Posted on 12/23/2014 2:28:03 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
After leading a losing and disastrous gambit that shut down the government over Obamacare last year, Sen. Ted Cruz brushed his critics aside. “I’m not serving in office because I desperately needed 99 new friends.”
Fair enough — no one would confuse him for a Dale Carnegie groupie.
But the fact remains that to be an effective senator, the Texas Republican needs to get other members to work with him. And, at the moment, the collective membership of the world’s greatest deliberative body would rather stick needles in their eyes.
Last week, Cruz brought the 113th session of Congress to a painful close, keeping senators in D.C. for a Saturday session pressing a “constitutional point of order” that attracted just 22 votes and paving the way for Harry Reid to speed consideration on dozens of nominations for President Obama. Cruz ultimately apologized to his fellow Republicans for the schedule “inconvenience,” while Democrats took to Twitter thanking him for making possible the approval of a controversial pick for surgeon general.
The freshman insists Reid would have jammed the nominations through in any event. He’s probably right, but that assertion misses the larger point. In the U.S. Senate, making noise is easy, getting things done is hard. It’s not enough to want to do something or even to say you want to do it. You have to find a way to do it. The vote Cruz demanded was futile and everyone knew it. Yet Cruz still insisted on calling it up at the 11th hour without even giving his own colleagues fair warning.
In interviews, Cruz spoke as if he was forcing a meaningful and decisive vote on the “illegal executive amnesty.” It was neither. Does anyone seriously believe that the 20 Republicans who opposed Cruz’s motion support Obama’s end-run around Congress? Even Pat Toomey, one of the chamber’s strongest conservatives, turned Cruz down, explaining he just couldn’t find anything unconstitutional about the spending bill (spending being a power the Constitution grants explicitly to Congress).
If Cruz’s real goal was to draw attention to himself, mission accomplished. Like Elizabeth Warren, he’s learned quickly that in the Senate there is rarely a downside to being a big, loud “No.” It grabs headlines, panders to a political base, and carries zero political risk. What more could a self-absorbed senator want? To actually accomplish something, perhaps, which neither has yet done in their short congressional careers.
Which brings us to 2015, the opportunity for Republicans, and the challenge for Cruz.
Next year, the Republican-led Congress will pass big pieces of legislation. It will produce a budget and send spending bills to the president. It will act on the Keystone pipeline and other energy concerns and even take up trade and immigration policy. Still, the practical requirements of 218 votes in the House and 60 in the Senate requires that no significant bill can perfectly reflect the view of any one individual.
Like every other member of Congress, Ted Cruz needs to decide if he wants to participate in the process of shaping legislation — which means, on occasion, supporting less than perfect outcomes — or not. Make no mistake, effectiveness is not a matter of making friends, it’s a matter of earning professional respect. And right now, there is little to be found for the junior senator from Texas.
To date, his disdain for working with his colleagues has come through loud and clear. Cruz called the spending bill approved last week “a perfect example of Washington corruption.” Having voted against plenty of spending bills in my time, I’m sure it was filled with billions in unnecessary spending. Calling out a bad bill is one thing, but maligning the motives of everyone who disagrees with you burns the very bridges needed to get anything done in the future.
There’s also nothing new in the idea of being a Senate maverick. John McCain has employed that approach more effectively than anyone. To his credit, however, McCain never loses sight of the most fundamental aspects of crafting legislation: At the end of the day, you need to be able to strike a deal and you need to have someone willing to work with you at the table.
It appears the Texan’s inspiration comes not from McCain but his 2008 running mate. Cruz has become the Sarah Palin of the Senate, going rogue and insisting he’s the only one speaking truth to power. That may work in a governor’s office — or on a talk show — but not on the Senate floor. Then again, it may not matter. President Obama proved you don’t have to be an effective senator to succeed in Washington. He may be Ted’s real role model after all.
no, this is his son.. Senior Sununu was never a Senator but a governor.
As well being the source of many of the WORST decisions made by the first George Bush!!!!! The Republican party CANNOT get better until nitwits like this are excised.
This is the son, former Senator John E. Sununu.
Democrats and the old school Republican leadership are totally like third world dictators in that everything is NEVER their fault, they get rich and retire on the peoples money while making a mess of things.
The Islamic religious leaders act the same way as well. Live this way, pay that, blame others and worship us as well.
How is a real American supposed to operate with all the jerks in power?
Cruz forced a shutdown because the dems refused to delay Obamacare.
Two months after the shutdown via executive action, Obama delayed it.
The take away from the shutdown was that Democrats will lie and showboat to score political points
Cruz did a lot more than just “attract attention”...otherwise Sununu wouldn’t feel compelled to try and sell this load of steaming bovine excrement.
Ted Cruz isn’t doing bad, but he needs some more ‘Likes’.
12/23/14
Senator Ted Cruz’s Facebook page has 877,687 likes
https://www.facebook.com/SenatorTedCruz
12/23/14
Senator Rand Paul’s Facebook page has 1,835,809 likes
https://www.facebook.com/RandPaul
I agree, but Sununu misses the fact that Cruz is shaping legislation. His leadership may not produce good spending bills (ones that cut FedGov by 40% this year), but he is changing the conversation and moving us away from rapid and automatic growth in real spending. I'd settle for seeing spending shrink by 5% to 10% per year in real dollars for the final two terrible years under the communist from Chicago/Hawaii/Indonesia/Kenya. After that, President Cruz can push more aggressively for responsible spending instead of settling for merely less shockingly wasteful spending, for killing Obamacare, for killing Amnesty, and for restoring the rule of law.
Oh. I stand (sit actually) corrected.
Still don’t care.
lololol
The Cruz vote was anything but futile. It forced every member of the Senate to register his/her position on funding Obama’s illegal Amnesty. He attracted half the members of the GOP who voted. Not bad. And we now know who our friends are and who remain solidly in the GOPe camp.
So much for futile. So much for GOPe Sununu.
Sununu is NOT the predictor of the future of the Republican party!
Well, what I got out of this is it reminded me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFIcjfWvNYw&index=1&list=PLCRkFWhvWGbwC8KyTL8ZgmEMnAcPQmQP5
Hey, former Senator.... current Senator Jeanne Shaheen called. Remember her? She just wanted to say “Ha ha!”
McLame took the maverick label to advance his Presidential aspirations and ingratiate himself among the Washington press corps. He was a “maverick” because he bucked his party and moved to the left. Cruz bucks his party from the right, and this makes all the difference to the establishment.
The real take away was the overall results in the 2014 elections, the ONLY POLL that counts..
F a bunch of dems and media.
Rand has all the Rontard Paulestinians behind him, so of course he has almost a million more likes. Fat lot of good it did his goofy father, who never won a presidential primary.
I’ve never liked Sununu.
“Cruz has gained attention but little else”
So has Howard Baker, but The Establishment doesn’t seem to be climbing over themselves to keep announcing it.
Cruz does not want to be a go along to get along senator.
He is a rare bird who actually strives to fulfill commitments he made to voters during his campaign.
One of one Cruz will defeat Jeb Bush.
With multiple candidate dividing primary voters, Jeb will be your next nominee, and Hillary will defeat Jeb.
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