.
Mr. Popularity explains to Robert Costa [warning: NRO link] that it’s everyone’s fault but his that the GOP shutdown tanked the party’s standing in return for… nothing:
According to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, it’s his colleagues, more than anyone, who should be blamed for the failure of the defund-Obamacare campaign — and he expects conservatives to remember come primary season.
“Unfortunately, rather than supporting House Republicans, a significant number of Senate Republicans actively, aggressively, and vocally led the effort to defeat House Republicans, to defeat the effort to defund Obamacare,” Cruz says, in an interview with National Review. “Once Senate Republicans did that, it crippled the chances of this effort, and it caused the lousy deal.”…
Cruz knows many Senate Republicans are unlikely to appreciate his advice to conservatives, or his appetite for another showdown early next year. He doesn’t care, though, since he believes his push to stop Obamcare and connect the party to disenchanted voters beyond the Beltway is critical to the GOP’s future success. “That transformation, shifting the power from the closed rooms in Washington, from the lobbyists and monied interests on K Street, and back to the American people, is the most important fight,” he says.
“I cannot help if others choose to launch personal assaults and insults at me,” Cruz says. “What I can control is how I respond, and I have not and will not respond in kind. Instead, I was elected to do a job, and that is to represent 26 million Texans. . . . Regardless of the attacks, my focus remains on the substance.”
“Every day, I jump out of bed with a smile on my face, because it is a joy to have the opportunity to stand with the American people and work to help restore people’s faith and optimism in our nation,” he concludes. “It’s an incredible honor to play a small role in expanding the American dream.”
I thought Cruz was just another grifter, but he’s a grifter who’s come to believe his own con. He’s not gonna run for President, but he’s quite willing to be anointed as America’s God-King.
Chris
AHAHAHAHAHA.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
… oh God, there isn’t enough popcorn in the space-time continuum for this.
Ruckus
So he really is an idiot of the people.
greennotGreen
Ted Cruz reminds me of the Martin Sheen character in the movie Dead Zone. Smart enough to be elected President – crazy enough to blow up the world.
ruemara
I predict he may have a terrible, horrible shaving accident that, um, removes him from consideration.
FlipYrWhig
He’s not a grifter. He’s a fucking whackaloon. You can tell that his father told him he was the Chosen One and he entirely believes it. “The other kids are just jealous, Teddy my son, and one day you’ll make them sorry.”
Groucho48
It’s amazing how everything he says is the opposite of reality. No wonder the Tea Party likes him.
JPL
During the shutdown, I linked to NRO, now I refuse to. Costa has been doing excellent reporting but I choose not to read anything more about Cruz’s ego.
OT.. Anne, Last night I mentioned my son trying to find someone to adopt a stray. Fortunately, the kitty has found a new home today. Thanks for your offer to post it on Balloon Juice and if his new home doesn’t work out, he will.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@FlipYrWhig:
Someone with Cruz’s genius intellect can be both a floor topping and a dessert wax.
hildebrand
“He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.”
Alexandra
Can see him weaseling his way onto the bottom half of a presidential ticket.
hildebrand
@Alexandra: If I happened to be in the top slot with Cruz as VP, I would sleep very lightly and hire a food taster.
Cervantes
@Alexandra: Ted Cruz as a VP running mate? His ego will not allow it.
Bort
Preach it Brother Cruz! If there is one thing your fellow republicans love it’s a self-righteous dick.
RobertDSC-PowerMac G5 Dual
He’s as clueless as the day is long.
Personally, I’m tired of his shit. Get out, Ted.
Bill E Pilgrim
@hildebrand:
“Look, he has lost his mind!”
“It is a sign! Let us, like him. lose our minds too, that we may follow his example!”
Kropadope
@Groucho48: It’s amazing, even when presented with the facts they will deny reality. If you provide them with irrefutable evidence that a central claim they made to support their argument is false, it suddenly doesn’t matter at all.
Botsplainer
As a whacko, he’s incapable of recognizing that even the national GOP primary demographic isn’t as nutty as the Texas activist electorate.
EconWatcher
I know it’s become trite to compare the tea partiers to Stalinists, but holy smokes. The Five Year Plan failed, so it must be the fault of traitors and saboteurs. So round them up. It could not possibly be the fault of the plan, or those who made it.
PsiFighter37
Ted Cruz lives in an alternate universe in his pretty little mind, or he really is as smart as everyone claims – but is a deep-cover Democratic mole. No other explanation for why he’s been so spectacularly wrong.
Citizen_X
I’ll agree he’s inspired disenchanted voters beyond the Beltway, but a lot of them have been inspired to make sure they get out and vote against the &!€?%@?#! Teabaggers.
Amir Khalid
This description of the last few weeks in America is precisely the opposite of what actually happened. There used to be this cartoon character on TV, a severely myopic man who spent his day blundering about town, cheerfully oblivious to the chaos he was causing, and to the resulting trouble and danger faced by everyone else. Ted Cruz is a Republican Mr Magoo.
sherparick
Ted Cruz is very much a “Christian Dominionist or Reconstructionist,” as is much of the so called Tea Party. Hence when he speaks of “the American People,” he defines the true Americans as those who belong to the cult. The rest, including the President of the United States and all his supporters are Un-Americans, whose are outside the “saved” community and need to be either destroyed or compelled to accept the Biblical way life. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/13/1246859/-Expos-Ted-Cruz-Dominionism-and-Jesus
Of course part of the grift is one can do very well doing “God’s Work.” All the poverty stuff is kind of read out of the New Testament in their selective literalism.
Hungry Joe
Ever since that oleaginous creep first oozed onto a national platform I’ve had the feeling that he’s a true believer. Palin probably believes what she says, too — assuming that she’s somehow capable of divining the rancid mixed greens that come flying out of her salad shooter — but a lot of it does double-duty as grift.
FlipYrWhig
@efgoldman: @Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Fair enough, but “grifter” suggests insincerity, and I think he’s totally sincere. From a grifter perspective, what I don’t get is that the guy running the con is supposed to be appealing, or sympathetic, or something: he has to win you over so he can pick your pocket. How does Cruz manage that? He’s funny-looking, has a silly voice, and he’s obviously enormously full of himself. Palin is great at grifting because her act makes sense: folksy MILF. Most of the right’s celebrities pull some version of “I’m like you and I say what all of the common-sense, God-fearing people like us are really thinking.” Whatever Cruz’s act is, it ain’t that, because lofty condescension oozes from every pore.
sherparick
@sherparick: the MSM does a very bad job of asking Ted about his and his father’s statements and what they would do to others if they got into power.
WereBear
@FlipYrWhig: Ah. Instead of the White Horse Prophecy, he would be the Pubic Louse Prophecy?
Botsplainer
@EconWatcher:
They’re not Stalinists, because a Stalinist has some animal cunning and a survival instinct; that’s why they curried favor.
These guys remind me more of Strelnikov, burning out the villages of the impure.
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid: That “jump out of bed with a smile on my face” line is almost exactly what Newt Gingrich kept repeating during his last failed
long conrun for the GOP presidential nomination. If Tailgunner Ted showed even the slightest self-awareness, I’d actually think saying this was a wink & a nod towards the ol’ Newtster, but I guess it’s just one of the standard affirmations from the grifter toolkit…LeftCoastTom
Making Michele Bachmann look sane by comparison seems a really odd goal in life, but Ted Cruz is certainly up to that task.
EconWatcher
@Botsplainer:
So Trotskyists, then. I have no problem with that. (Wasn’t Strelnikov just a thinly veiled Trotsky?)
FlipYrWhig
@WereBear: Definitely some kind of pathogen.
JGabriel
Ted Cruz is the most pristine example of R-WASD (Right-Wing Authoritarian Social Dominator / Sociopath) I have ever seen in my lifetime.
And given that Cruz is competing against the likes of Nixon, Gingrich, and Jesse Helms, that’s really saying something.
max
He’s not gonna run for President, but he’s quite willing to be anointed as America’s God-King.
Yeah, he’ll run for President. His daddy has been programming him to be the savior of the US in the End Times, and I am pretty sure he intends to make Daddy happy. (Same as Mittens, really – some low rent Mormon prophecy says a Mormon would say the US and Mittens latched on to it, no doubt.*)
@EconWatcher: I know it’s become trite to compare the tea partiers to Stalinists, but holy smokes.
Trite? When Brooks is babbling on about it’ll be trite. Anyways, True Believers (left, right, Communist, Nazi, Fascist, citoyen, anarchist, Libertarian, Catholic, Orthodox (Eastern), Ultra-Orthodox (Jewish), Orthodox (Shi’a), Wahhabite, whatever), when they get organized and become a Movement, promptly devolve into Kilkenny cats and start trying to purify their way to success.
max
[‘PURITY OF ESSENCE! ESSENCE OF PURITY!’]
* Well, the man wasn’t called, so he latched on to the nearest thing that made him feel like he was Called.
sharl
TPM’s Josh Marshall was a year ahead of Ted Cruz at Princeton (and Marshall’s now-wife was in the same class). He wrote about it here, and talked about it with MSNBC’s Martin Bashir here.
Apparently that’s no act he’s putting on. He really is a self-absorbed flaming asshole.
hildebrand
Cruz, like any street preacher, is convinced and convicted by his own spiel. He believes, and while this doesn’t make him electable, it does make him scary and potentially dangerous. This guy likely thinks the Handmaid’s Tale is a blueprint for his desired future.
shelly
“Martin Sheen character in the movie Dead Zone. Smart enough to be elected President – crazy enough to blow up the world.”
Bingo!
Saw part of another interview he gave this weekend. He’s regretting that the Repubs didn’t use kids with cancer as a human shield for their shutdown. Just like he used veterans at the WWll memorial for his own use, he laments they didn’t use children shut out of clinical trials because of the shutdown,,,,,,,the shutdown that he and the GOP created, as bad press against the Dems. I can’t even figure out the logic of this,,, well, hate to call it ‘reasoning.’
FlipYrWhig
@sharl: My friend Craig was Cruz’s freshman roommate at Princeton. He hated him instantly. (And not for political reasons — Craig was always essentially an elitist libertarian, albeit one with an outstanding sense of humor.) I heard about Ted Cruz’s unique creepiness _25 years ago_.
Elie
The guy has a personality disorder that prevents him from actually perceiving any problem with anything he does. I have a very close relative like this… loses jobs, makes enemies, makes critical mistakes in estimating his vulnerability (or anything that he is advocating for). He can’t SEE certain situations… he is blind to certain situations because his lack of empathy or ability to see other perspectives besides his own makes him permanently unable to manage some situations. He has reached the ceiling of his career but trust me, years from now when he is out of politics, he will talk about this period without any awareness of anything that he did wrong. Its just the way he is and lots and lots of people like him–
espierce
Cruz-Palin ’16 and this will be good news for John McCain.
Mike in NC
Unless he publicly implodes in some spectacular fashion, the MSM will continue to describe Rafe Cruz as “GOP presidential front runner for 2016” for several more months.
LeftCoastTom
@shelly: Actually they did try using kids with cancer as a human shield, Harry Reid told them to shove it (talking about lost jobs at NV air bases).
beltane
@shelly: His logic is very simple. As God’s annotated one, he feels compelled to achieve his goals at any price, even if it involves the death of children. History churns these types of fanatics out with great regularity and they are usually remembered as monsters.
TS
Only difference between Cruz and Palin – Cruz understands the grammatical structure of a sentence.
scav
@Amir Khalid: Sounds like he’s running on echoes of a hope and change platform, with an explicit mention of faith to bring in the devout. That and counting on an anti-incumbent tidal wave, assuming that all grumpiness at incumbents is his! His! Alone!!! Weirdness. @Anne Laurie: Would the allusion in both cases be an echo of the Morning in America sacrament? If it’s not dog whistles, it’s rip-offs and retreads.
FlipYrWhig
@Elie: IMHO his personality disorder is that he’s positive he’s better than everybody else, so if you and he have a difference of opinion, it must be because you’re stupid, because there’s no possible way he’s wrong. Add to it the extreme right-wing orientation and the domineering father and you get a frothy mix of hatefulness.
Pogonip
A relative of mine used to be a member of the Worldwide Church of God cult. Cruz reminds me of Garner Ted Armstrong. My relative once (thought he was) treating me to a personal appearance by Armstrong. The guy (Garner Ted, not my relative) gave me a flaming case of the creeps and I remember looking around at the audience of smiling, nodding cultists and wondering if they were crazy or I was.
ellennelle
evidently teddy boy has the same grifter entitlement complex that one mitt romney suffers from.
true believers cannot reason. no matter how ‘brilliant’ and ‘educated’ they might be.
Amir Khalid
@efgoldman:
I did say he was a Republican Mr Magoo.
Pogonip
@beltane: I think you mean “God’s anointed one”; “God’s annotated one calls up a fun image of God putting scholarly footnotes on Cruz’s shoes.
Tripod
Limbaugh ain’t gonna live forever. The smart grifters are lining up for the throne.
Ash Can
I think he’s too full of himself not to run for president. He’ll get all the true-believer Teahadi PAC money, too. He won’t win enough delegates to get the nomination, but I can see the possibility of him being offered the VP slot on the GOP ticket if he does well enough in the primaries. That has the potential of being fairly entertaining, too — I can envision the party brass trying to keep him bound and gagged and locked in the closet for the duration of the campaign because every time he opens his mouth it costs the GOP ticket five points in the polls, but every so often he escapes and wrecks some more shit.
scav
@Pogonip: Certainly explains the importance of sandals then, no?
debbie
Continuing the deja vu all over again, Cruz is as fanatically obsessed with Obamacare as Joseph McCarthy was with Communists. Hopefully, Cruz will come to the same end.
FlipYrWhig
@efgoldman: Yeah, but even so they usually want their heroes to be Men Of The People (or, with less frequency, Women), and Cruz is SO not that. Palin is that, Hannity is that, Limbaugh is that: populist anti-intellectual. I guess the other paradigm is Gingrich or O’Reilly or Ann Coulter: bully who thinks he or she is brilliant and counts on your thinking he or she is brilliant too.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
There’s a blurb circulating around the innertoobz by some Princeton roommate of his who says he not only was an asshole, but smelled bad too — is that your friend?
eta: looks like the answer is yes. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/10/ted-cruz-was-a-smelly-terrible-roommate.html
beltane
@Pogonip: Ah, spell check. I am recovering from surgery and am still a bit off so please don’t judge too harshly.
Pogonip
@scav: Yep. More room for “footnotes”!
Anya
@Chris: Says the man who has his own billionaire sugar daddy.
What is it with wingnut stars and their annoying voice? Michelle Backmann, Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz all have the most annoying voices. Their voices annoy me so much that I want to punch them in the throat.
Suzanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
WIN.
However, I have to admit that watching Cruz for the last couple of weeks has been more hilarious than scary. That may be b/c I’ve had a shitty couple of weeks and some people I love have gotten some really shitty news, but I can’t take Cruz seriously enough to be concerned.
PreservedKillick
Since when did the republicans allow the term “conservative” to be hijacked by a group of people who are using it to mean something more akin to “anarchist.”
Right now the question isn’t whether or not the sane wing of the republican party wants to get the teahadi under control, it’s more a question of, “Can they?” And that is scary.
Keith P.
So you’re saying he’s going to quit the Senate in the next few months and rule us via Facebook posts?
Pogonip
@beltane: I would vote for any candidate who proposed to outlaw spell check. If I read one more computer-edited book or article referring to a “grizzly murder” (support your right to arm bears!) I will snap and run amok waving a dictionary.
Get well soon!
Ash Can
@efgoldman: The reason I said “if he does well enough in the primaries” is that I can’t help wondering if the establishment GOP would consider it if Cruz actually did get a large enough and consistent enough (state-by-state) share of votes. I’m wondering if it’s possible for Cruz to garner enough support from the base that the brass would feel as though they had no choice but to put his sorry ass on the ticket.
Then again, maybe the Grand And Glorious Teahad will end up proving to be all mouth and no numbers in the primaries, and the GOP will get on with its campaign without having to accommodate the bat-guano faction.
Elie
@FlipYrWhig:
Nothing you say is not supported by having a personality disorder.I tell you, he could be digging ditches 5 years from now and still really think everything that he did now was just fine.
Someone also alluded to him having body odor (?)This is not uncommon for narcissists who frequently have less than ideal personal grooming.. just don’t care what others think at some level…
sharl
@FlipYrWhig: I think you’re on to something there. When you posted that, I was off elsewhere in the intertoobz searching for “personal Jesus” references in regard to Dubya, and I found this and this. As you say, Ted Cruz really does seem to be lacking that aww-shucks-ah’m-just-a-regular-guy personna that GWB cultivated to go along with his self-declared christian faith.
I’m not sure even a superpower-endowed Frank Luntz can help the Cruzster on that count. Does a guy like that even lower himself to take advice from anyone else?
[Oh, and you jogged my memory about your friend Craig as soon as I saw your comment; I had read your earlier comments on that some time ago when you originally posted them, but forgot.]
Suzanne
@eemom: The comments on that column are hilarious. There is some douchecanoe Cruz-poligist with the nym “Analthendump”. I could not come up with anything more apropos than that.
J R in WV
I’m thinking Cruz will be more funny than Moroni was, and not as scary as Snowshoe Barbie. ETA: Vice versa, on second think…
We adopted a nice lab mix a few months ago, like 14 months old, and she excretes indoors still. We think she was in a tiny yard or big crate, when I brought her home she didn’t know what grass was, and she’s still a little afraid of the dark.
If we watch her like a hawk and feed her outside we can keep her from peeing… but we’ve had to roll up all the rugs, anything fabric around a door is a target.
Any suggestions about training her?
Amir Khalid
@Pogonip:
I feel the same way when I read that someone was “phased”, instead of fazed, by a disturbing event. (By the way, the spelling “amok” is obsolete in Malay. Nowadays, it’s “amuk”.)
sharl
Hmm, last comment tossed into moderation…
More than 3 links? Nope, I put in three (including the ‘Reply to’), but no more.
Must be a banned word (…reading…reading…)
Is it “endowed”?
Just out of curiosity, where can I find that list of FYWP banned words?
beltane
@Pogonip: Thanks!
Mary G
I have occasionally gone to Red State and other places to dip my toe into the infested waters and I have seen arguments over whether it should be Cruz/Palin ’16 or Palin/Cruz 16′. Please proceed, Republicans.
JPL
@J R in WSV: There are folks on the site far better than I am but my idea would be to crate for awhile and only let out on a leash. It really doesn’t take that long and the rewards are worth it.
Mike G
Because nothing promotes faith and optimism in the future like a sociopathic nutbar deliberately driving the country at full speed towards an economic cliff.
geg6
@Mary G:
The FSM does not love me enough to make this happen. Does she?
WereBear
@beltane: Feel better. Hope all is going well.
So, Cruz is a megalomaniac Preacher’s Kid with a narcissistic personality disorder?
Day-um. We need a new word.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
Interesting. I keep wondering if any of the Teabangelical assholes I knew in college in DC will surface in ten or twenty years as national players in politics.
Southern Beale
Remember those Boy Scout leaders in Utah who destroyed a 170 million year old rock formation? Turns out one of them had filed a personal injury lawsuit just weeks before, claiming a “debilitating back injury.”
Fair Economist
@Mike in NC:
Well, they’re correct. The Republican rank-and-file love him. Maybe that will change on a future go-round of shutdown and debt default threats, but if the Powers That Be manage to avert disaster it’s not going to. Most likely by the time 2015 rolls around the Republican rank-and-file will still think we’re on an Obamacare express train to a Stalinist Gulag, and Cruz will be one of the few Republicans to have done all he can to stop it. He’ll be in the catbird seat for the nomination.
His road to winning a general will be looking really bad because the general populace will be very sour on the idea of causing a Depression to get rid of by-then-popular Obamacare, but the Republican rank-and-file won’t care.
WereBear
@Fair Economist: And who else do they got?
Chris
@debbie:
That’s actually a really good analogy. Right wing populists who go completely off the reservation and start attacking their betters as well as the DFHs don’t last long – the party guts them like fish. If Cruz keeps villifying “K Street” and doing things that make the Chamber of Commerce types nervous, he’s about to find that out.
Anne Laurie
@FlipYrWhig:
Palin (and Bachman, and Kelly Ayotte handmaidening for McCain & Graham), being mere women, have to play the “true submissive servant” role for their fellow Dominionists. But men, like Cruz or Gingrich or Romney, have a second model: They can present themselves as the God-chosen High Priests whose every whim is a commandment passed down from the Big Sky King. Dare to disagree with the Chosen One, and surely Jehovah shall smite thee with plagues and lightnings!
There’s always people who’d like to have an “in” with the Big Boss — whether that Boss is conceived of as the Guy in the Sky, or the Head of the Fed, or just the local baron in the HOA assessment office — so there’s always an opening for a
narcissistdeeply self-confident individual to claim the Mantle of Authority and collect a followership.Josie
@J R in WV: My corgi was like that when I got him at 2 months old. He didn’t know what grass was and was nervous outside. I got a small folding pen from Petsmart with just enough room for his bed, his dishes and a pee pad and kept him in the pen most of the time he was indoors. He was forced to use the pee pad, and then I put them outside in various places so that he could smell what he had produced. It took a while, but it worked. It might be more difficult since your dog is older and used to his/her routine.
Bobby Thomson
@Suzanne: the guy who thinks Penn hired Sandusky? Point and laugh.
catclub
@Ash Can: Since he is smart enough to have an acid tongue, I can imagine him doing lots of harm to whoever wins the GOP nomination if he does not.
Southern Beale
What’s that part of the Bible, “Ye shall know them by their fruits?” Ted Cruz is a big fruit all right.
FlipYrWhig
@eemom: Yup! The first story I ever heard about Ted Cruz, 25 years ago, was that he left a greasy film on everything he touched, and Craig and his friends had dubbed the film “cruz,” which rhymed with “scuz.”
Mino
Can you imagine the fun of Christie/Cruz?
FlipYrWhig
@Anne Laurie: Good point. I guess authoritarianism really takes two types: worshipers and paragons.
Tom Q
@Fair Economist: I’m in complete agreement with you. People think just because the GOP managed to nominate its least unacceptable candidate in ’08 and ’12 that this pattern will continue forever. I think this next time out the party’s id will explode in the primaries just like it did in ’64, and Cruz is their most logical go-to.
And, yes, I think Cruz will be crushed in the general, which will be the only thing that will finally cause the fever to break among Republicans with any desire to win a national election in the foreseeable future.
JPL
@Mino: May the best man be alive at the end.
…hmmm…never mind.. if neither is left standing, that would be perfect.
FlipYrWhig
@Elie: Oh, yeah, I wasn’t disagreeing with you. Maybe he thinks his shit literally doesn’t stink, too.
Chris
@Tom Q:
My theory in the 2012 election was that if the Republicans lost again, that’d be two elections in a row which they would see as “we trusted a RINO and he fucked it up,” and they’d probably react by nominating a borderline Klansman in 2016.
I don’t know if that’s true anymore, because of the friction between elites and base that we’ve seen. It’s still quite possible, though.
FlipYrWhig
@Tom Q: What platform would Cruz run on? I mean, I know what he opposes. What the hell is he for? If he were the president, what would he do, other than smite his enemies?
Tom Q
@Ash Can: I think Cruz could be the presidential nominee, but has no hope of being the VP, because that’s something on which party elders would have to sign off, and they have deep contempt for Cruz. Even if he were to do well enough in primaries to threaten but not enough to win the nomination, party elders would pick — to placate his voters — someone less obviously tainted than Cruz but with the same far-right credentials (which is actually about half to 2/3 of GOPers in Congress)
Tom Q
@FlipYrWhig: He wouldn’t be president. He’d only get to be the GOP nominee — for which all he needs to do is embody the free-floating resentment to which Limbaugh/Palin et al. appeal ever day.
Ken
@ruemara: Blackadder, Dish and Dishonesty? Cruz would be the guy from the Standing at the Back Dressed Stupidly and Looking Stupid Party.
FlipYrWhig
@Tom Q: Cruz/Huckabee!
shelly
Would that explain Santorum’s sweater-vests?
Southern Beale
Does anyone think GOP is now scared shitless that they’ll never win the White House again?
JPL
If Cruz were the nominee would he promise to only hire those from the higher ivies for his cabinet? Would it be okay to be an elitist. In fact he could run on the elitist party.
shelly
Yes, God forbid they nominate somehow who has a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning nationally. Chris Christe? After Hurricane Sandy, he said some nice things about Obama’s help. Ewwww, cooties. RINO! He made Romney lose!
Beyond repealing anything Obama had done, can you remember a single thing that Romney was for?
Anne Laurie
@J R in WV:
For whatever consolation it’s worth — we adopted a rescue who’d developed the habit of pooping while carooming around the house at full speed — retraining a dog who’s been forced to overcome the natural canine fastidiousness about not excreting in the den takes a lot of effort. So, it’s not that you’re doing things wrong, it’s just gonna be a hard trek for all parties concerned.
It took me a full year to retrain Sydney, and I was home all day & could send him out with the other dogs every hour on the hour. One thing that helped with Syd was to figure out how long after eating he’d feel the urge, then go outside with him & make a big celebration, with special treats, when he took a dump outside. Your girl is hopefully less neurotic & fearful about everything than our puppy-mill three-time-loser, so with luck she’ll be quicker to pick up on the connection.
FlipYrWhig
@shelly: Santorum plays a different set of cards, but then again, he’s not that much of a celebrity, and not many people like him very much, even on their side.
John O
If he truly believes his own con, he’ll run for POTUS, which is my take. I see nothing but ego on steroids in this guy.
patrick II
In the interview Josh Marshall ends with the summary that Ted Cruz cannot be elected president because he is too much of an asshole. Is he significantly more personally reviled more than Richard Nixon ?. Nixon set a very high standard.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
Alack and alas, Huckabee, too, is under suspicion of being a RINO.
Tom Q
@patrick II: And, remember: Nixon only barely lost to one of the most beloved, charismatic candidates ever.
FlipYrWhig
@shelly: Romney at least had a story: “I’m stinking rich and if you vote for me, I’ll use my business-mogul skills to make you rich too.” Cruz’s story is what? “Let’s take the country back from Those People and [mumble mumble mumble].”
Central Planning
I imagine Cruz doing this in a debate:
Cruz: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Moderator: Yes.
Cruz: Morons!
(apologies to Vizzini)
Anne Laurie
@Southern Beale: He’s a big something… and this is where we tie together political criticism and the subthread on canine elimination…
catclub
@Tom Q: “I think Cruz will be crushed in the general”
No matter who the GOP nominates, they will get at least 42% of the vote and 9 or 10 red states like Ok, ID, MS, AL,
etc. So they will not be crushed the way Goldwater or McGovern and Mondale were crushed. That just will not happen in 2016. Whether losing everything except the deep red states will teach a lesson, who knows.
Fair Economist
@Tom Q:
To back you up, consider how hard it was for the Republicans to nominate Romney when all the alternatives were totally intolerable – and precisely because he was thought of as too compromising. Basically the choice was “Mitt Romney or a nutcase” and the Republican electorate still went “hmm, let me think about it” – for a year! They want a true believer, and bad. So bad even the money wing was barely able to contain them.
(Yeah, I know Newt and Pawlenty aren’t nutcases, but still, the rest were. And at least two of the nuts (Cain and Santorum) were quasi-frontrunners for a while.)
SiubhanDuinne
@Southern Beale: just guessing here — I have no evidence — this is the wildest possible speculation — in fact, I’m pulling this right out of my ass — but is it remotely possible that these BS leaders (in both senses of the acronym) are … RePUBlicans??
WereBear
@J R in WV: I had a lot of luck when I would take a weekend, put the dog on a leash, and have her with me pretty much all the time. It lets you pick up her signals right away, be a reassuring “pack leader” for her, and give you chances to reinforce “not in the sleeping den!” that is still, somewhere, a part of her instincts.
shelly
“Romney at least had a story: “I’m stinking rich and if you vote for me, I’ll use my business-mogul skills to make you rich too.”
***************
And as I try to think back (and the harp flash-back music plays in the background) there were two things. Cut regulation and more tax-cuts on the wealthy. Unleash the job creators!
LeftCoastTom
@FlipYrWhig:
In what way does this ‘story’ differ from what the GOP Base wants?
Regarding Anne’s “not gonna run”, up top, I think Cruz is running. Palin didn’t run because she’s lazy, Cruz is just as delusional, just as much of a grifter, but I don’t think laziness is amongst his many faults (not counting intellectual laziness, which I think is one of his faults). Besides, much of what he’s done in the last month makes no sense whatever if he doesn’t run, and if he is running he can’t admit how stupid he’s been – it better be someone else’s fault.
catclub
@patrick II: “Is he significantly more personally reviled more than Richard Nixon ?”
Nixon won against HHH, because HHH could not/did not break with LBJ over Vietnam, thus was damaged.
If the economy continues to percolate weakly for the next three years – but grows – the democrat _should_ have a strong tailwind. [Just like Al Gore as he sailed into the White House in 2000!]
John O
@Fair Economist:
I’m with you folks. There is only one sane conservative candidate to date, and I don’t think he can win enough primaries to get the nomination. The GOP’s metaphorical and literal dick wins for 2016, better than 50-50.
shelly
Anyways, just really glad that it’s 2013 and not 2012. By this time last year I was getting to be a nervous wreck.
Shalimar
@efgoldman:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Magoo
So he was supposed to be just like Cruz,but they weren’t allowed to do it that way.
Tom Q
@catclub: Just for the record, Mondale got 41%, so it’s not as far off as you imply. (The McGovern/Goldwater numbers are unreachable, at least for another decade or so, when demographics will shift enough to make it possible).
When I say crushed I do mean by current standards — if (hypothetically) Hillary runs against Cruz, she’d get everything Obama did, plus some of that elusive Appalachian Valley, and deeper margins in a lot of states that last year were competitive. If the GOP is reduced to the Montana/South Dakota columns plus the cotton south (minus FL, NC & VA, maybe even AS), that will be seen as a defeat requiring serious re-thinking.
John O
@Elie:
This.
Hasn’t everyone known someone like this?
JPL
@Fair Economist: Newt’s a nutcase. As far as I know, narcissism is still in the DSM still has it listed. My goodness he delivered divorce papers in the hospital while his wife was treated for breast cancer. While he was impeaching Clinton, he was having relations in the Senate parking garage and now he’s a born again Catholic..
Knight of Nothing
Does anyone else think that Cruz looks like Grandpa Munster (Al Lewis)? It’s uncanny.
Tom Q
@efgoldman: See, the way I see it, it was the fact that multiple sugar daddies enabled Santorum & Gingrich to split the reactionary vote that helped Romney slip through. If the far-right vote had coalesced early on, there were primaries (like MI) that would have gone a different way. They need to decide on someone right at the top in ’16, and Cruz is making himself available for that.
There’s also the possibility, for a change, of a split among the non-crazies. Christie seems to me way too objectionable to the Teahadis — that embrace of Obama sits in their gut like the Charlie Crist hug. And if anyone else is competing for the same vote (Jeb Bush, John Thune, whoever), they’d have a hard time staving off a united loony vote.
Chris
@efgoldman:
Yeah, I always thought most of his legend was retroactive.
Of course, I also always wondered how much more popular he might have been if not for simple anti-Catholic bigotry.
Tom Q
@efgoldman: I don’t dispute that Kennedy’s Catholicism was a heavy burden, but I don’t think his charisma was some after-the-fact creation — it’s certainly what got him the nomination (as opposed to, say, any real credentials). And he, much like Barack, always scored high on personal likability.
And speaking of rewriting history: I read at some point in ’08 that the whole “people who listened to the debate on radio thought Nixon won” was itself somewhat mythological — based on one questionable poll, surveying a very small group (considering that, even by 1960, there weren’t that many people listening to debates on radio)
JPL
The tea party is all forgiving but Cruz will be attacked because he’s an elitist (higher ivies).
Cruz will be attacked because he thought or thinks Hagel could have committed treason, if, if, if. Somehow attacking a Sgt that served in Nam, seems lame.
Cruz will be atacked cuz he wanted to go over the clift, but he didn’t He passed for cloture. All the Benghazis in the world won’t help him.
aimai
@Fair Economist: They will love cruz until he loses and then they will forget all about him. They love a butch bastard so long as they think he has a chance of really hurting their enemies, but if he loses then they will run the other way.
Ash Can
@Knight of Nothing: I know that if you dropped a curly gray wig on him he’d look like someone’s great-aunt.
burnspbesq
@PreservedKillick:
Approximately the winter of 1961-62, when people started planning Goldwater’s 1964 campaign.
chrome agnomen
@Southern Beale:
i have said to several people in my demographic that we will not see another president from the right in our lifetimes. (i am 63)
Steve S
FSM doesn’t love us enough to make this the GOP ticket.
patrick II
@efgoldman: what Marshall is asserting is that by is too personally disliked, So the comparison to Nixon stands and your comment makes no sense.
Woodrowfan
there’s always someone that claims that people like Cruz are “just grifters” and don’t believe what they say. No, they are true believers, raised in an information bubble that we rarely see. They really do believe this stuff. They can still be grifters, but that doesn’t mean they know they’re lying.
Woodrowfan
I am a pessimist. I think we’ll see one more. and that they’ll be the worst of them all. The right has built itself such a huge, elaborate information bubble, that I don;t see how we’ll even be able to end its influence before they turn to wide-spread violence…
Mike G
They said later it appeared to them that
the rockthe debt was ready to fall and might hurt someone. In the video, posted on Facebook,one manTed Cruz can be seen leveraging himself againsta nearby rockthe debt limit and pushinga formationit over. “Somelittle kidfreedom-loving country was about ready to walk down here and die andGlennTed savedhis lifeMurka bygetting the boulder out of the waythreatening to default,” the cameraman is heard saying. “So it’s all about savinglivespolitical careers by holding the economy to ransom here atGoblin ValleyTea Party Headquarters.” As therockcountry’s creditworthiness falls, the three men laugh, cheer and high five each other.JPL
@Woodrowfan: Although I agree with you, I think the approach is to call them liars. There is no proof to their bullshit and they need to be called on it. Rep. Yoho convinced his folk that cutting grants would solve the budget problems while not touching insurance programs like Medicare and
Social Security and he’s a liar. Call them liars.
Nutella
@Mike G:
Heh. That’s right on the money. These people are all the same.
Punchy
@Steve S: As ucked fup as Cruz/Palin is, people are actually arguing for Palin/Cruz? Whitey Teabag Fumundah?
Chris
@Woodrowfan:
That’s possible. One more right winger. And that one’ll be the Jimmy Carter/Herbert Hoover figure, the person who people remember so poorly that it takes decades before his ideology’s ever given another chance.
JoyfulA
@FlipYrWhig: Like Mitt being the Golden Calf or Red Calf or White Horse or something? How did that work out?
Redshirt
@JoyfulA: White Horse, and prophecy is difficult. Easier to shift the dates, continually.
Citizen Alan
@FlipYrWhig:
This. Any discussion of Ted Cruz MUST take into account the fact that his father is a Dominionist preacher who turn America into an Evangelical theocracy tomorrow if he could. IMO, the great weight of evidence is that Teddy-boy is a True Believer with all that entails.
WereBear
@Citizen Alan: Not hard to believe in a “religion” which makes Daddy rich and tells you that you can do pretty much whatever you want.
In fact, that might just be Republicanism!
Chris
@Citizen Alan:
For those nonwhites that are still in the GOP, that seems to be the draw – Dominionism. Even if you aren’t a white supremacist, you can always be a Christian one (especially since that’s more politically acceptable).
patrick II
@efgoldman:
You are mixing political and personal. Nixon was not personally liked, Ike especially disliked him, — but he was politically respected. Tailgunner Ted has lost political respect, but I don’t think any amount of personal dislike due to being (as you say about Nixon) a”hateful paranoid racist bigot” would work against Ted if his political strategy had worked for the party. It did not.
We can’t count on personal revulsion to keep Ted from being the republican nominee. Politics hopefully will.
Woodrowfan
@JPL:
Works for me!
Knight of Nothing
@Ash Can: If he did that, he might look like Mrs Doubtfire.
schrodinger's cat
Heh Obama totally pwned Cruz, time to do the Happy Dance.
pseudonymous in nc
Josh Marshall’s point is that Cruz has a history of enjoying making enemies, because it vindicates his sense of superiority. You can only do that for so long and burn more bridges than a marauding army of visigoths.
gian
@efgoldman:
Romney was a big fan of the locked dorms attached to Chinese factories
You know to keep the job seeking parasites out
Jeffro
@Alexandra: Mentioned that very thing in an earlier thread…I see him more blackmailing/extorting his way onto it. The guy is Nixon to Christie’s Ike, or will be.
fuckwit
That Dominionist shit is seriously fucking scary.
fuckwit
@catclub: I am really fucking sick and tired of the assumption that the American public is too fucking stupid to view a Presidential election as anything other than a referendum on the economy. Yeah yeah, I know, Clinton started this “it’s the economy stupid” thing, but it’s STUPID.
We won’t get anywhere with that. People will just keep randomly pushing R and D buttons every 4-8 years in alternation and wondering why the elevator never fucking comes. Push the other button! Naw that doesn’t work, push the other one. Shit, no elevator, push it a few more times!
If people are doing shit like that, it’s a sign they have no clue how the system they are attempting to control actually works– its’s a black box to them. If people are doing that, it’s a scary thought for democracy, no, in fact it’s the end of democracy. We can’t function as a country if the voters do not understand how the country functions.
One of the things I really hated about Clinton is that he gleefully encouraged this ignorance and seemed to think it was the greatest thing evar. One of the things I love about Obama is how he patiently and consistently attempts to educate voters as to how their government and political system actually works (or, in this case, doesn’t).
catclub
2012 was the best evidence that we do not do this. The blame still resided with GWBush and Obama was NOT blamed for the bad economy. So… progress!
Also, Al Gore not getting elected in a walk, is further evidence that the economy is not all that is measured. Not necessarily a good thing. Economy was still good in 2000.
fuckwit
@Amir Khalid: Then again, I’d jump out of bed cheerfully if money was fucking flooding into my bank account from teabaggers and corporate elites every single day, like Cruz has. For him, what he’s doing is working amzingly well: he’s cleaning up.
priscianus jr
@FlipYrWhig: the guy running the con is supposed to be appealing, or sympathetic, or something: he has to win you over so he can pick your pocket. How does Cruz manage that? He’s funny-looking, has a silly voice, and he’s obviously enormously full of himself….. Whatever Cruz’s act is, it ain’t that, because lofty condescension oozes from every pore.
Cruz’s act is that he’s a stupid, cowardly person’s idea of a brilliant, fearless person. He’s actually wildly popular with the people he’s wildly popular with.
priscianus jr
@Chris: “For those nonwhites that are still in the GOP, … ”
All five of them?
priscianus jr
@aimai: “They love a butch bastard so long as they think he has a chance of really hurting their enemies, but if he loses then they will run the other way. ”
Well. he just lost.
joel hanes
@efgoldman:
Nixon’s loathsomeness really didn’t become public until the Watergate tapes and congressional testimony in ’73 and ’74.
I think you can see the beginnings of dominant self-pity in the 1952 Checkers speech, and it’s floridly displayed in his paranoiac 1962 “You don’t have Dick Nixon to kick around any longer” concession speech.
Fred
@TS: Cruz also (unlike Palin) has the presence of mind to refrain from cracking a smile while explaining some sad fact, that is being blamed on those LIBRULS.
GRANDPA john
@Fair Economist: If he continues to follow the scorched earth policy of blaming his failures on the party hierarchy and public criticism of the leaders of his own party, I predict that by 2016, he will simply be a very minor historical footnote.
Look at Rubio. Much like a fireworks display, it makes a very spectacular display briefly, but when it is over is there anything of substance left?
GRANDPA john
I too lived through this period and I fully agree with you.
The problem with trying to equate people from two different eras is that unless you personally lived during the times of both, it is impossible to make an unbiased personal comparison not based on outside influences..
sort of like trying to compare George Washington to Obama. There is really no common factors that could be used to make the comparison, whereas those of us who lived during the times of both Nixon and Cruz do have the ability to make “personal” comparisons based on our own opinions