Ted Cruz Did His Tea Party Thing in Iowa, This Week

cross-posted from MNPP

the radical right wing 'fringe'
is trying to
destroy America

Ted Cruz dazzled the Crazies on the right wing fringe in Iowa this week, and not for the first time recently.

He's mostly focused in Iowa on bragging up what a success his strategy of shutting down the government was. To the Tea Party up is down, black is white (unless it involves actual skin color) and failure is the best kind of success. Also, hot is cold wet and dry are interchangeable, and there is no problem with any of them in excess.

As Bloomberg noted, Cruz is gunning for another shut down fight. While he is currently trumpeting the purity of his tactics and position to the extremists, he wants more of the same. In the category of failure is really success:

Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who incited a standoff over Obamacare culminating in a 16-day U.S. government shutdown, told party activists in Iowa that fighting the health law will pay dividends in the 2014 midterm elections.

Bloomberg went on to note other claims made by Cruz in Iowa:

Cruz tonight dismissed such suggestions and said that U.S. politics have shifted. “It is a paradigm that is the rise of the grassroots,” he said. “It has official Washington absolutely terrified.”
“Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing matters more than an energized and active and vocal grassroots American,” he said. “That’s how you win elections.”
The legislative standoff over the government shutdown forced Democrats to take “a lot of stupid votes” that will haunt them a year from now, including refusing to repeal an exemption from Obamacare for members of Congress, Cruz said.
“Come October and November of 2014, we are going to see TV commercials all over this country of Democrats who voted to give themselves a special exemption from Obamacare,” he said.

Cruz has plenty of nutjobs worshipping his crazy talk:

A.J. Spiker, chairman of the Iowa Republican Party and a supporter of former Representative Ron Paul of Texas in the state’s 2012 caucuses, said Cruz could catch on as a 2016 presidential contender.
“With people who are unhappy with what Washington has been delivering for the last 50 years, I think his message of late is something that’s really appealing,” Spiker said. “He’s bringing a message that it’s serious to the point where it’s time for an intervention by the adults.”

Cruz continues to spread his false message that there are millions being harmed by the ACA - there aren't; and that Congress has some kind of exemption from the ACA that they don't have:

“I promise you, come October and November of 2014, we’re going to see TV commercials all over this country of Democrats who voted to give themselves a special exemption to Obamacare that their constituents don’t get and there are going to be some Democratic members of Congress and of the Senate who are suddenly going to be experiencing the joys of the private health-care system,” Cruz told the crowd.

In the internal war is really unity category, per USA Today:

Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, who has been drawn to the presidential testing grounds of Iowa three times now in less than three months, told an audience of about 600 at the Republican Party of Iowa's annual Ronald Reagan fundraising dinner: "We need to come together."
"And let me tell you, growth and principles are ideas that unify Republicans," he said. "They are principles and ideals that unify the evangelical community, the liberty movement and the business community. Growth and freedom are principles that bring together Main Street and the tea party."

There seems to be no indication that EITHER Main Street or Wall Street want to unite behind him, and he is credited with causing a deeply destructive chasm among conservatives. But heck, if one lie plays well to the delusional fringe, no reason to stop at one.

Looking for a positive claim t make, Cruz claims he has the key to prosperity and unity -- something he clearly does not. One of his claims for bringing about that prosperity is to deny climate change, and to resist any economic measures to control greenhouse gases. It's hard to imagine the Tea Party accepting a candidate possessing any conformity or lack of total and extreme purity of delusion.

So of course, part of that involves climate change denial deluded orthodoxy. It's more like reality denial, uniquely the purview of the Tea Party.

Here's what the Guardian was talking about:



I would argue that when you lie, you lose. After the recent shut down disaster, and the very real scare of the debt ceiling crisis -- and costs -- the majority of voters, sane conservatives, independents and unaligned voters, and of course Democrats of all stripes and flavors, will oppose an attempted candidacy by Ted-the-fuse Cruz, bomb thrower of the fringe deluded.