Post by Bo/CCPU Founder on Sept 18, 2015 10:57:57 GMT -6
Cruz lives with a regret by Bobby Cervantes/September 17, 2015 www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas-take/article/Cruz-regrets-6511386.php
It is not everyday that a candidate in the throes of a presidential primary race is willing to say openly that he or she made a mistake on one of the most important issues to their political base.
Ted Cruz, however, has shown he's no ordinary candidate. He knows how to talk to his base of right-wing conservatives who for decades have felt used and abused by a Republican Party that pays them lip service come Election Day and then keeps the grass roots at arm's length when the party wins.
"And, you know, we're frustrated as conservatives," the Texas senator said at CNN's GOP presidential debate Wednesday. "We keep winning elections, and then we don't get the outcome we want."
He could have been talking about a range of issues that have drawn conservatives' ire in recent years. For Cruz, the Harvard-trained lawyer, however, that is arguably no more apparent than when a GOP president nominates a jurist to the highest court in the land.
At the debate, Cruz said he regretted his support of John Roberts, the then-appellate judge who, in 2005, won a major promotion when President George W. Bush nominated him for a U.S. Supreme Court seat before withdrawing his name and then re-nominating him to lead the court as chief justice.
Texas Take
Cruz walked that back, in no uncertain terms, when former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called him out.
"It is true that after George W. Bush nominated John Roberts, I supported his confirmation," Cruz said. "I wouldn't have nominated John Roberts and, indeed, Gov. Bush pointed out why. It wasn't that President Bush wanted to appoint a liberal to the court. It is that it was the easier choice."
In a widely read National Review article in July 2005, Cruz, then Texas solicitor general, said the Senate should "confirm him swiftly," adding that the judge's "personal views ... matter far less than his judicial methodology."
At the debate, Cruz went on to describe two moments when Presidents George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, appointed two ostensibly Republican-leaning jurists to the high court. Both of them, David Souter and John Roberts, won Senate confirmation largely due to the fact that they were at least consensus candidates Democrats would not go all out to oppose. They weren't, as Cruz has alluded to, exactly Robert Bork types, referring to President Ronald Reagan's nominee who Democrats soundly defeated in a fight that had an effect on the whole process that continues today.
It's interesting that Cruz chose those two appointments to make his case. He didn't have that much time on stage, sure, but he may have been able to make a better argument for conservatives' distrust of Republican presidents by citing Anthony Kennedy, the sitting Supreme Court justice who has paved the way for a slew of pro-gay rights rulings that Cruz and his allies have railed against their entire careers. But President Ronald Reagan appointed Kennedy, so maybe it would have been uncouth to mention that during a debate at Reagan's presidential library, essentially the closest thing the party has to a cathedral.
Cruz showed that, if elected, he was is willing to expend some significant political capital to get a justice confirmed in the mold of Bork, not Roberts. Or Kennedy, for that matter. Meanwhile, he is no stranger to how polarized the Senate is now, even more so than when the chamber voted on Bork's nomination, so a President Cruz still would be in for a fight. Add to that Cruz's growing unpopularity among the Senate Republican caucus since he arrived in Washington three years ago, and it is made all the more difficult. It does endear him, though, even more to the voters he has in his pocket and needs to keep there.
It is not everyday that a candidate in the throes of a presidential primary race is willing to say openly that he or she made a mistake on one of the most important issues to their political base.
Ted Cruz, however, has shown he's no ordinary candidate. He knows how to talk to his base of right-wing conservatives who for decades have felt used and abused by a Republican Party that pays them lip service come Election Day and then keeps the grass roots at arm's length when the party wins.
"And, you know, we're frustrated as conservatives," the Texas senator said at CNN's GOP presidential debate Wednesday. "We keep winning elections, and then we don't get the outcome we want."
He could have been talking about a range of issues that have drawn conservatives' ire in recent years. For Cruz, the Harvard-trained lawyer, however, that is arguably no more apparent than when a GOP president nominates a jurist to the highest court in the land.
At the debate, Cruz said he regretted his support of John Roberts, the then-appellate judge who, in 2005, won a major promotion when President George W. Bush nominated him for a U.S. Supreme Court seat before withdrawing his name and then re-nominating him to lead the court as chief justice.
Texas Take
Cruz walked that back, in no uncertain terms, when former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called him out.
"It is true that after George W. Bush nominated John Roberts, I supported his confirmation," Cruz said. "I wouldn't have nominated John Roberts and, indeed, Gov. Bush pointed out why. It wasn't that President Bush wanted to appoint a liberal to the court. It is that it was the easier choice."
In a widely read National Review article in July 2005, Cruz, then Texas solicitor general, said the Senate should "confirm him swiftly," adding that the judge's "personal views ... matter far less than his judicial methodology."
At the debate, Cruz went on to describe two moments when Presidents George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, appointed two ostensibly Republican-leaning jurists to the high court. Both of them, David Souter and John Roberts, won Senate confirmation largely due to the fact that they were at least consensus candidates Democrats would not go all out to oppose. They weren't, as Cruz has alluded to, exactly Robert Bork types, referring to President Ronald Reagan's nominee who Democrats soundly defeated in a fight that had an effect on the whole process that continues today.
It's interesting that Cruz chose those two appointments to make his case. He didn't have that much time on stage, sure, but he may have been able to make a better argument for conservatives' distrust of Republican presidents by citing Anthony Kennedy, the sitting Supreme Court justice who has paved the way for a slew of pro-gay rights rulings that Cruz and his allies have railed against their entire careers. But President Ronald Reagan appointed Kennedy, so maybe it would have been uncouth to mention that during a debate at Reagan's presidential library, essentially the closest thing the party has to a cathedral.
Cruz showed that, if elected, he was is willing to expend some significant political capital to get a justice confirmed in the mold of Bork, not Roberts. Or Kennedy, for that matter. Meanwhile, he is no stranger to how polarized the Senate is now, even more so than when the chamber voted on Bork's nomination, so a President Cruz still would be in for a fight. Add to that Cruz's growing unpopularity among the Senate Republican caucus since he arrived in Washington three years ago, and it is made all the more difficult. It does endear him, though, even more to the voters he has in his pocket and needs to keep there.