the increase in the Debt Ceiling is not ratified.

·      There is no strategy to the Republicans’ move. It is based on firing up the base and the belief that Obama would cave as he has done before. There is no Plan B now that Obama has hung tough.

·      No way will Congress default on America’s debts. By October 14 either Boehner will cave and have an open vote or, if push really comes to shove, Obama will unilaterally increase the ceiling himself, with the country behind him. He need not fear impeachment as such a move will incense the country even more than the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

·      Obamacare is here to stay. In the first day and a half the Obamacare website received 6,000,000 inquiries in spite of the fact that there were long waits and many more serious hurdles to overcome.

·      Nobody is going to boycott Obamacare for ideological reasons. It either meets their needs or it does not. The time for abstract rhetoric is over and the pros and cons are forefront. The Republicans have lost the fight.

·      Cruz is under massive pressure behind the scenes and he is not budging. Even if he had the majority support in the Republican Caucus, which he has not, he has offended too many to be the elected leader.

·      Ted Cruz’s honeymoon is over. He was elected in Texas with 40% of the Hispanic vote so even his reelection to the Senate is going to be tougher. Not that Jay H. Ell believes that Cruz is looking to a long Senate career. Perhaps if things don’t pan as planned and he does not get the Republican nomination for Presidency, and even if he does, he might after 2016 look to join his mentor Joe DeMint at the Heritage Foundation. Together they can look for something else to go for broke on.

·      The reality is however much the Tea Party has gerrymandered the constituencies in States to create an imbalance in the House of Representatives - (In Pennsylvania for example, in Congressional elections, the Democrats received a 100,000 more votes than the Republicans yet the Republicans have 19 Congressional seats as compared to the Democrats 5)  - the national consensus of the electorate is in tune with the Democratic Party’s more distributive policy of America’s resources to all its peoples than the Republican policy of “trickle down” economics.

·      Meanwhile as all this goes on Obama carries on campaigning to the nation – campaigning being the one area that he has no peer.

·      The Republican Party has got to decide what they are going to be in the third millennium.

·      Anybody seriously believe that Hillary won’t be President in 2016?