Horowitz: Ted Cruz and the Politics of No

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Rob Horowitz, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

Rob Horowitz

When William F. Buckley launched National Review, in 1955, he explained the magazine's purpose. ”It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.” Buckley launched this still influential journal of conservative thought at a time when new deal liberalism was the dominant political philosophy of the United States and conservatism was in full retreat, marginalized to the edges of the public square.

If it was still 1955, perhaps the tone and substance of Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) announcement speech for President at Liberty University last week in which he positioned himself as the strongest and stoutest opponent of an ascendant, all powerful national government that is stamping out our freedoms and smothering the individual initiative that drives economic success would ring true.

If you just arrived from Mars, and all you knew about American politics you learned from Cruz’s speech, you would not realize that Republicans control both Houses of Congress and that there is a conservative majority on the Supreme Court: nor would you know that the moderate wing of the Republican Party which was the dominant wing in the 1950’s, has been all but eliminated. It would certainly surprise you to learn that conservatives rule the roost not only on Capitol Hill but in statehouses throughout the nation. In fact, you might even think that the only person standing between the United States and dictatorship itself was that courageous fellow Ted Cruz—the one who used Patrick Henry’s famous “Give Me Liberty or Give me Death” remark not once—but twice in his speech..

In his announcement speech, Cruz doubled-down on the slashing take-no-prisoners political style that characterizes his brief career in the US Senate. He has grabbed attention by working to block any efforts at compromise, leading failed efforts to repeal Obamacare and roll back the President’s immigration executive order, risking shutting down the government or defaulting on US debt in order to accomplish these objectives. While doing so, Cruz alienated many of his fellow Republican Senators, and developed a well-earned reputation for playing fast and loose with the facts.

As in his Senate career so far, Cruz offered few if any positive policy initiatives or new ideas. His predictable focus was blasting the President’s policies with special attention paid to Obamacare. Cruz said, “Five years ago today, the president signed Obamacare into law. Within hours, Liberty University went to court filing a lawsuit to stop that failed law. Instead of the joblessness, instead of the millions forced into part-time work, instead of the millions who’ve lost their health insurance, lost their doctors, have faced skyrocketing health insurance premiums, imagine in 2017 a new president signing legislation repealing every word of Obamacare.”

While Cruz’s harsh criticism of the President will be music to the ears of republican primary voters, by itself, it will not sufficiently separate him from the rest of the field, most of whom have built more substantial records of accomplishment than the first-term Texas Senator. If he is going to emerge as a major candidate with a serious prospect of winning the nomination, Cruz will need to unveil a compelling set of policy proposals and give voters a sense of how he plans to address the major challenges facing the nation.

There is one thing we know for sure about the upcoming Presidential race. Barack Obama is not running. And a candidate that runs just saying no to Obama policies, while painting a picture of the nation that few, even among Republican primary voters, will recognize as accurate is unlikely to win the Republican nomination. Watching Senator Cruz over the past few years, that’s something to which I for one give thanks.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Email to a friend Permalink

Horowitz: Ted Cruz and the Politics of No

Related Articles

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Most Popular Articles

Sign Up for the Daily Eblast

Sign Up for the Daily Eblast