I really don’t particularly care that Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for the presidency. I’m not a Republican so I won’t vote in the Republican primary. Which means I can’t vote for him. I doubt that I’ll have the opportunity to vote against him in the general election. Consequently, his announcement just hasn’t seized my imagination is it appears to have for conservatives and progressives alike.
I do want to draw attention to the reactions of the editors of the Wall Street Journal to Sen. Cruz’s announcement:
The President treated Republicans with the contempt he holds them in, and so he failed to bring along any of their votes. Had he worked across the aisle, like Ronald Reagan did, his reforms would have a better chance to endure than they do now. Mr. Cruz will have to convince GOP voters that he is not another self-centered governing rookie who thinks he doesn’t need to work with Members of Congress, however much he despises them.
As the parties and the electorate become increasingly polarized we will see more of that. That successful people will stop doing what has brought them success in the past is a forlorn hope. The empirical evidence supports the Peter Principle.
There are strategies available for avoiding polarization. Rules that prevent gerrymandering of Congressional districts prevent candidates selecting their constituencies rather than the other way around. Federalism allows two political parties peopled by individuals with strongly differing ideas about what constitutes good and just ways to live both to get their way. Decentralization in government more generally promotes that effect.
What I see ahead is more of what we’ve seen for the last several decades and that worries me.
I agree with some of your comments, Dave, about the increase in political polization. It’s become toxic in DC, and Cruz’s announcement is another symptom of it, IMO. I personally don’t think he has a broad enough following, though, to achieve the nomination. And, if there is a silver lining in this, it will be that he will present a far right POV giving the voting public a broad GOP spectrum in which to select a candidate — unlike what the dems are so far offering, in their HRC assumed candidacy.
A week or so ago I tried to spark a backchannel discussion among my fellow Watchers on the subject of compromise. I found it impossible to convince them that 10% of the country wasn’t going to be able to engage in successful power politics against the other 90%.
I’ve reached the point that I wish I could see the prospect of a candidate that I do care about! It all seems rather hopeless.
I’m still officially registered Republican, I could vote for Ted Cruz, and I still don’t care. But it has been funny watching various Dems say that he’s too inexperienced as a one-term Senator to be President.
That was my point in quoting the Wall Street Journal’s editorial. I don’t see how an inexperienced, demagogic, uncompromising conservative ideologue is better than an inexperience, demagogic, uncompromising progressive ideologue.
The war between conservatives and progressives invariably reminds me of this:
Sorry, I saw “editors of the Wall Street Journal” and skipped that part.
Incidentally, your criticism is one I’ve also made of Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. Rubio’s probably the most accomplished of the bunch, and that’s not saying much. There’s little indication that any of them would actually be able to do the job. Oddly enough, the Republicans I know that criticized Obama for his inexperience had little to say about the inexperience of the other three. Instead it’s more, “He’s saying the right thing!” [This is me making a rude gesture of contempt to that line of thinking.]
It’ll also be funny watching people switch sides on the whole foreign birth thing, too. Personally I’m at least consistent on this point. While I believe Obama to have been born in Hawaii, I wouldn’t care if he had been born in Kenya. How much more natural born citizen can you be than having an American birth mother?
Dave’s lips say he doesn’t care about Ted Cruz. But his heart is an open book. He’s scared; very scared.
Cruz has got to be the worst for this criticism. I think he’s alienated fellow Republicans with his stunts as well.
Actually, I am much less worried now. Dave has assured me Cruz is just like Obama. Should Cruz run and win, his signature piece of legislation will be health care reform that he steals from some Democratic governor.
Steve