“I‘m not serving in office because I desperately needed 99 new friends in the U.S. Senate,” Sen. Ted Cruz has said. Turns out he could’ve used at least a few.
A group of Cruz’s congressional family — current and former members alike — has begun to disown him in his hour of need. It’s not just the typical resentment from colleagues Cruz has engendered for his creative legislative maneuvers. A veteran like Sen. Richard Burr allegedly said behind closed doors that he would support Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, before he would his Texan cohort. And others have gone to even further lengths to distance themselves — unthinkable ones.
There’s more. Another former majority leader — this one also a former Republican nominee for president — said the GOP would experience “cataclysmic” electoral losses with Cruz as the Republicans’ choice for the White House. Former Sen. Bob Dole said Trump, on the other hand, could “probably work with Congress, because he’s, you know, he’s got the right personality and he’s kind of a deal-maker.”
There’s an irony to such party elders offering Trump as a preferable alternative to Cruz. Cruz made enemies among GOP ranks for his attitude and behavior during a series of high-profile confrontations in Congress the last couple of years, including his efforts to defund Obamacare through an appropriations fight. On such occasions, Republican Congressional leaders emphasized substance and unity over Cruz’s style and solo act.
Along comes Trump, whose combativeness and intransigence are now legendary in the annals of political history. Cruz never was as obstreperous as The Donald, but even his thorniness doesn’t match Trump’s default persona: uncompromising and unsparing. THE WEEKLY STANDARD’S Michael Warren observed in New Hampshire that Cruz “remarkably is now positioning himself as a reasonable and principled uniter,” even.
Yet Trump’s personality is passable to many Republicans when forced to choose between it and Cruz, and the baggage Cruz tows: his poor relationships with fellow senators and an utter lack of goodwill. He is demonstrably more conservative than his chief rival, both in the paper trail of their political histories and the present campaign. But to some — “some” growing larger by the day — that’s not enough to overcome bitter memories. Substance takes second place to style by default.
