Opinion by Hal Brown
This is the original illustration I used for this story, enlarge:
As described in this Washington Post article from 2017 “The Senate has a long history of bashing Ted Cruz, one of its own:”
“If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said during the 2016 Republican primaries. Sure, Graham was a Jeb Bush guy, but Cruz was still a candidate in his own party.
And Graham wasn't the only one. Sen. John McCain once called Cruz a “wacko bird” on the Senate floor. John A. Boehner, then the Republican speaker of the House, called Cruz a “jackass” at a Colorado fundraising event in 2015.
There are probably other members of Congress who are disliked or even despised by members of their own party, though I expect they would be all or mostly Republicans. I’d nominated Rand Paul, Jim Jordan, and Louie Gohmert as likely candidates, with the QAnon twins in the running among the newcomers. If there was a contest Ted Cruz by dint of his being just “that much” more obnoxious would take the gold.
Of course we are delighted with Ted’s not so excellent misadventure where his escape to the warmth of Cancun turned into an unscheduled return to frigid Texas where, cold as it was, it might as well have been as hot as hell for him.
Early this morning MSNBC was covering he story nearly non-stop with no less than presidential historian John Meacham discussing it with Joe Scarborough.
The New York Times had hard news on the top of their page leaving addressing the Cruz trip to their opinion section where Jamie Bouie ended his OpEd “Ted Cruz’s Excellent Adventure — At least he didn’t bring up the Green New Deal” as follows:
Our system has room for two major political parties. One of them, however imperfectly, at least attempts to govern. The other has devoted its energy to entertainment. It is a tragedy for the people of Texas that at this moment of danger they have to deal with a government of showmen.
The Washington Post had the story way down their main page with “Texas is freezing, but the roast of Ted Cruz is on” by Dan Zak. Here’s part of what he wrote:
Nobody likes Ted Cruz. This is conventional wisdom in Washington. While not technically true — his family members like him, presumably, and his approval rating among Texas Republicans last month was 76 percent — it feels essentially true. Maybe it’s the exhausting smarm, the squirrelly ambition, the hollow theatrics. Maybe it’s how he tried to block relief aid after Hurricane Sandy, or how he helped to shut down the government in 2013. The Victorian facial hair hasn’t helped; it lends an incongruous quality of statesmanship to a man viewed by his colleagues as a pest.
“Lucifer in the flesh,” Republican John A. Boehner, the former speaker of the House, called him in 2016.
“If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said in 2016.
Said Democrat Al Franken in 2017, when he was still in the Senate: “I probably like Ted Cruz more than most of my colleagues like Ted Cruz, and I hate Ted Cruz.
CNN reminds us that Ted Cruz has repeatedly slammed politicians for vacationing during crisis and MSNBC showed clips of him condemning other politicians for doing what he did.
I admit I am enjoying this. Call it a guilty pleasure. However in the greater scheme of things Ted Cruz is just a narcissistic uncaring blowhard who is an embarrassment to his party. The primary difference between Trump and Cruz in this respect is that the “former guy” has and still has power and like his home state Mister Mutton Chops never has had any significant power.
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Addendum: Front page images of The Washington Post and The New York Times with stories about Cruz highlighted.
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The Poll
This is how CNN covered whether voters will hold this agains him when he has to run again in 2024.
Texas is still Texas but the electorate there is gradually moving towards the left. Cruz has to run again in 2024. A lot can happen between now and then.
Are Republicans losing their grip on Texas? Election night saw Democrats largely unable to build on the gains made in 2018 when an insurgent Beto O’Rourke ran a grassroots senate campaign that gained national attention. But despite frustrations from Democrats that they didn’t perform as well as they hoped this November, there’s still cause for concern among Texas Republicans. The population in metro areas is growing rapidly and demographics are moving to the left. From Why Is This Happening? Measuring how red Texas has become with Abby Livingston.
If Democrats want to make the Cancun trip an issue the next time Cruz runs they will have to begin their own campaign now. Positioning one or two strong candidates to unseat him is important. Beto O’Rourke as will be the highest profile person in that position ever. He can become popular throughout Texas not just in Democratic strongholds. Senator O’Rourke sounds good to me. The worse things are in Texas now the worse they will be for Cruz and the better for the Democrats in the long run.