The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Theodore Fancy Pants Underestimated.

    By Oxy Mora on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 4:10pm |

    The political repercussions of the latest budget and debt hostage-taking exercise by tea Republicans in Congress won't be known for another week or two when we find out whether or not the government has been shut down, if the nation's credit rating has been lowered again, and what concessions Obama has made this time around. And the long term aftermath of this latest tea party act of sabotage is unpredictable. What is knowable is that Ted Cruz has name recognition on a level that rivals anyone in politics or the entertainment industry.

    By now everyone not only knows who Ted Cruz is but everyone has an opinion about him, and the majority of opinions are negative regardless of whether you are a Democrat or Republican. One of the recurring themes against Cruz is that he has fancy degrees from fancy schools---Princeton and Harvard, the criticism making sense if you are a tea party Congressmen with a degree from Liberty University and your political support is nominally "populist"---i.e., rank and file. Regardless of what stripe a particular Republican is, what better internecine insult can be hurled at Cruz than to accuse him of being a  Mr. Fancy Pants.

    I have a penchant for the contrary viewpoint when political narrative goes too far in one direction and particularly so when the popular opinion is shared by members of both parties---that's just unnatural. I think Mr. Fancy Pants is being underestimated and one of the main reasons I think so is because name recognition is Step One, and I'm guessing is about 80% of the political game. So Cruz is within striking distance of a Vice President pick or Presidential nomination.

    The essential task for any Republican candidate in a general election, and perhaps in a Republican primary, is to pick the moment when one pivots from hard right Helmsmanship to confessing a lean toward Centrism. Cruz is the perfect chameleon. In the facility to change to a Centrist color he is, imo, a far superior talent than was either Romney or G.W.Bush.

    As his raw talent, knack for getting elected and law career indicate, Cruz is no Dummy---which brings to mind Rick Perry, one of the Obamacare kibitzers who is being too cute---that is, "let's deal with it and reform it". Perry is stupidly moving to the Center way ahead of the 2016 election. Cruz will make ham salad of Perry in any primary battle.  

    George Bush wasn't dumb---got better grades at Yale than Kerry. But without his family legacies Bush would never have gotten out of Texas except for vacations. Both Bush and Romney were privileged in ways Cruz wasn't, and I think Cruz has more fire in his belly than either of them.  He wasn't all that happy with the lack of recognition from Bush after playing a key role in the Florida recount which actually handed Bush the election---so Cruz has the power of resentment and revenge to propel himself forward. About the only thing Cruz could learn from Bush is the Texas swagger.

    If Romney made a successful pivot to the Center and nearly won the Presidency, why can't Mr. Tea Party cum Fancy Pants do even better? Three years is a long time in politics and as one pundit quipped, by 2020 Republicans will be promising to protect the health care benefits won under ACA---and that would be Mr. Republican Cruz, F.P, in 2020, assuming he's not elected in 2016.

    Cruz was lampooned for reading Green Eggs and Ham during his faux filibuster. But by 2016 Ted Cruz will be eating brownish-red ham heaped up with scrambled eggs and will be proclaiming the right of every American citizen to exercise their God given right to do the same. Cruz will make sure that everyone knows that it is his opponents who are eating an un-American Fancy Pants breakfast, the one with all the fresh basil in it.  

     

      

     

    Comments

    He wasn't all that happy with the lack of recognition from Bush after playing a key role in the Florida recount which actually handed Bush the election---so Cruz has the power of resentment and revenge to propel him forward.

    That he played any role at all in it is enough to disqualify him, imo.

    Beyond that, check out his Wikipedia page. It is very disjointed, not at all what I would expect from a party-favored politician. No doubt it will change now that everyone knows his name so I clipped it to a file for future comparison.

    One last observation, when I first saw a photo of him, he reminded me of Joe McCarthy - strictly on appearance as I knew nothing about him.  How weird is that?

     


    by EmmaZahn on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 7:06pm

    Thanks, Emma. Compared to other Republican candidates, I don't see that his career has been disjointed.

    I agree that he is a little creepy looking but he could possibly have mild plastic surgery and blow dry his hair, softening his appearance.

    Don't you think he could win a Republican primary in Florida?


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 8:07am

    Compared to other Republican candidates? That's a low bar! And yes, his career has had a clear trajectory but he barely touched the bases along the way. Stints too short to have acquired any real experience. It was the Early Life section that struck me as a disjointed. It was more about his parents' lives than his, especially his father's; and, the dots did not connect well. Found it hard to reconcile the touting of his humble origins with the excessive pride in being Ivy.

    For the record, I did not say he looked creepy. I said his photo reminded me of Joe McCarthy. Yes, Joe McCarthy was creepy but that had nothing to do with his looks. ;)

    Could he win a Republican primary in Florida? With Cuban.ancestry? Sure.

     

     


    by EmmaZahn on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 12:11pm

    Thanks, Emma. Compared to other Republican candidates, I don't see that his career has been disjointed.

    I agree that he is a little creepy looking but he could possibly have mild plastic surgery and blow dry his hair, softening his appearance.

    Don't you think he could win a Republican primary in Florida?


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 8:07am

    LOL...Chris Cristy has a better chance.  People from Texas don't retire here.  He might carry The Villages.  Anyways he would never carry Florida in the general election. We will have a Democrat as a governor then.  It will be easier to turn out the vote then.


    by trkingmomoe on Sun, 09/29/2013 - 3:43am

    The person he looks most like is Bill Murray.


    by Peter Schwartz on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 2:26pm

    GQ feature fills in some of Cruz's bio:

    Ted Cruz: The Distinguished Wacko Bird from Texas


    by EmmaZahn on Tue, 10/01/2013 - 1:30pm

    I don't think themes like 'Obamacare is like Hitler' is going to play well nationally, although the Fruitcake GOP Base will love it.


    by NCD on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 7:51pm

    Thanks, NCD. He'll come up with a Checkers speech and renounce some of his more outrageous comments. And there is always repentance as a ploy.

     


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 8:10am

    Maybe a walk on the Appalachian Trail will let him get closer to His Maker.


    by NCD on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 8:39am

    Many of us in Florida knew he was one of the lawyers who worked on the 2000 train wreck.  We may not of known his name but we remember his face on local news.  He is just a snake oil salesman.  He is out to become president.  That isn't going to happen because the house republicans are sinking the party.


    by trkingmomoe on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 10:47pm

    Trking, I don't see that anything he is doing now would disqualify him from a Republican primary win.


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 8:12am

    No way will Ted "Joe McCarthy Jr." (No relation to me) ever be elected nationally. He might be kinda smart, but he isn't smart enough to see that most people, nationally are repulsed by his antics.  He also wasn't smart enough to understand that once he began to attack his own, GOP members, that would backfire on him. I think the Senate Republicans, outside of Rand Paul, libertarian hero, are going to shut him down. Senate Republicans  seem to have coordinated their own attacks on Senator Cruz.  I mean, Bob Corker went after him, exposed Cruz's hypocrisy and his penchant for lying, and Cruz should understand that all those snippets will be used against him, when he runs for whatever office he runs for next. Cruz doesn't seem to understand that TBaggey as a crazy ideology (keep government hands off my Medicare) is a very small part of America. They are the old Moral Majority of the 80's and the black helicopter crowd of the 90's, but they are not mainstream by any measure. They are just Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin sycophants, who are easily confused by propaganda.

    I think it would be great if Republicans nominated him, because the Democrat would win in the greatest blowout since 1984. But I don't think that will happen because he has made so many enemies on his own side. All Democrats have to do is sit back and watch them implode. 

    I hope he runs, I can't wait to see Republicans rip him apart. It's going to be epic.

    Nice blog, sorry about the rant!


    by tmccarthy0 on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 9:13am

    Oxy,

    Such a fun and informative read--again! 

    Senator Cruz, as far as my tea leaves are showing, is having his fifteen minutes of fame right now.  The only question I have is whether there's another 15 or so down the road.  My hunch, as TMAC (who is and will undoubtedly be salmon-filled for the next couple of weeks!) says, he ain't gonna be measuring for drapes in Lincoln's bedroom.  Oy, could you imagine?

    Geez I need to get to work!


    by Bruce Levine on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 9:30am

    I thought Josh's little series at TPM where he talked to former classmates of Cruz (including himself at Princeton and his wife at Harvard law) was telling -- there was a general consensus that he was an a-hole but even the people who hated him most didn't call him a dumb or stupid a-hole.  And, the people who liked him basically described the same a-hole qualities but described them as rigor, loyalty and tenacity.

    I'll add Cruz to the list of people like Eliot Spitzer, Steve Rattner, Larry Summers and Newt Gingrich who have succeeded as much because of their a-hole traits as they have in spite of them.  Dangerous people.


    by Michael Maiello on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 10:15am

    Well he might not be technically stupid, but he is myopic in his zealotry which clouds his ability to see reality. He doesn't seem to understand that shutting down the government is going to backfire yet again on Republicans. He buries himself in TeaBaggery and has somehow convinced himself that this is how the majority of people feel. It's as though he doesn't realize an election took place. It's as though he believes he can bully the nation into doing his will.  Unfortunately congressional Republicans might  allow this to happen. I don't like his style, I don't like how he uses zealotry and demagoguery as weapons to divide the country further, he is like the Limbaugh of the Senate, a name calling troll, who will bully anyone and everyone to get his way. This whole thing is mind blowing in that he's gotten away with it so far. 

    I did love Josh's stories, they were incredibly interesting and fun to read. Cruz has one gigantic ego.


    by tmccarthy0 on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 10:42am

    I thought Josh's and Yglesias' comments about Cruz's Ivy-ness were more revealing about the both of them than Cruz. Intellectual snobbery. Pffft.

     

     


    by EmmaZahn on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 12:17pm

    I'll add Cruz to the list of people like Eliot Spitzer, Steve Rattner, Larry Summers and Newt Gingrich

    At first I thought this was a very astute comment, Michael, but then after reading the demagogue comment I posted downthread, I changed my mind. These are all "know what's better for the masses than they do themselves elitists," while Cruz panders to any nuttiness he thinks useful in some scheme in his head we don't fully understand yet.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 3:18pm

    Interesting list, Michael -- Cruz, Spitzer, Rattner, Summers and Gingrich. As you say, dangerous people, but in each case their assholity came back to bite them in the ass. All have fallen from grace and from positions of influence and power (except Cruz, for at least the next 15 minutes). But their worst trait is also their redeeming one: they crash, but they don't burn. They bounce. Think Richard Nixon; we didn't have him to kick around any more, then we got to kick him again, and now he's enjoying a posthumous image revival. (I say we keep kicking.)


    by acanuck on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 3:49pm

    The best opinion I have read on him is two comments by a "Boris Millman" @ The Atltantic on Garance Franke-Ruta's post, Ted Cruz's Senate Speech Revealed His Softer Side. My bold:

    Boris Milman

    • 2 days ago

    Ted Cruz is not a complicated political animal. He is not a liberal. He is not a conservative. He is a demagogue, pure and simple. Demagogues are fundamentally non-ideological, and are perfectly happy to embrace any "idea" or "argument" from the left or the right as long as it appeals to the mob the demagogue is trying to get support from.

    As Merriam Webster tells us, a demagogue is "a political leader who tries to get support by making false claims and promises and using arguments based on emotion rather than reason." Of all the millions of words written about Cruz in the last few months, this simple dictionary definition is by far the clearest and more direct explanation of who he is and what he does.

    Boris Milman azt24

    • 2 days ago

    There are "left-wing" demagogues and "right-wing" demagogues. But regardless of the ideology a particular demagogue espouses, they are all fundamentally the same because they all employ the same dishonest and manipulative tactics for the main purpose of securing their personal advancement. This is what separates a demagogue like Ted Cruz from ideologues such as Ron Paul or Noam Chomsky.

    And, in fact, Hitler had no coherent ideology in the left/right sense. The Nazis combined left-wing and right-wing populism in a fairly ideologically incoherent program. The only thing about Nazi ideology that was clear was that Hitler was the unquestioned leader.

     


    by artappraiser on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 2:04pm

    Oxy, as usual, is right.  But it's not "fancy pants", it's "kinky boots".


    by jollyroger on Fri, 09/27/2013 - 3:17pm

    Thanks all for the timely and informed comments. My instinct is that regardless of this shutdown business, we will be contending with Cruz for a long time to come.   

    1. I tend to agree with the viewpoint that he is more demagogue than anything else. He obviously makes up things as he goes along, the hallmark of a con man (is that inconsistent with being a demagogue?). I don't for one second buy the notion that as a kid he sent Jesse Helms a $10 campaign contribution---it sounds like an outright lie to me.
    2. It seems to me that Cruz is closer to Nixon than anyone else I can think of. Nixon played the piano and awed the people.  All Mr. "Kinky Boots" has to do in order to garner wider support from our star struck electorate is to don a pair of dark glasses and strap on a turquoise Fender Stratocaster.

    by Oxy Mora on Sat, 09/28/2013 - 1:47pm

    It worked:

    Ted Cruz Now Leading the GOP Race for President

    PP Poll page says now the top choice of Republican primary voters to be their candidate for President in 2016. Which made me think: if anyone who is still registered as a Republican cares any more about not being one and the same as the Tea Party, they aren't the kind of person that gets out and votes in primaries.

    And then I thought about how the reason the Congress is in the situation it is is that what we have is a whole lot of voters that used to have party affiliation but now consider themselves to be Independents, and they don't have any primaries in that "party." Now it's probably the case that a lot of those people never voted in primaries, even when they were registered D or R. But over the years, the system has adjusted to the situation where it is even less likely that they will ever do so.

    Edit to add: I am not under any illusion this means anything but name recognition for Mr. Cruz. Still, the fact that he gets such support so fast tells you what is rewarded among GOP primary voters. And on further thought, I am highly reminded of the liberal/progressive blogosphere commentariat's years of chanting for Congresspersons with a "backbone." That any time someone did a Ted Cruz like performance piece for liberal/progressive causes, he/she became the new favorite flavor of the day in their section in the blogosphere. I don't follow the conservative political blogosphere, but I imagine it works very similarly.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 09/30/2013 - 3:41pm

    Thought maybe you might appreciate knowing about this piece:

    Ted Cruz’s Mask of Sincerity
    by David Denby @ The New Yorker, October 30

    Home page Intro: Cruz’s obstructionism is a seemingly nihilistic grab for power disguised as a principled opposition to Obama)

    Beginning excerpt:

    When Ted Cruz lies, he appears to be praying. His lips narrow, almost disappearing into his face, and his eyebrows shift abruptly, rising like a drawbridge on his forehead into matching acute angles. He attains an appearance of supplication, an earnest desire that men and women need to listen, as God surely listens. Cruz has large ears; a straight nose with a fleshy tip, which shines in camera lights when he talks to reporters; straight black hair slicked back from his forehead like flattened licorice; thin lips; a long jaw with another knob of flesh at the base, also shiny in the lights. If, as Orwell said, everyone has the face he deserves at fifty, Cruz, who is only forty-two, has got a serious head start. For months, I sensed vaguely that he reminded me of someone but I couldn’t place who it was. Revelation has arrived: Ted Cruz resembles the Bill Murray of a quarter-century ago, when he played fishy, mock-sincere fakers. No one looked more untrustworthy than Bill Murray. The difference between the two men is that the actor was a satirist.

    Cruz is not as iconographically satisfying as other American demagogues [.....]


    by artappraiser on Wed, 10/30/2013 - 12:39am