Only 20 months before the 2016 elections, Sen. Ted Cruz has announced his candidacy for the Office of President. The Republican Senator was the first in any party to officially declare his intention to seek the highest office in the land.
Only 20 months before the 2016 elections, Sen. Ted Cruz has announced his candidacy for the Office of President. The Republican Senator was the first in any party to officially declare his intention to seek the highest office in the land.
These being the times they are, and our political parties being the train wrecks of wealth and privilege they are, I suppose it is not surprising Mr. Cruz delivered his post-announcement vision for the country at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., a bastion of conservative thought. But I do not believe the Texas senator’s narrow appeal to the far right bodes well for the U.S. of A.
Mr. Cruz styles himself a populist, seeking to appeal to the “common folk” with assertions that government just gets in the way of people achieving economic success. Sadly, his positions mainly reflect those of his deep-pocket campaign contributors.
Sen. Cruz has decried the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, without favoring or blocking particular products or websites. In an infamously tone-deaf declaration, seemingly written by telecommunication industry lobbyists, he called Net Neutrality “Obamacare for the Internet.”
For this he was roundly laughed at by partisans of all stripes as well as technologists.
Cruz also works in the service of Big Energy, recently co-introducing a law to prevent the federal government from regulating greenhouse gas emissions through its executive agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency. In essence, the American Energy Renaissance Act would forbid using The Clean Air Act, The Federal Water Pollution Control Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, The Endangered Species Act, and The Solid Waste Disposal Act to fight global warming.
And Cruz publically longs for a fictional time in America when Christianity held absolute sway in public governance. He has earned a score of 100 percent from Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, meaning he is absolutely opposed to parting those institutions. One suspects his stand would be different on a government informed by the principles of Buddhism, Hinduism, the Bahá'í Faith, Sikhism, or other religions practiced by millions in our country.
The smart money is betting the smarmy senator’s star will fade as more adult and centrist candidates enter the fray. The sad thing is, Cruz’s candidacy will get plenty of traction in the early primaries, allowing his scant sliver of conservative social and political appeal to hold some seriously outsized sway in how Republican candidates position themselves to win the nomination.
Because if the GOP has to kowtow too long to the far right before pivoting desperately middle-ward in hopes of garnering American votes, the Democrats will not have to play their “A” game to keep the White House.
And that will mean you, my fellow citizens, and I will have little chance of voting for someone attentive to the genuine needs of America and its people, let alone someone able to provide leadership to our fractured land.
Pat Grimes, a former South Bay resident, writes from Ypsilanti, Mich. He can be reached at pgwriter@inbox.com
