You’re evaluating candidates for an openjob in your company, and you come across onewho makes a big impression.
He’s clearly brilliant — maybe smarter thanany of the others. He’s a whirlwind of energy.
And man oh man can he give a presentation.
On any subject, he’s informed, inflamed,precise.
But then you talk with people who’veworked with him at various stages of hiscareer. They dislike him.
No, scratch that.
They loathe him.
They grant him all of the virtues that you’veobserved, but tell you that he’s the antithesisof a team player. His thirst for the spotlight isunquenchable. His arrogance is unalloyed.
He actually takes pride in being abrasive, asif a person’s tally of detractors measures hisfearlessness, not his obnoxiousness.
Do you hire this applicant?No way.
And that’s why voters should be wary —very wary — of Ted Cruz.
He’s surging. I warned you about this. In apoll of Republicans in Iowa last week, he wasin a statistical tie with Donald Trump for thelead.
More and more Republican insiders talkabout a battle between Cruz and Marco Rubiofor the nomination, or about a three-way, ifyou will, among Cruz, Rubio and Trump.
And in the voices of these insiders I hearhorror, because Trump and Cruz are nastypieces of work.
Cruz will work overtime in the monthsahead to persuade you otherwise. Thereligious right already adores him, but to gothe distance, he needs more support fromother, less conservative Republicans, andhe knows it. Expect orchestrated glimpsesof a high-minded Cruz, less skunk thanstatesman, his sneer ceding territory to asmile.
You saw this in recent debates. He chidedmoderators for meanspirited questions. Hebemoaned the pitting of one Republicanagainst another. The audacity of thosecomplaints was awe-inspiring: Cruz roseto national prominence with gratuitous,overwrought tirades against fellow partymembers and with a complete lack ofdeference to elders in the Senate, which heentered in January 2013, at age 42.
He likened Senate Republicans whorecognized the impossibility of defundingObamacare to Nazi appeasers. They tooknote.
“As Cruz gains, GOP senators rally forRubio” said the headline of a story this weekin Politico, which explained: “The ideaof Cruz as the nominee is enough to sendshudders down the spines of most SenateRepublicans.” Support for Rubio is the flowerof anyone-but-Cruz dread.
Anyone but Cruz: That’s the leitmotif of hislife, stretching back to college at Princeton.
His freshman roommate, Craig Mazin, toldPatricia Murphy of The Daily Beast: “I wouldrather have anybody else be the president ofthe United States. Anyone. I would rather picksomebody from the phone book.”It’s not easy to come across on-the-recordquotes like that, and Mazin’s words suggest adisdain that transcends ideology. They bearheeding.
So does Cruz’s experience in the policyshop of George W. Bush’s 2000 presidentialcampaign. After Bush took office, other fulltimeadvisers got plum jobs in the WhiteHouse. Cruz was sent packing to the Siberia ofthe Federal Trade Commission.
The political strategist Matthew Dowd,who worked for Bush back then, tweetedthat “if truth serum was given to the staffof the 2000 Bush campaign,” an enormouspercentage of them “would vote for Trumpover Cruz.”Another Bush 2000 alumnus said to me:“Why do people take such an instant dislike toTed Cruz? It just saves time.”His three signature moments in the Senatehave been a florid smearing of Chuck Hagelwith no achievable purpose other thanattention for Ted Cruz, a flamboyant rebellionagainst Obamacare with no achievablepurpose other than attention for Ted Cruz, anda fiery protest of federal funding for PlannedParenthood with no achievable purposeother than attention for Ted Cruz. Notice anypattern?Asked about Cruz at a fund-raiser lastspring, John Boehner responded by raising alone finger — the middle one.
More recently, Senate Republicans deniedCruz a procedural courtesy that’s typicallypro forma.
“That is different than anything I’ve everseen in my years here,” Senator John McCain,the Arizona Republican, told The WashingtonPost.
Many politicians rankle peers. Manyhave detractors. Cruz generates antipathyof an entirely different magnitude. It’s sopronounced and so pervasive that he’s beenforced to acknowledge it, and he spins it asthe price invariably paid by an outsider whochallenges the status quo, clings to principleand never backs down.
No, it’s the fruit of a combative style andconsuming solipsism that would make him aninsufferable, unendurable president. And ifthere’s any sense left in this election and mercyin this world, it will undo him soon enough.
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FRANK BRUNI>
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