I'm sure you know that Ted Cruz won the Republican Senate runoff in Texas yesterday, beating David Dewhurst -- who, despite the fact that he's Rick Perry's lieutenant governor and a Perry loyalist, was deemed insufficiently conservative in this race, a race he was once heavily favored to win. I'm enjoying Think Progress's roundup of Cruz's craziest positions and pronouncements:
Ted Cruz Believes George Soros Leads A United Nations Conspiracy To Eliminate Golf: ... Cruz published an article on his campaign website claiming that [the UN's Agenda 21] is actually a nefarious plot to "abolish 'unsustainable' environments, including golf courses, grazing pastures, and paved roads." To top it off, Cruz lays the blame for this global anti-golf conspiracy at the feet of a well-known Tea Party boogieman -- "The originator of this grand scheme is George Soros."I read this after looking at the Texas results, I look at results of GOP primaries in other states, I see the complaints of Steve LaTourette and Richard Hanna about GOP extremism, I notice that Tommy Thompson is struggling in a GOP Senate primary race in Wisconsin -- and I can't help thinking that, if there's an open Republican presidential primary in 2016, it's not going to go the way the last two have gone, with a guy suspected of being a "RINO" triumphing because there are just enough old-guard non-purist Republican voters. Next time, it's going to go like one of these Senate primaries.
...The Constitution provides that Acts of Congress "shall be the supreme law of the land," and thus cannot be nullified by rogue state lawmakers. Cruz, however, co-authored an unconstitutional proposal claiming two or more states could simply ignore the Constitution's command and nullify the Affordable Care Act so long as they work together...
At a campaign event earlier this month, Cruz touted another of the Tea Party’s favorite conspiracy theories, claiming that "Sharia law is an enormous problem" in this country....
Which means that if Chris Christie really wants to be president, he's crazy to do things like what he did yesterday, which was to break ground on a solar farm in Hackensack. It means that Mitch Daniels, if he runs, will be raked over the coals for having urged a social-issues "truce." It means Bobby Jindal's youthful participation in an exorcism could be a selling point, not a liability.
If Romney loses this year, there isn't going to be a guy with a gazillion dollars rallying not-completely-crazy Republican voters and beating extremists by outspending them. It means there'll be just a bunch of extremists competing to out-extreme one another -- basically, this year's field without Romney. (I'm completely discounting the possibility that Jon Huntsman could be the Romney of 2016 -- I think he's seen as so far to the left that he's to the GOP what Joe Lieberman is to the Democrats, or maybe what Zell Miller is.)
I think 2016 could be the year we finally see full-metal crazy at the top of the Republican ticket. And maybe -- finally! -- the mainstream press will understand what the party has been for years. (Though I doubt it.)
