Once denounced by McCain as ‘wacko birds’ hogging the spotlight, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are soaring. Nick Gillespie on why Cruz’s faux filibuster has nothing to do with Obamacare—and everything to do with building a broad-based coalition.
Nick Gillespie
The Daily Beast
9/25/2013
Make no mistake about it: the on-going “extended speech” by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)has absolutely nothing to do with defunding the Affordable Care Act—or even delaying it for one goddamn day…
…The wacko bird caucus overlaps pretty well with the Tea Party. Besides Cruz and Paul, it includes such characters as Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Reps. Justin Amash (R-MI) and Thomas Massie (R-KY). Despite meaningful differences among them, they all support cutting federal spending and taxes, and reducing regulations on business and other economic activities. Unlike many members of the GOP, they are critical of the national surveillance state and, at least in the cases of Paul and Amash, are principled non-interventionists who are quick to question the Pentagon budget.
At a time when a record high 60 percent of all Americans agree the federal government has “too much power,” the wacko birds are flying pretty high, especially when they attack their own party for its utter malfeasance during the Bush years. There’s every reason to believe that the future belongs to the wacko birds and their general, transpartisan message that government is too big and too powerful. The trend throughout the 21st century, reports Gallup, is increasing skepticism toward Washington, D.C. The trend is particularly pronounced among all-important independent voters, who make up a plurality of the electorate. In 2003, 45 percent of them thought the government was too powerful. Now it’s 65 percent. They will vote for candidates—and a party—pushing limiting government…
Read the complete article at The Daily Beast.
Related: Quotes of the day
…Ted Cruz and Mike Lee will not get the forty-one votes they need to sustain their filibuster. They will be betrayed by Republican senators who are willing to fund Obamacare while claiming to vote against it. But in this filibuster and in their brilliant strategy, they have exposed Republicans who will not fight. They have exposed Republicans who are so desperate for their own reelection they will say or do anything when they could not bother in off years. They have shown Republicans that there are Republicans who are willing to stand up to Barack Obama and to the cowards within their own party.
They have also exposed a lot of people on the outside as frauds. To be sure, there are conservatives who have legitimate reasons to disagree with this strategy. But there are a whole lot who have been exposed as finger lickin’ frauds — willing to put their finger to the wind of beltway opinion to chart their course.
The Beltway Republican pundits bellyaching over Cruz and Lee fighting the fight others promised to fight is just a fart in the maelstrom of conservatives united against both Democrats and the finger lickin’ frauds within the Republican Party who talk a good game then fold like cheap suits…
And if you didn’t read this in one of our other posts: Revealed: Obama came up with ObamaCare because he needed a throwaway applause line in a campaign speech
Pelosi: Let’s face it, Republicans hate Obama because he’s eloquent and “nonpartisan”
Update: John McCain: In Order to Survive, Republicans Must Become Civilized, and Endeavor to Persevere
He’s a Democrat. I don’t mind that he’s a Democrat, but he’s going around the country claiming to be part of the opposition party…
Update 2: Audio at The Right Scoop:
Update 3: Ted Cruz Reveals that the Republican Establishment Despise Their Own Base
…Cruz is appealing over McConnell’s and Boehner’s heads, listening and talking directly to the voters. Everyone said he could not get the House to attach defunding to the continuing resolution. So Cruz did not try to convince the speaker and his complacent, pusillanimous followers. He went on TV, he took out ads, he ran an internet petition, and he called for people to fight. They responded. They’re hungry to fight. People are fighting for their health care, their jobs, for control over their own lives…
