Senate Republicans Just Gave Ted Cruz's Campaign a Huge Boost

Don't look now–I mean it. Don't look, for the love of god!–but the Republicans in the United States Senate just guaranteed Ted Cruz's presidential campaign a huge boost among those anonymous hayshaking Bible-bangers who are the only Republicans who matter to that effort. And the way you know that is the fact that, in response, Ted Cruz got up on the floor of the Senate and brought the temple down on his head.

After the Senate voted to end debate on a resolution to fund the government, Cruz tried to procedural move to bring up one that wouldn't fund Planned Parenthood. His colleagues blocked him, even though senators are routinely granted votes on such measures even if they're destined to fail. In other words, it's a swift parliamentary smack in the face. Once the dust settled around 6:15 p.m., Cruz dug in for more than hour of his classic hits on D.C., channeling his base's "volcanic" frustration with Republican congressional leadership via Planned Parenthood, the Iran nuclear deal and the Barack Obama administration. "I will give President Obama and the Senate Democrats credit," said Cruz. "They are willing to crawl over broken glass with a knife between their teeth to fight for [their] principles. Unfortunately, leadership on my side of the aisle does not demonstrate the same commitment…The people who show up at the polls, who elected you and me, and who elected this Republican majority, far too many of the Republican donors look down on those voters as a bunch of ignorant hicks and rubes…It wasn't too long ago when the Washington Cartel was able to mask it all with a show vote or two, and they'd tell the rubes back home, 'See, we voted on it, we just don't have the votes."

Right now, the Tailgunner appears to be in the same position vis a vis his colleagues as was Fred Van Ackerman, the fanatic senator in Allen Drury's Advise And Consent. This, of course, does not matter a damn. Cruz's target audience does not include Mitch McConnell or John Cornyn. His target audience is made up of a couple hundred anonymous preachers in and around Iowa, and some hardcore gun-fondlers in New Hampshire. What is a republic to do when the best move that a candidate of one of its two political parties can make to get elected is to trash as best he can every institution of that republic, including the leadership of his own party? Where in the hell does that leave the rest of us?

By denying Tailgunner Ted a chance to make his motion, thereby prompting the shower of spittle in which its courage was completely impugned, what is chucklingly called the Republican Leadership in the Senate made what amounts to be an in-kind contribution to the Cruz '16 campaign. Hell, they all but wrote his next attack ad for him.

According to Morgan, writing in Reds, Joe's friend Urban P. Van Susteren, a lawyer, and later judge, whom McCarthy had named divorce counsel for Shawano County, and who had applied for active duty in the Army Air Force in early 1942, advised him: "Be a hero--join the Marines." When McCarthy seemed hesitant, Van Susteren asked, "You got shit in your blood?" Van Susteren, whose daughter Greta later became a Fox News correspondent, managed McCarthy's 1946 Senate campaign, and during McCarthy's Senate career he stayed with Van Susteren whenever he was in Appleton.

McCarthy established a bond with the powerful Kennedy family, which had high visibility among Catholics. McCarthy became a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., himself a fervent anti-Communist, and was a frequent guest at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port. He dated two of Kennedy's daughters, Patricia and Eunice, and was godfather to Robert F. Kennedy's first child, Kathleen Kennedy. Robert Kennedy was chosen by McCarthy as a counsel for his investigatory committee, but resigned after six months due to disagreements with McCarthy himself and committee Counsel Roy Marcus Cohn.

Joseph Kennedy had a national network of contacts and became a vocal supporter, building McCarthy's popularity among Catholics and making sizable contributions to McCarthy's campaigns. The Kennedy patriarch hoped that one of his sons would be president. Mindful of the anti-Catholic prejudice Al Smith faced during his 1928 campaign for that office, Joseph Kennedy supported McCarthy as a national Catholic politician who might pave the way for a younger Kennedy's presidential candidacy.

Unlike many Democrats, John F. Kennedy, who served in the Senate with McCarthy from 1953 until the latter's death in 1957, never attacked McCarthy. McCarthy had refused to campaign for Kennedy's 1952 opponent, Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., due to his friendship with the Kennedys. When a speaker at a February 1952 final club dinner stated that he was glad McCarthy had not attended Harvard College, an angry Kennedy jumped up, denounced the speaker, and left the event.[70] Asked by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. why he avoided criticism of McCarthy, Kennedy said, "Hell, half my voters in Massachusetts look on McCarthy as a hero."

Charles P. “Charlie” Pierce (December 28, 1953) is an American sportswriter, political blogger, author, and game show panelist.

Pierce graduated from St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts,[2] and from Marquette University in Journalism (1975).[3]

Pierce’s first job was as a forest ranger for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.[4] He wrote for Worcester Magazine in the 1970s, where he covered the Blizzard of 1978.[5] In the 1980s and ‘90, he was a staff reporter for the Boston Phoenix and, later, a sports columnist for the Boston Herald.

Pierce is currently the lead political blogger for Esquire, a position he has held since September 2011.[6] He also writes for ESPN’s Grantland.[7] He has also written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe Sunday magazine, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Sports Illustrated, The National Sports Daily, GQ, and the e-zine Slate as well as the Media Matters blog Altercation, hosted by historian/pundit Eric Alterman.

I am in no place to talk, literally (Japan), but, we need to open the eyes of the voters... seems most people’s weakspot is social media (they don’t seem to pay attention to real world anymore)... take this to twitter and Facebook (a bit hypocritical on my part, since I refuse to use either).. but many here on FR do.

This real world info needs to get out to all (including, and maybe, most importantly, to the ‘LIV’).

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