Sen Ted Cruz, R-Texas informed reporters recently that he was afraid that democrats were plotting to shut down the government by opposing the passage of a spending bill designed to fund the United States government for the rest of the current fiscal year. In so doing. Cruz executed a Jedi level trolling.
Followers of the conservative senator remember that Cruz was accused of sparking a government shutdown in 2013 over efforts he led to repeal the Obamacare law. Democrats loudly accused the senator of being an obstructionist, and even some Republicans expressed their ire at Cruz’s gambit that they felt had no realistic chance of succeeding.
However, contrary to some predictions at the time, the GOP went on to score an impressive victory in the 2014 midterms and take over the Senate. Cruz believed that his principled stand against all odds against a law many find repugnant would propel him into the White House. The gambit might well have succeeded too had it not been for a mercurial businessman and reality show star named Donald Trump.
In any case, Cruz is seeking to put the Democrats in a corner. If he was wrong to have “shut down the government” (though from another perspective then President Obama was as much if not more at fault) then the Democrats will be wrong to do the same thing by opposing Trump priorities such as building the southern border wall.
Having failed to become president, Cruz is settling into a longer than he expected career in the Senate. His primary order of business will be getting reelected next year, the campaign for which he is amassing a mountain of cash. He is thus far opposed only by an obscure congressman from El Paso named Beto O’Rourke, a former punk rocker noted for dropping F-bombs on the campaign trail.
Cruz is likely to get more people wanting to take his seat, including at least one Republican who will try to primary him. Cruz, by the strength of his popularity in Texas and his ability to fund raise, is still the odds-on favorite to win a second term.
After that, who knows? Cruz is still a young man. He could very easily run for president again, in 2020 if Trump stumbles or refused to go for a second term or 2024 at the latest.
By that time he will have amassed a great deal more political experience and perhaps pass some legislation in the Senate that he can point to as a politician who can get things done as well as oppose things that should never be done.
