Ted Cruz: "Rand Paul Is Just Another RINO Sellout"

by JASmius

I'm sure that I dream, just like most everybody else does.  But I almost never remember my dreams.  I don't know why; perhaps it's because once I can manage to fall asleep, I sleep so soundly and deeply that the dreams don't stick in my memory.  Maybe my diurnal rhythms are such that I usually ascend towards consciousness between REM cycles.  Maybe it's lousy timing.  Maybe the content of my dreams is so embarrassing that my subconscious intervenes to protect my ego and self-respect.  Whatever the reason, I don't tend to remember my dreams.

But I remembered this one.  And it was a nightmare:

The tea party favorite came in second behind Kentucky Senator Rand Paul in the CPAC's straw poll of 2016 potential presidential race candidates over the weekend. But he's still a star attraction at the event, especially compared to a year ago, when relatively few had heard of the freshman senator, ABC reported.

All that changed by this year, after Cruz' Senate floor filibusters against ObamaCare and strong conservative views on the national debt.... 

Paul has commented that some people are still "stuck in the Cold War" era when it comes to dealing with Russia. While Cruz says he's a big fan and good friend of Paul's, "I don't agree with him on foreign policy."

You know how I've been saying for months now that if Tea Partiers want to not just take back the presidency, but put a Tea Partier in the White House in 2016, they have to unify behind one of their own that can actually win?  Not scatter themselves to the four winds of frivolity, fragment the conservative vote yet again, and clear the way for yet another "establishmentarian" like Chris Christie to, er, "cruz" to the GOP nomination?  And that was (and is) why it is imperative that we get behind Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker ASAP?

Nightmare question: How is that compatible with the senatorial glory-hogging of Rand Paul and Ted Cruz?  Answer: It isn't.  And that's the nightmare.  Paul will slurp up Tea Partiers of a more libertarian bent, Cruz will lure away the "fire-eaters," and there'll be meager scraps and crumbs left over for the man who can actually win in November 2016 and would do as much or more to resurrect the Old Republic as either Paul or Cruz ever could.

This is the advantage senators have over governors.  On balance, it's easier for a senator to make him/herself a national figure than it is for a governor.  Recall what I said during last October's shutdown showdown about Ted Cruz making such an infernal nuisance of himself in no small part to boost his national profile.  I'd call this CPAC straw poll his mission-accomplished banner, wouldn't you?  Rand Paul already had that profile from being Ron Paul's son.  Whereas Scott Walker owes whatever national notoriety he has to the Democrats' rabid attempts to get rid of him.  Otherwise he just goes quietly about his task of "conservativizing" the Badger State.

Problem is, in today's Tea Party-driven center-right politics, a successful conservative governing track record isn't enough.  You have to be LOUD and BELLIGERENT about it.  Paul and especially Cruz have that reputation; Governor Walker does not.  And I frankly fear that too many Tea Party voters will be, to employ a metaphor, swayed by the sizzle and ignore the steak.

On such a dynamic will the 2016 election - if there is one - be won or, far more likely, lost.

If that isn't a nightmare, I'll French-kiss Freddie Kruger.