Rafael Edward Cruz
It’s official: Rafael Cruz, the “junior” Senator from Texas, has announced that he is a candidate for the republican nomination for President in 2016.
Almost immediately, his announcement was followed by discussion of if Rafael can actually be president, because he was born in the socialist nation of Canada? Call it speculation upon my part, but I predict that this is not a question that the US Supreme Court will be forced to answer, one way or the other.
Thus, the more important question to be considered is if the Cruz candidacy is a good thing or a bad thing? And that leads to the follow-up questions: Is it good for Democrats? Republicans? Or bad for America? Or is it a combination of good and bad, that allows us an objective measure of the pathology that infects our national political life?
GOP Congressman Peter King just called Cruz a “carnival barker,” a semi-humorous attempt to dismiss “Ted” as being similar to Sarah Palin. This suggests that Cruz will face strong opposition within the republican party’s primaries. Before we even consider the possibility that he could win the republican nomination, we might do well to focus on the dynamics of the republican primaries.
Rafael will not be the republican establishment’s candidate. It seems important that we understand that this is not because Cruz is a “maverick,” who has always sought to inhabit the margins of his party. In fact, just the opposite is true. I find myself thinking of an old LBJ quote about specimens of Cruz’s ilk: “he’s not a pimple on a good man’s ass.” If we adjust this ever so slightly, we can view Cruz as an infected boil on the republican party’s ass-cheeks.
In 1999 - 200, Cruz served as a lawyer on the George W. Bush campaign. He advised the campaign on issues involving social policy. After Bush lost to Gore in the November, 2000 election, Cruz was elevated to a position where he became an advocate for the theft of the presidency, first before the Florida courts, and eventually before the US Supreme Court.
After the USSC opted to make the theft of the election “official,” it appeared that Cruz was set for a career within the comfort zone afforded by the most criminal administration in American history. But, as we know, that didn’t happen. The Bush-Cheney administration decided to have the infected boil removed. In Cruz’s political career since then, too little attention has been paid to why they dumped Rafael.
The truth is that even the scoundrels in the Bush-Cheney administration found Cruz to be too obnoxious, self-righteous, and pompous to work with. And when we look at his behaviors in the US Senate, it is all too clear that his spoiled brat persona stands out in defining him. He holds onto his grudge against not only the Democratic Party, but also the republican establishment.
His campaign’s goal is not to gain the support of the majority of republicans in the primary contests -- although no doubt, that is his personal fantasy -- but rather, to damage the establishment’s candidate to an extent that allows the tea party and other marginal sub-species to join in creating a common front, and selecting the 2016 candidate. That means he will seek to harness the discontent of those who support Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee.
While this should provide some serious entertainment during the republican primaries, it is never good to underestimate the forces of fear and hatred in our society. I do not think of Cruz as just a joke, though there is plenty to laugh about in his campaign. It’s sad to think that there are people who would actually vote for this guy.
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