I've seen postings here on CC that Cruz supporters live in their own echo chamber.
Maybe so. Maybe it's because Cruz has a better message.
Anyway, these are my personal musings on Ted Cruz, with a couple of references to Barack Obama. Why? Well, the standard argument is that both these politicians had planned their candidacy for the president long before they took their respective oaths of office as U.S. Senators.
Cruz, the junior senator from Texas, took his oath in January 2013. He announced his candidacy on March 25, 2015. Looking at calendar days, that's roughly 811 days as a Senator before he announced.
Within 8 days of announcing his candidacy, Cruz raised $4 million. Ninety-five percent of those contributions came in denominations of $100 or less.
Barry, the junior senator from Illinois, announced his candidacy slightly earlier in his time slot. He took his oath of office as Senator on January 3, 2005 and formally announced on February 10, 2007, which is roughly 736 days.
Barry and his fund-raising, which eschewed public funding generally and embraced the internet, spent not quite $11 per vote. His organization broke all kinds of records for fundraising.
Cruz's detractors claim that he (Cruz) is an asshole and that he has no friends in the Senate. They claim that because of Cruz's audacity in filibustering (some, like Juan McLame, jeeringly called his filibuster "extended oratory") measures taken to extend the debt limit once again and enable the federal government to continue to siphon money away from the American people.
Barry never filibustered anything. Instead, he recruited a team of established, high-level advisers devoted to broad themes that exceeded the usual requirements of an incoming first-term senator. (Wikipedia article - US Senate career of Barack Obama.) Even as a first-term senator, he was too lazy to do his own research and had to hire a bunch of sycophants to do his dirty work.
Cruz has been accused by his detractors as being an egotist and narcissistic. He's also been accused of experimenting with alcohol as a college student and may have even gotten drunk.
Not much is known about Barry's record as a college student, except for the fact that many of his classmates didn't know who he was -- even when he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review.
Cruz has been consistent in his rejection of illegal immigration, abortion, and other hot-button social and political issues. Barry's views on gay marriage "evolved."
So while there are some similarities <cough> between these two professional politicians, there are some fundamental differences:
- Cruz works hard. Barry avoids it.
- Cruz is consistent. Barry owns Gitmo.
