Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
Over the last week we've watched Republican presidential candidates evade the question of whether South Carolina's Confederate flag should be taken down, then, once Gov. Nikki Haley laid down footsteps for them to follow, say of course it should.
Hey, these guys have a primary to win.
“Don’t ever underestimate the defiant streak that runs through all the Southern states,” Mowery said. “This could very quickly have become less about the flag and all about ‘Don’t tell me what to do’; and with 13 states that still sanction the flag in some way, this could be an issue that, if misplayed, follows a candidate through all of these states. With so many of them voting early [in the nomination process] this time, that would be a huge problem.”
I don't think anyone is underestimating the defiant streak of a region that broke up the United States in defense of slavery more than 150 years ago and is still celebrating the fact that it did so and feeling angry about the fact that it lost. And apparently it's not possible to underestimate the courage of the Republican candidates.
Ted Cruz is still stuck in this business:
State Sen. Lee Bright, Cruz’s South Carolina co-chair, has emerged as one of the most vocal opponents of the move. Bright told the Charleston Post and Courier that taking the flag down was akin to a “Stalinist purge,” a claim he expanded on in an interview with POLITICO on Tuesday.
“It’s not just the flag,” Bright said. “They want to take down the Confederate monuments; I’ve gotten emails from people who want to rename streets. … Anytime you want to basically remove the symbols of history from a state, that’s something that just is very bad. … These are honorable men who fought for their homes, their home state; to disgrace them in the name of political correctness is just wrong. They’re not here to defend themselves.”
Those guys disgraced
themselves when they owned other human beings and fought for the right to continue owning other human beings. But Ted Cruz? He's not saying anything new about the flag, not with two of his state co-chairs opposed to taking it down.