Ted Cruz’s sulking rage: How his ire could impact GOP leaders

[DonViejo]

By attacking McConnell and Boehner from the right, Cruz and friends make rival Republicans actually look reasonable

ALEX PAREENE

Republicans are stumbling toward the 2014 midterm elections fighting amongst themselves again. Democrats are happy to see it, because Republican disarray is one of the few things that could prevent another very good election for the GOP. We should all know the reasons for the Republican advantage by now: Midterm voters are older, whiter and more conservative than presidential election voters. Democrats have more Senate seats to defend. Republicans have a huge, baked-in advantage in the House, thanks to redistricting and the clustering of liberal voters in urban districts. So the great Democratic hope is that Republicans will sabotage themselves, by nominating unelectable wingnuts for Senate seats, and demoralizing the base with infighting. So far, Republicans seem to be cooperating.

The element of the GOP that is dedicated to a magical thinking-based strategy of forcing the nation into default until Obamacare is repealed is not happy with Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The party leaders agreed to support a “clean” debt limit increase, so that the party could not be accused of trying to bankrupt the country (again) right before these very important elections. (The plan is to save the next major crisis for 2015, I think.) This, obviously, has been treated as a grand betrayal of conservative principles by the usual players.

Ted Cruz — whose Senate career seems to be leading toward either sabotaging the Republican 2016 campaign or quitting the Senate after one term to become a professional conservative celebrity — actually forced Senate Republicans to openly vote for the increase, and ever since he has been relentlessly trashing McConnell and the GOP leadership for capitulating. As he told conservative radio firebrand Mark Levin, “they wanted to be able to tell what they view as their foolish, gullible constituents back home that they didn’t do it.”

That is basically true! It’s also true that McConnell and Boehner can’t really blame Ted Cruz for this being an issue. As Brian Beutler explained, once the GOP leadership allowed the debt limit vote to be used to extort concessions from Democrats, they legitimized debt limit extortion as a tactic. Do it once, and conservatives will understandably wonder why you’re not doing it every time the debt limit is up for a vote.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/19/ted_cruzs_gift_to_boehner_how_he_could_help_gop_leaders_by_undermining_them/

[1StrongBlackMan]

1. Good OP ...

My take aways: cruz, et. al., are changing the gop frame an extremist party with a few pragmatic folks to a mainstream outfit captured by a few extremists. That's not particularly good for Democrats.

And, the OP's assessment of cruz's senatorial plans: to screw with 2016 or RESIGN AND BE A "PROFESSIONAL CONSERVATIVE CELEBRITY."

I hadn't thought of that! He could make a lot of money extending the $I$ter $arah, the Alaskan Grifter/Mike "I'll run if you pay me" Huckabee revenue streaming model.

[DhhD]

2. Cruz is attacking R-Texas Senator John Cornyn by supporting R-Steve Stockman:

Extremist Steve Stockman for US Senator, arrested for drug possession of controlled substances, for the coming senatorial election.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2014/02/record-mug-shot-from-steve-stockmans-drug-arrest-that-he-now-denies.html/

[DhhD]

3. If you have time, take a spin over to the Texas Group for more stories about Texas RW-Crazies.