Or so it seems to me. On the outside looking in, he seems incompetent. He is engaging in a useless filibuster and making lots of republicans in the senate and house hate him in the process. If the government does go into shutdown, the republicans will get more of the blame.
But he seems like he has a good strategy. He likely knows there is no chance a filibuster will work, it just makes him look principled to tea party conservatives, who make up 50%+ of primary voters. So when Cruz runs in 2016 he will have a lot of leverage in the primary election.
Plus as far as him being hated by republicans for his antics, he can pass that off as him pissing off the ‘moderate’ and establishment republicans. The conservative base seems to think the GOP is too liberal and cooperative, so Cruz is going to win support for standing up to them.
If he wins the primary, the republicans who hate him will have no choice but to support him the same way Bill and Hillary Clinton had no choice but to support Obama in 2008.
Plus Ted Cruz has written about how the GOP has to appeal on economic issues. Granted it will be all talk, but considering we will have had 8 years of economic collapse and stagnation by 2016 a message of conservative economics could have some appeal.
Then again, it might not. It isn’t like the economic collapse will have magically happened because of too much regulation instead of too little, and it isn’t like corporations will stop doing everything they can to avoid offering a living wage and benefits to tons of workers. So the message may not have too much appeal. But Ted Cruz could find a way to make his message appealing if he can convince people that conservative economics will lead to high paying, full time jobs with benefits.
So I’m guessing that is his strategy. No idea if it’ll work but it could.
It’s clean against Leary’s Law (“Thou shalt not alter thy brother’s mind without thy brother’s consent”), but, oh! I can’t help wishing I were a page, and in a position, when Cruz starts his filibuster, to slip about a hundred hits of LSD into his water-pitcher . . .
Even uglier: FoxNews personality and former Republican politician Sarah Palin has demanded that her employer release the names of those who sent the questions to be used against Cruz. In the interest of being “fair and balanced”, mind you.
It’ll probably play great with the far right. Other people may notice that it made no difference and never stood the least chance of making a difference. I think that’s part of why other Republicans are annoyed at Cruz: they get to make (for them) a difficult vote while he gets to grandstand and make them look like jerks.
Eh, I agree he’s doing this to get his name out there as a Prez candidate. But I disagree that its particularly crafty. The opinion of party leaders depends a lot on getting the party nominations, especially the GOP nomination. Its not like the GOP rank-and-file was calling out for a Mitt Romney Presidential candadacy in 2012, after all.
Cruz seems to have really pissed off his parties leadership, while at the same time not accomplishing anything beyond the Republican’s 3 bajillionth meaningless symbolic effort against Obamacare.
Apparently, though well above the dose you suggested.
Estimates for the median lethal dose (LD50) of LSD range from 200 µg/kg to more than 1 mg/kg of human body mass, though most sources report that there are no known human cases of such an overdose. Other sources note one report of a suspected fatal overdose of LSD occurring in November 1975 in Kentucky in which there were indications that ~1/3 of a gram (320 mg or 320,000 µg) had been injected intravenously. (This is a very extraordinary amount, equivalent to over 3,000 times the average LSD dosage of ~100 µg).[75][76] Experiments with LSD have also been done on animals; in 1962, an elephant named Tusko died shortly after being injected with 297 mg, but whether the LSD was the cause of his death is controversial (due, in part, to a plethora of other chemical substances administered simultaneously).[77]*
In a basically Cruz-friendly article in the Weekly Standard, the author notices the senator repeating the same phrases. In public speeches, in an office interview and even later…
Another detail–during his career of public service, Cruz also worked at a Houston law firm. Taking in about 3 million dollars in a few years…
Cruz is a smarter Rick Perry, or the political Tim Tebow: Destroying opponents on an amateuer level but will flounder in the pros. He’s arrogant and can’t read a defence in 3 seconds. In the 2016 GOP primaries Cruz will say something apologetic about, say, slavery, and the the Republicans will do a collective oh-no-who-did-we-wake-up-with (as they did with Perry).
Plus all the opposition research the GOP leadership needs is right in the recent GQ article on Cruz. Buried on page 3 is the meatiest and most relatable part of the profile:
I mean, who doesn’t know (and hate) *that *fucking guy?
Mmmm. “Opportunity conservatism.” Either someone already got to Ted with that acid or he’s been playing with Palin’s random word generator. It does have the ring of truthiness and cromulence to it though - you have to admit that much. And honestly, in American politics, what more do you really need brothers and sisters? Add to that a heaping helping of folksy charm and you’ve got the trailer trash trifecta.
If that constitutes “crafty” then Ted is definitely such and at least in the same league as the average televangelist. I would normally put politicians a notch above that since the natural selection pressures are more numerous and less forgiving, but whatev’s.
If you think however that things aren’t going to improve between now and 2016, whether in terms of GDP growth, employment, or any other measure you think is important - I wouldn’t bet on it. Or if I did, I wouldn’t bet much and I’d hedge that bet. The most you can hope for, if you want some sort of economic disaster scenario, is that economic growth will accelerate, take the federal reserve by surprise and result in a significant level of inflation by then. Inflation is a great economic issue for conservatives - isn’t it? It was back in the 80’s after Carter failed so miserably. So if you want to hope and dream, at least hope for something realistic.
The clown car has begun picking up the usual loonies to disport for our pleasure, but they really need to think twice about picking up hitchhikers they see along the way.
