Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his trusty sidekick Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) have been
shut down in the Senate Monday night in their efforts to upend Senate rules over an amendment to the highway funding bill to renew the Export-Import Bank.
Cruz though had been unable to get enough to support to press a rules fight on the issue on Sunday, and then on Monday, Sen. Mike Lee opted against a further rules challenge on the Obama health law, instead endorsing the idea of using a different effort to repeal the health law.
"I believe the reconciliation option is a far superior strategy because it has the potential to pass both houses of Congress and reach the president’s desk—which has been my goal all along," Lee said in a statement.
Lee might have backed down quietly, but Cruz's actions following the vote make it clear that it's not about the Ex-Im Bank or Obamacare. It's about trying to steal some attention from the crazy base away from Donald Trump in his presidential campaign. He immediately
tweeted after the vote: "Tonight, the McConnell-Reid leadership team pushed through another win for the #WashingtonCartel, and they did so at the taxpayers’ expense," trying to keep his battle with McConnell a focal point for his campaign.
That all of this is calculated by Cruz for maximum campaign effect is obvious, beginning with his remarkable tirade against McConnell Friday. Right after that performance, Cruz's campaign locked up the phony Planned Parenthood outrage, Cruz has to have something.
It's the Trumpification of the Senate.