• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

In after Baud. Damn.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

This really is a full service blog.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

This blog will pay for itself.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Mobile Menu

  • Seattle Meet-up Post
  • 2025 Activism
  • Targeted Political Fundraising
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / I Woke Up Alarmed

I Woke Up Alarmed

by @heymistermix.com|  September 24, 20139:31 am| 44 Comments

This post is in: Republican Stupidity

FacebookTweetEmail

There’s nothing wrong with pointing out that Ted Cruz is a real jerk, and laughing. Still, let’s not pretend that he’s some kind of anomaly. It’s not like McCain, Graham, Grassley or some of the other long-serving members of the cooling saucer are universally beloved sweethearts who were shocked and hurt by Ted’s refusal to accept their heartfelt welcomes and displays of collegial bonhomie.

They hate Cruz not because he’s an asshole, but because he’s not their kind of asshole. He doesn’t want to kiss the right old butts to so he can move to the front of the line at a press gaggle. He doesn’t want to sprinkle the Senate rules with holy water and hold them up for their daily veneration. He’s in it for a fuck and run, because Ted is, at least in his own mind, on the Obama plan: a couple of years in the Senate and then the White House. McCain fucking hates Cruz because Cruz doesn’t think the road the Presidency is lined with 3,500 appearances on Meet the Press, 7,500 cloture votes, and being the ranking member on the Armed Services committee for three decades.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Does that network make my wallet look skinny…
Next Post: We are all Villagers now »

Reader Interactions

44Comments

  1. 1.

    Jerzy Russian

    September 24, 2013 at 9:44 am

    I think the word “Canadian” should always appear before the words “Ted Cruz”. In this way we won’t get confused about which Ted Cruz we are talking about.

  2. 2.

    MattF

    September 24, 2013 at 9:50 am

    I know it’s dangerous to assume that a politician has any self-awareness, but I’m guessing that Cruz knows he’s not ever going to be popular enough to be elected President. Look for a DeMint-style exit to the Land of Dollars.

  3. 3.

    shortstop

    September 24, 2013 at 9:53 am

    McCain fucking hates Cruz because Cruz doesn’t think the road the Presidency is lined with 3,500 appearances on Meet the Press, 7,500 cloture votes, and being the ranking member on the Armed Services committee for three decades.

    And also because every moment spent looking at and listening to this upstart is time stolen from the rightful center of America’s attention, Mr. John McCain. He seriously can’t stand to be irrelevant, and he really has a thing against younger guys in general — even when they aren’t smarter and cooler and darker.

  4. 4.

    The Moar You Know

    September 24, 2013 at 9:57 am

    I think the word “Canadian” should always appear before the words “Ted Cruz”. In this way we won’t get confused about which Ted Cruz we are talking about.

    @Jerzy Russian: His name’s not “Ted”. It’s Rafael.

    Canadian Rafael Cruz.

    See how far he gets in the GOP with that handle. Like throwing a kitten into a tank full of sharks.

  5. 5.

    David Hunt

    September 24, 2013 at 10:05 am

    Interesting point: I don’t think that Obama was running on the “Obama Plan” in 2004 when he ran for Senate. I think he was running on the Hillary Clinton Plan. To put it more clearly, I think Obama expected that John Kerry was going to be elected President in 2004, so he wouldn’t be able to run against him in 2008 but would run to replace in 2012 (or against whatever Republican who had beaten him in 2008). So he’d have been in the Senate for a respectable eight years rather than a mayfly’s four (with only two before he started running). He knew what John Rogers expressed http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/05/senate-quicksand.html . That if you’re in the senate for any great length of time, there are too many votes for ugly things that can be tied to you due to the compromise you made to keep the GOP from blowing up the world, so you have get out of there before a decade passes.

    Hillary Clinton timed it perfectly btw. She’d been in the Senate eight years, and wasn’t running against an incumbent Democrat. The country was sick of the GOP. She was the Anointed One. She just had the bad luck to end up running against Barrack Obama. I’ve never doubted that Obama ran that campaign from the beginning with the goal of winning. I saw him at Yearly Kos and he was on fire. However, I don’t know if he expected to actually come out on top. Did he think that the more likely result was to get the VP slot with Clinton and run in 2016?

  6. 6.

    RP

    September 24, 2013 at 10:08 am

    I don’t know if I buy that. I think Cruz is in his own special category of asshole. I mean, I’m sure McCain et al are annoyed at him for stealing some of their thunder, but I think it goes well beyond that.

    (BTW, I know I’m a stupid guy who isn’t thinking clearly, but holy smokes is that girl in the orange dress hot.)

  7. 7.

    Mike in NC

    September 24, 2013 at 10:10 am

    Ted Cruz needs to get a tire swing and invite Cokie Roberts and a bunch of other media morons over for a BBQ lunch before he can plan on redecorating the Oval Office.

  8. 8.

    Feudalism Now!

    September 24, 2013 at 10:14 am

    Ted Cruz is reminiscent of Caribou Barbie. Great White North types pissing in Grampy McCain’s Post Toaties. It is personal to Crash McCain.

  9. 9.

    Barry

    September 24, 2013 at 10:15 am

    “McCain fucking hates Cruz because Cruz doesn’t think the road the Presidency is lined with 3,500 appearances on Meet the Press, 7,500 cloture votes, and being the ranking member on the Armed Services committee for three decades.”

    Probably more because McCain blew his chance at the White House, and Cruz (God help us!) still has one.

  10. 10.

    Punchy

    September 24, 2013 at 10:21 am

    Pretty sure Canadian Rafael Cruz cannot be elected if BOTH the Republicans and Dems detest him. Both barrels of the metaphorical oppo research gun aimed at him? Someone’s going to have a video of him speaking Spanish (French?) to a colleague, and that will sink him in the GOP primary.

  11. 11.

    RSA

    September 24, 2013 at 10:22 am

    @The Moar You Know:

    Canadian Rafael Cruz.

    Canadian-born, Harvard-educated, Spanish-speaking Rafael “Ted” Cruz.

    Not that there’s anything wrong with that–for a Democratic politician, it might even be to his advantage.

  12. 12.

    Mark S.

    September 24, 2013 at 10:23 am

    Christ, for a blog that spends a hell of a lot of time complaining about firebaggers and Glenn Greenwald, you’d think there would be a little more empathy why Cruz and his “Nobody else in the Senate is a true conservative” schtick is so fucking annoying to McCain and the boys. Cruz doesn’t give a fuck about ever passing anything so he can be pure as he wants.

  13. 13.

    RP

    September 24, 2013 at 10:27 am

    @Mark S.: I agree. I think McCain also gets a bad rap sometimes on the left. Yeah, he’s an asshole and a nut when it comes to military action, but he isn’t bug fuck crazy and generally has the best interests of the country at heart. It’s the soft bigotry of low expectations, I know, but such is life with the 2013 GOP.

  14. 14.

    Comrade Jake

    September 24, 2013 at 10:34 am

    I assume you folks read some of these Cruz pieces, right? This is a guy who set up a study group at Harvard Law for which only students with sufficiently high GPAs from the top Ivys could apply. No soup for anyone from “minor ivies” like Penn, Brown, Cornell, etc.

    I know it’s a joke that there are plenty of assholes in the Senate, but this guy would appear to be something really special.

  15. 15.

    handsmile

    September 24, 2013 at 10:34 am

    John McCain’s alma mater: US Naval Academy.

    Just how many members of Cruz’s Neo-Confederate party are graduates of Harvard, Yale or Princeton, or for that matter even the “lesser Ivies”? (Quite a few congressional Democrats are.)

    Far more than the enmity of Gramps, Graham or Grassley, that disclosure of Rafael’s elite preferences is the epitaph for his national political ambitions. Not even multiple tire swings will help with that.

  16. 16.

    Herbal Infusion Bagger

    September 24, 2013 at 10:41 am

    I know it’s dangerous to assume that a politician has any self-awareness, but I’m guessing that Cruz knows he’s not ever going to be popular enough to be elected President.

    I think you’re assuming more self-knowledge than Cruz appears to have. I think his lecturing of Feinstein on the constitution and gunnnzzzzzz like she was a six-year-old indicates exactly how self-controlled and self-aware he is.

  17. 17.

    Suffern ACE

    September 24, 2013 at 10:47 am

    @handsmile: He’s got that “I’m your everyman schtik” who likes expensive wine written all over him. See Ryan, Paul.

  18. 18.

    gbear

    September 24, 2013 at 10:51 am

    Hate to be lookist, but Cruz isn’t going to get anywhere near the presidency because he’s got a sleazy face that makes Nixon look like your most trusted friend.

    He reminds me of the plastic surgeon in Brazil.

  19. 19.

    Redshirt

    September 24, 2013 at 10:56 am

    Cruz is a puzzle. From all evidence, he appears to be quite smart. By the same evidence, he seems to be a true believer in all things Wingnut. Can these two spheres co-exist sincerely? Are his teabagging beliefs genuine, or an act?

  20. 20.

    Paul in KY

    September 24, 2013 at 11:01 am

    @Mark S.: That was sorta the reason Huey Long was so hated when he was in the Senate.

  21. 21.

    cvstoner

    September 24, 2013 at 11:04 am

    They hate Cruz not because he’s an asshole, but because he’s not their kind of asshole.

    That would be the quintessential Republican attitude, no?

  22. 22.

    burnspbesq

    September 24, 2013 at 11:07 am

    “Go along to get along” is so 1955.

    0.5 bonus points for embedded Liz Phair reference.

  23. 23.

    shortstop

    September 24, 2013 at 11:14 am

    I’m not that interested in whether Cruz truly thinks he can go farther than the Senate. I’m more intrigued by the inability of the Village and even some mostly sensible journalists to separate his likely presidential campaign from its inevitable result. Against my better judgment I turned on cable news last night and heard Ezra Klein earnestly telling Lawrence O’Donnell that Cruz knows exactly what he’s doing and that it will help, not hurt, his presidential ambitions.

    Yes, Ezra, and so damn what? Is he going to get the nomination? If by some fluke he did, would he be elected in the general? The crazy lady who lives down the hall from me wants to be president, too. Is that worthy of serious discussion?

  24. 24.

    Ben Cisco

    September 24, 2013 at 11:17 am

    @Mark S.: @RP: They’re fighting among each other.

    They are all still VERY much interested in fucking the REST of us over.

    No motherfucking cookies for any of them from me.

    This isn’t that hard.

  25. 25.

    Mr. Longform

    September 24, 2013 at 11:20 am

    I want it to be true that Ted Cruz is too disgusting to everyone across the spectrum to ever be elected president, but I’ve been burned by the unimaginable happening too often – Reagan clearly too dumb; W clearly clearly too dumb and Cheney too evil; I was scared out of my mind when Princess Dumbass was within spittin’ distance.

  26. 26.

    handsmile

    September 24, 2013 at 11:20 am

    @burnspbesq:

    I believe “Extraordinary” is already Rafael’s campaign theme song.

    “Sane psycho,” though? Methinks not.

  27. 27.

    celticdragonchick

    September 24, 2013 at 11:26 am

    @shortstop:

    Cruz still has a non negligible chance of getting the nomination, depending on how fucking insane the primary voters in Iowa and South Dakota are….

    I never bet against the level of batshit insanity you find in those primaries.

  28. 28.

    RP

    September 24, 2013 at 11:27 am

    @Ben Cisco: I’m not giving him cookies, but I’d take McCain 7 days a week and twice on Sundays over Cruz. Obama, Reid, Pelosi, et al can work with McCain. They can’t work with nihlists like Cruz.

  29. 29.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    September 24, 2013 at 11:31 am

    @Redshirt: I think he’s a true believer. I read in a article earlier that someone recalled Rafael Cruz, born in Canada, arrived at Princeton with fully formed philosophy, which did not change. it may have been the Daily Beast (yes, I read it occasionally, to my great shame) piece. i thought the TPM piece was notable for the unanimity of not just asshole, but also “super smart.”

  30. 30.

    David Hunt

    September 24, 2013 at 11:43 am

    @Redshirt:

    I’ve read that smart people are generally harder to move from deeply held convictions, regardless of evidence. Their intelligence allows them to come up with justifications for their beliefs and to seek out any apparent hole in the evidence that they can plow through to maintain their original views. It’s (exactly) like trying to convince an intelligent religious person that there’s no god. Faith is belief without proof.

    So yes, there can be really smart true-believing wingnuts.

  31. 31.

    Booger

    September 24, 2013 at 11:47 am

    Does anyone else perceive Calgary Raphael as the worst bits of Pat Buchanan and Spiro Agnew combined?

  32. 32.

    Cacti

    September 24, 2013 at 12:07 pm

    @Jerzy Russian:

    I think the word “Canadian” should always appear before the words “Ted Cruz”. In this way we won’t get confused about which Ted Cruz we are talking about.

    I prefer Cuban-Canadian Ted Cruz.

  33. 33.

    ? Martin

    September 24, 2013 at 12:12 pm

    He’s in it for a fuck and run, because Ted is, at least in his own mind, on the Obama plan: a couple of years in the Senate and then the White House.

    It’s okay to fuck over the country for the benefit of the party, but it’s not okay to fuck over the party for the benefit of yourself.

    But the test for Cruz will be how he comes out of this disaster – and I’m guessing he comes out on top. He will lose the backing of the RNC, but he’ll emerge as the 2016 frontrunner, everyone talking about him, and he will have all of that wingnut cash to himself. In the primaries he’s going to kick ass because he’s a volcano of red meat and he’s got the rhetorical skills to not get caught flat-footed. This guy is going to send wingnut starbursts out through every TV during the primaries because he’ll sound like Reagan. The RNC will eventually back him because they’ll have no choice.

  34. 34.

    Ferdzy

    September 24, 2013 at 12:12 pm

    @Cacti:

    Speaking as a Canadian, I prefer to remind everyone that he’s yours, all yours, now. We have our own problems. (*cough* Harper *cough*)

  35. 35.

    YoohooCthulhu

    September 24, 2013 at 12:31 pm

    After the book club on Nixonland awhile back, I’m amazed no one has noted yet that Marshall’s piece makes Cruz sound basically like the second coming of Dick Nixon. Humble beginnings, ambition, forming clubs in college, politically strident, victim mentality…

  36. 36.

    shortstop

    September 24, 2013 at 12:39 pm

    @celticdragonchick: No, he really doesn’t. And neither did Mike Huckabee and Rih Santorum when they won Iowa. The most Ted Cruz will do is make the primary season harder and longer for the actual candidate.

  37. 37.

    shortstop

    September 24, 2013 at 12:44 pm

    @YoohooCthulhu: How is his paranoia level (separate from his victim mentality)? He may need to step that up a bit.

  38. 38.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    September 24, 2013 at 1:08 pm

    @Booger: Add in some Nixon for victomhood and I think you’ve got the stew recipe precisely.

  39. 39.

    Tractarian

    September 24, 2013 at 1:34 pm

    It’s true. Cruz may be a right-wing fanatic to the point of clinical insanity, but you have to hand it to him for shaking up the Senate and its chummy good-ol-boy tradition.

    In fact, I like this guy. Not only is he pissing off other asshole conservatives, but he’s doing in such a way as to virtually ensure that none of his crazy priorities will ever stand a chance of becoming consensus.

  40. 40.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 24, 2013 at 1:36 pm

    From the TPM piece:

    At each stage, Ted did seem to collect a quite small but core group of friends/followers, mainly people who were deeply in tune with his politics

    Sounds quite a bit like Tom Riddle, if you ask me.

  41. 41.

    daverave

    September 24, 2013 at 2:05 pm

    I’m with you Mr. Longform…

    Canadian Raphael Cruz is the only Repub candidate at this point that truly scares me. Another terrorist attack or other black swan event could make Canadian Cruz a viable nominee and, if the gods are against US, a potential POTUS (R-Canada)

  42. 42.

    Elizabelle

    September 24, 2013 at 3:11 pm

    @daverave:

    Ted Cruz is speaking in the Senate now.

    If you watch, you will sleep easier at night.

    He’s got the 27%’s vote, though.

  43. 43.

    JMS

    September 24, 2013 at 7:50 pm

    It’s very simple. He’s a personally unlikeable human being, regardless of ideology. I suspect it’s one of those things where the closer contact you’re in with him, the worse it is.

  44. 44.

    karen

    September 24, 2013 at 8:36 pm

    Isn’t Alberta the most Conservative part of Canada and the province that fought gay marriage when it was made legal in Canada?

    Cruz scares me because he’s smart and kamikaze. Alaskan Barbie is clever but in the same way that an animal is. Cruz is actually intelligent and he has the same reasons that an Al Quaeda member has. Only his virgins in heaven will be destroying the United States to save it.

    People throw the name “Hitler” around too freely for him, but I’d say he’s more like Jim Jones. If it was something people wanted to do anyway and he had the resources, he could easily create an army and stage a coup.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Image by MomSense (5/10.25)

Recent Comments

  • Princess on Senator Murphy’s Theory of the Case (May 12, 2025 @ 5:44pm)
  • Jackie on Senator Murphy’s Theory of the Case (May 12, 2025 @ 5:43pm)
  • Barbara on Senator Murphy’s Theory of the Case (May 12, 2025 @ 5:43pm)
  • Baud on Senator Murphy’s Theory of the Case (May 12, 2025 @ 5:42pm)
  • Enhanced Voting Techniques on Size matters for science (May 12, 2025 @ 5:42pm)

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
War in Ukraine
Donate to Razom for Ukraine

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Meetups

Upcoming Ohio Meetup May 17
5/11 Post about the May 17 Ohio Meetup

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Hands Off! – Denver, San Diego & Austin

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!