[h/t David]
Welcome to the Sunday Show Ted Cruz love fest, brought to you by the Village. Cruz is a TeaBircher darling who conservatives see as the next Barry Goldwater. He is their Messiah, the guy who can unite them and propel them into a Senate majority in 2014 and the presidency in 2016. Cruz is not inclined to disagree.
In this revealing segment with former stealth-TeaBircher-now-exposed Jon Karl of ABC News, Cruz lets us all in on his humble nature.
KARL: Cruz himself has a resume that looks like anything but an outsider. Princeton graduate, Harvard Law degree and the first Hispanic to clerk for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
You've got an interesting background for a Senator. You argued a case before the Supreme Court at age 32.
CRUZ: It's an extraordinary opportunity to stand before the U.S. Supreme Court. It takes your breath away. And we didn't have a prayer. We were not going to win that case and I stood up and for 30 minutes, there was not a single friendly question. Not a single neutral question. It was--
KARL: Scalia beat up on you too?
CRUZ: Scalia, Ginsburg, the chief. It was 30 minutes of getting pounded. It was a head of tuna being thrown to a school of sharks. I will tell you, I have always liked the fact that I sit in my office and I look at a giant painting of me getting my tail whipped 9-0. And it is very good for instilling humility. To look and see, OK that's what it looks like to lose.
Translation: I know what it's like to get whupped and I've vowed never, ever to allow it to happen again. I may be an underdog but I'll fight. Even if it means I have to rewrite history just a little tiny bit.
KARL: Looking ahead to 2016, Cruz says Republicans must nominate an unapologetic conservative. In other words, somebody who's politics match his own.
Nationally it looks really tough for Republicans. You've lost five out of the last six popular votes, presidential elections. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have gone Democratic in all six of the last six Presidential races. That's 242 electoral votes.
CRUZ: You know if you look at the last 40 years, a consistent pattern emerges. Anytime Republicans nominate a candidate for president who runs as a strong conservative, we win. And we nominate a moderate who doesn't run as a conservative, we lose.
Never mind that Ted Cruz has completely turned his back on Latino voters with his "no amnesty" view of immigration reform. Never mind all that, because we all know strong conservatives who win the nomination win, right?
Like Barry Goldwater? There was a winner.
Like Ronald Reagan? Reagan, who was roundly denounced by the conservative wing of the Republican party after he -- dare I say it -- hecompromised with Congress. Egad. Anyone who lived through the Reagan years knows he ran as a centrist, not a conservative, even though he most certainly destroyed a large part of the country with conservative policies. Cruz hates compromise! The last nail in the Reagan-as-solid-conservative coffin comes via Reagan's immigration reform which included amnesty as an actual provision in the law.
Like that solid conservative George W. Bush, who ran as a stealth conservative in the guise of a centrist? Bush hoodwinked the whole country by pretending to be moderate.
The list of other "solid conservatives" who ran and lost roundly is a far longer list. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum in 2012. Mike Huckabee in 2008. Ron Paul, over and over and over again. Sarah Palin. Christine O'Donnell. Todd Akin. The list goes on and on and on.
Ted Cruz may be a proud whacko bird by his own definition but he's also a dangerous one. He has the intellect and he has a ruthless ambition that wants to cut straight through the trappings of democracy and take what he believes to be his. He also thinks he's got God on his side.
The one thing he doesn't have is history. No solid conservative that would meet his very pure definition of conservative has actually won a Presidential election in the last 40 years. So he'll rewrite it! It's what they do.
