Ted Cruz Has Plans For A Republican-Controlled Congress

Do fascists now control the Senate GOP? Curtis Haas and Ted Cruz

Former Colorado congressman and virulent racist Tom Tancredo wrote on some fringy, far right website that if the GOP captures the Senate today the GOP leadership should move immediately to impeach President Obama. So? Who cares what a crackpot like Tancredo, a private citizen with absolutely no mainstream credibility, has to say? How about if someone just as unhinged was saying the same kind of stuff but from inside the U.S. Senate? Did you watch House of Cards? If so, do you recall the "Tea Party bullhorn," a far right, obstructionist and neo-fascist senator named Curtis Haas? He was modeled on... real-lfe far right, obstructionist and neo-fascist senator Ted Cruz... from Texas.

So with many of today's crucial Senate races polling within the margin of error-- Quinnipiac has Braley and Ernst in a 47-47% dead heat in Iowa, for example-- that even the biggest optimists in the country are coming to grips with the fact that the Republicans could take over the U.S. Senate, which will give them-- thanks to Steve Israel's grotesque incompetence and corruption-- control over both Houses of Congress.

Although the Republican senators and candidates have by and large campaigned as "bipartisan" and mainstream, the party will be in thrall to the demented ideological extremism of Ted Cruz, in the same way that the House of Cards Republicans were effectively controlled by Curtis Haas. Sunday evening Sebastian Payne and Robert Costa, interviewed Cruz for the Washington Post. They reported that "Cruz made it clear he would push hard for a Republican-led Senate to be as conservative and confron­tational as the Republican-led House."

Piggybacking on what House leaders have done, Cruz said the first order of business should be a series of hearings on President Obama, “looking at the abuse of power, the executive abuse, the regulatory abuse, the lawlessness that sadly has pervaded this administration.”

Cruz also would like the Senate to be as aggressive in trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act as the House, which has voted more than 50 times to get rid of the law.

Republicans should “pursue every means possible to repeal Obamacare,” Cruz said, including forcing a vote through parliamentary procedures that would get around a possible filibuster by Democrats. If that leads to a veto by Obama, Cruz said, Republicans should then vote on provisions of the health law “one at a time.”

And when asked whether he would back Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for Republican leader, Cruz would not pledge his support-- an indication that there are limits to how much of a partner he’s willing to be.

At the heart of Cruz’s shift from the insular approach that defined his first year in office is a belief that he can use his popularity with conservatives to expand his influence in the Senate and improve his standing as he considers a 2016 presidential campaign.

Cruz’s desire to turn his party further right in the coming months is one of the challenges already facing McConnell should Republicans regain the Senate, with tea party leaders inside and outside the Capitol spoiling for a number of hard-line moves.

“Senator Cruz has been rather quiet over the past few months,” said Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for Trent Lott when the Mississippian was the Senate Republican leader. “That time seems to be coming to an end. I understand why he’s eager to go after Obamacare. But the reality is that it’ll take 60 votes to repeal it and Republicans will have nowhere near that amount. If Obamacare remains the focus, he will certainly get the base jazzed up about what he’s doing, but he won’t get rid of the law.”

Cruz has gained some traction in terms of shaping the contours of what a Republican Senate would do, in part because McConnell and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) have not offered their own definitive vision of what a Republican-led Congress would look like.

Two weeks ago, Cruz wrote an opinion piece in USA Today laying out 10 conservative priorities he thinks Republicans should pursue, including moving toward a flat tax and drawing a hard line on illegal immigrants. In the interview here, Cruz reiterated some of those points, such as approving the Keystone XL pipeline.

...Cruz should be able to count on a handful of new friends, if not allies, when the Senate convenes next year. In recent weeks, he has campaigned for Senate contenders who beat Cruz-admiring insurgents in Republican primaries, from businessman David Perdue in Georgia and state Sen. Joni Ernst in Iowa to Sullivan and Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas’s embattled incumbent.

If she wins, Ernst is poised to be a powerful player in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, the first nominating contest in the 2016 race for the GOP presidential nomination. Perdue, who has weak ties to his red state’s GOP base, could hew close to Cruz on some votes to keep conservatives in Georgia at bay. Sullivan, for similar reasons, could do the same.

Right wing sociopaths are going to back Cruz and vote for his candidates. Can he be stopped by "normal" voters today-- ones who aren't brainwashed by Fox and Hate Talk Radio? Yes, if independent voters in Iowa, Colorado, Maine, South Dakota and Alaska, break strong for Bruce Braley, Mark Udall, Shenna Bellows, Rick Weiland and Mark Begich, Cruz will be back in his sandbox howling at the moon for the next two years.