Ted Cruz says he's 'stopped participating' in NRSC but won't quit as vice chair

Jed Lewison for Daily Kos

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Wednesday July 09, 2014 · 9:45 AM PDT

2014/07/09 · 09:45

no image description available — Admit it, Ted: You kinda' love Washington, D.C.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) (C) departs the Senate floor after a late-night vote rejected budget legislation from the Republican-controlled House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, September 30, 2013. The U.S. government was on the edg

Admit it, Ted: You kinda' love Washington, D.C.

Sen. Ted Cruz is vice chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of Republicans in the Senate, but he doesn't seem too happy about it. At issue: The NRSC's active and ongoing defense of Sen. Thad Cochran in his primary battle against Chris McDaniel for the Mississippi Republican Senate nomination.

Cruz thinks the NRSC stole the election from McDaniel by appealing to African-American Democrats and believes that laws may have been broken in the process. He hasn't yet endorsed McDaniel's call for a new election, but he supports a criminal investigation and places the blame for the results on D.C. Republicans—aka, the NRSC, the group for which he is co-chair.

“When I signed on as vice chair at the NRSC, it was based on a explicit commitment from leadership that the NRSC was going to stay out of primaries. Had they not made that commitment I would not have taken on that role,” he said. “I participated in the NRSC early on and when the decision was made for them to do otherwise, I stopped participating because I think Washington insiders are notoriously poor at picking winners and losers in primaries and indeed the Mississippi primary is exhibit A for why the NRSC should stay out of primaries.”

But even though he blames his own group for the mess, Cruz isn't quitting it.

“I do share the same objective the NRSC shares of winning general election seats in November,” he added. “I plan to work very hard and intend to work very, very hard between now and November to make that happen.”

I guess that's not a complete surprise. After all, Ted Cruz is part of the same Washington machine he claims to hate.

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Ted Cruz says he's 'stopped participating' in NRSC but won't quit as vice chair

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