What, Exactly, is so “Extreme” About Ted Cruz?

That’s not a rhetorical question. Could someone please tell me?

Cruz wasn’t my first choice, he wasn’t my second choice. Hell, I was firmly against first term senators, making him so far down the list I didn’t even rank him. (Still, amazingly he ranked above Pataki.) Nevertheless, I see him as a fine alternative to Trumpmania.

Yet, I am curious why his reputation is so damaged outside the conservative movement. Sure it’s easy to just cast blame on the “main stream media,” but we must consider that, for better or worse, a huge chunk of the country gets their news that way.

I have friends that range from uber-leftist to staunch conservative and everything in between. I have several friends who believe that they should not broadcast their political views such that you can ID their affiliation. But in today’s society that’s more or less impossible. We’re polarized to the point that if I can pick up on a few of your shibboleths I can extrapolate with stunning accuracy where you fall.

Now I don’t expect my uber-left friends to like Cruz, the same way I imagine they can’t expect me to think Sanders is any more than an economically illiterate doofus. But I do have friends who would fall into that dying category of “Blue Dog Democrat” (even if they don’t admit it, it’s pretty clear that’s where they fall, although perhaps somewhat more socially liberal than the traditional definition of Blue Dog). These friends confuse me, because they say things like “what’s worse than Donald Trump? Ted Cruz.” Meanwhile Hillary Clinton gets a pass on: 1) Russia Reset, 2) Libya, 3) Influence peddling (that’s just what politicians do!) 4) Classified information handling 5) Everything else.

I asked this on twitter, but I’ll ask it again here: What exactly is Ted Cruz’s incredibly “extreme opinion?”

Is it his opposition to Common Core (that WaPo seems to share?) Is it his proposal for a flat tax (which has been proposed in various forms throughout the years?) Is Cruz a conservative? Yes. Is his a strong conservative? It seems so. Is he at Todd Akin levels of crazy? (I live in MO-2, so I know the extent of this.) I can’t really see that. I’m not even sure Cruz rises to the Goldwater level of outside the mainstream.

So seriously, could someone please tell me what leads to this perception of Cruz as totally beyond the pale nuts? More nuts than Trump? Even the MSM with all it’s power can’t craft this illusion without something to use as it’s foundation. What am I missing?

4 comments to “What, Exactly, is so “Extreme” About Ted Cruz?”
  1. if you read the introduction to Ted’s book “A Time for Truth” it goes to why the GOPe hates him in no time. He had already been blamed for a government shut down that with the theatrics Obama threw in by closing parks and such. Then it came time for the senate to vote to increase the debt ceiling.

    During a meeting with GOP senators he participated as McConnel and Cornyn hatched their plan to allow Harry Reid to push a verbal consent decree to reduce the threshold from 60 to 50 in order to allow the increase to occur. With only 54 dems that would allow no GOP to have to vote to pass the increase.

    Cruz responded by saying there is no universe in which he would vote to allow the very thing to occur that he was so opposed to and reminded the senators they too had run on opposing funding Obama’s agenda.

    They truly hate him because he actually does do what he says he will do. BTW. 12 GOP senators ended up voting to increase the debt ceiling that time.

  2. welp, looks like our candy ass east coast liberal vs their candy ass east coast liberal, this ought to be interesting

  3. Because he believes we should live within the Constitutional Rules.They have been so stretched and bastardized in the last hundred years, our Founders would be apauled.

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