Ted Cruz, the young senator from Texas, has been on the job for about 100
days, but he has already turned upside down the Senate's ancient
seniority system and is dominating his senior Republican colleagues.
He's speaking for them on immigration, guns and any other topic that
tickles his fancy; Republican leaders are seething at being outshone
yet are terrified of challenging him.
Consider his news conference last week to promote the Republican
alternative to gun control. With Cruz on the stage in the Senate TV
studio: the bill's primary author, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a 32-
year Senate veteran and longtime chairman or ranking member of the
Finance and Judiciary committees; Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
(10 years in the Senate and eight in the House); and Indiana's Dan
Coats (12 years in the Senate and eight in the House).
But Cruz took over the lectern and refused to relinquish it. He
spoke 2,924 words for the cameras, more than Grassley (904), Graham
(1,376) and Coats (360) - combined. Factoring in his dramatic
pauses to convey sincerity and deep thought, Cruz's dominance was
even more lopsided. The others shifted uncomfortably and looked
awkwardly around the room. At one point, Graham requested a chance
to speak. "Can I?" he asked Cruz.
Cruz is 42, the same age Joe McCarthy was when he amassed power
in the Senate with his allegations of communist infiltration. Tail-
gunner Ted debuted in the Senate this year with the insinuation that
Chuck Hagel, now the defense secretary, may have been on the payroll
of the North Koreans. Cruz also wrote in Politico that "Hagel's
nomination has been publicly celebrated by the Iranian government."
He later alleged that Democrats had told the Catholic Church to
"change your religious beliefs or we'll use our power in the federal
government to shut down your charities and your hospitals."
Now Cruz is turning his incendiary allegations against fellow
Republicans. On immigration, he has described as amnesty the
compromise that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and three other
Republicans negotiated with Democrats. Cruz said such a plan would
make "a chump" of legal immigrants. On guns, he said the background
checks Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., negotiated in a bipartisan compromise
would lead to a national gun registry - an outcome the doomed
proposal explicitly prohibited.
Democrats see a potential bogeyman in Cruz because of his
outrageous pronouncements, and reporters love his inflammatory
quotes. Republican leaders, however, don't know how to control this
monster they created.
GOP lawmakers encouraged the rise of the tea party, which now
dominates Republican primaries and threatens the same leaders who
nurtured it. Cruz's fellow Texan John Cornyn, the Senate's No. 2
Republican, could face a primary challenge next year and therefore
can't afford to cross Cruz, who beat an establishment Republican in
the 2012 primary. Likewise, the Senate GOP leader, Mitch McConnell
of Kentucky, is up for re-election and has to keep on the good side
of tea party favorites such as Sen. Rand Paul, also of Kentucky, and
Cruz.
I've argued before that Cruz is more cunning than ideological.
He's Ivy League-educated and a skilled debater who has perfected a
look of faux earnestness that suggests his every pronouncement is
the most important oration since Gettysburg. Cruz has correctly
calculated that the way to power among Senate Republicans is through
attention-grabbing accusations.
On immigration, his Latino credentials have helped him to
undermine Rubio's bipartisanship. On guns, Cruz's high profile
required Grassley to give the upstart a premium chunk of floor time
for his trademark falsehoods. Cruz claimed his bill was the "result
of multiple hearings in the Judiciary Committee." (It was never
brought before the panel.) He claimed the opposing legislation would
extend "background checks to private transactions between private
individuals." (The bill applied only to advertised sales.) Off the
floor, he made the patently false claim that the "so-called 'gun
show loophole'" doesn't exist.
If Republicans are willing to look the other way when Cruz
assaults the facts, they may find it increasingly grating to endure
his assaults on their dignity. At their news conference on guns,
Grassley was made to stand silently for half an hour while Cruz gave
an eight-minute opening statement (more than twice the length of
Grassley's) and fielded six questions before yielding to his senior
colleague. "I'm just going to say one thing," Grassley said, "and
then I'm going to have to go."
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