Salon.com > Ted Cruz

Texas official stares down election monitor straw man

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 20:44:00 +0000

Who wants to mess with Texas?

Dark, mysterious forces, if you believe certain state politicians. Republican Senate candidate and possible Tea Party poseur Ted Cruz has taken a brave stand against Agenda 21, which he describes as a George Soros-funded plot to give the United Nations sovereignty over America’s golf courses and paved roads.

And now the Texas Tribune reports that Republican state Attorney General Greg Abbott wants to make sure a group of European election monitors don't get to see anything untoward. In a letter to the group he wrote:

What they’re saying: Is Ted Cruz for real?

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 22:06:00 +0000

On Aug. 5, Ted Cruz, winner of the Texas GOP Senate primary, appeared on Fox News Sunday to discuss his victory and the enduring strength of the Tea Party, a movement he claims to represent. Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general who over the course of the campaign received the endorsements of Sen. Jim DeMint, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, proudly acknowledged his conservative credentials in response to Chris Wallace's questions.

Wallace: Let's look at where you stand on the issues. You want to abolish Education, Commerce and Energy Departments, TSA and the IRS. You support a flat tax and you serve Chick-fil-A at your victory party. You are pretty conservative?

Cruz: Without a doubt. And I think the American people are pretty conservative, and I'm certain the people of Texas are pretty conservative... [and] All across the country, the rest of Americans are looking at Washington and saying, what's wrong with you people? The principles that I think voters are looking for are not that complicated. It's live within your means, follow common sense principles, don't spend money you don't have. And that's what American people are standing up and demanding right now. (See the full transcript here.)

How right can the GOP go?

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Does Tea Party pressure on Republican primaries help or hurt conservatives? This week, conservative member of the House Todd Akin pulled off an impressive upset in the Show-Me state's Senate primary to take on incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill. McCaskill is widely seen as vulnerable, with Akin the consensus weakest – and most conservative – of the three Republicans running against her. Ask most conservatives and liberals, and they would agree that well-organized primary challenges have been a big part of Republican success. But there’s another side to this story, as well. Could primary challenges backfire?

Clearly, there are some cases in which ideological challenges are an easy call. For example, Texas Republicans were certain to hold the open Senate seat there, and so it made perfect sense for conservatives to push for the candidate they thought would be best in office, regardless of how it would affect the November vote. Even if nominee Ted Cruz might do several points worse than defeated Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, that would just mean he will win by a slightly smaller landslide. There was little reason for conservatives to have backed off that challenge.

GOP: More attitude!

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 13:30:00 +0000

Welcome to the politics of attitude.

The two big stories on the Republican side of the aisle this week were the big Texas showdown in which Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz easily defeated Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst for the Senate nomination in that state and the Chick-fil-A brouhaha. You rarely get better examples of exactly what movement conservatives really care about, and how little it has to do with the substance of policy.

The Cruz/Dewhurst race was just about the ideal test case for the politics of attitude. Conservatives, both nationally and within Texas, rallied to Cruz. Why? Because Dewhurst was, to them, insufficiently conservative. And yet there was, near as I can tell from the reporting on the contest, absolutely no content to that accusation. This wasn’t the case of someone who had voted for TARP, or had once supported a health care insurance mandate, or had been a squish on immigration. No, the main talking point against Dewhurst was very simple: He had displayed a willingness to cut deals with Democrats. Not bad deals, just compromises of any kind. Republicans, the story goes, lose because their politicians just don’t have the backbone to stand up to the liberals in Washington, and Dewhurst was exactly the kind of politician who would perpetuate that.