Jeet Heer, at TNR, asks whether Ted Cruz “can knit together a coalition of purists and pragmatists”:
… In January, before he pulled the plug on his own presidential campaign, Senator Lindsey Graham spoke for many Republicans when he said the choice between Cruz and Donald Trump was “like being shot or poisoned. What does it really matter?” Yet by the end of March, Graham had come around to accepting Cruz as the more palatable evil. “He’s not completely crazy,” Graham noted on The Daily Show, explaining why he joined the “Ted train.” Returning to his older metaphor, Graham added, “Donald is like being shot in the head. You might find an antidote to poisoning, I don’t know, but maybe there’s time.”
The backhandedness of Graham’s endorsement illustrates the key problem Cruz will face even if he wins in Wisconsin. Hardline conservatives are Cruz’s core base. But to move beyond his current status in second place and secure the nomination, he needs to attract many more people like Graham, who have a history of animosity toward him. In effect, Cruz’s path to victory means combining two completely opposed constituencies. And they just happen to be constituencies that he’s worked hard to set in opposition against each other.
If Cruz is able to pull off this seemingly impossible balancing act, it’ll be thanks to a quality he rarely gets enough credit for, his wholesale cynicism. Cruz is so surrounded by animosity that it is rarely noted that there are two contradictory accounts given as to why, beyond his personality, he is so odious.
Many liberals and moderate conservatives see Cruz as a fanatic, a true believer who is willing to enact extreme policies like the government shutdown in order to advance his dogmatic vision. This was the Cruz portrayed by Jeffrey Toobin in a 2014 New Yorker profile titled “The Absolutist.”
Yet some Republicans who share Cruz’s professed conservative politics don’t see him as an ideologue at all. They view him as a cynic who craftily adopted their worldview out of self-interest, to win over the faction he needs to win the Republican presidential nomination…
… It might be in Cruz’s best interest to drop a few hints to the establishment that he’s not the purist ideologue that some have made him out to be, that he’s more Tallyrand than Robespierre, more crafty Stalin than true-believing Trotsky. This would mean encouraging others to have an even lower opinion of his morals, but a higher opinion of his pragmatism. Such an overture to the establishment might overcome any lingering doubts the Lindsey Grahams types have and make them truly eager to join the “Ted train.” …
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— libby watson (@libbycwatson) April 6, 2016
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— Betsy Woodruff (@woodruffbets) April 6, 2016
Excellent Read: “The GOP’s Default Messiah”Post + Comments (49)