On Monday evening, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) appeared on The Mark Levin Show to discuss, among other things, the recent GOP primary runoff election in Mississippi. Incumbent Republican Senator Thad Cochran won the runoff election by approximately 7,000 (later verified by the Mississippi GOP as 7,600) votes after finishing second to Tea Party candidate, State Senator Chris McDaniel, during the initial primary election. Since neither candidate finished with at least 50% of the vote, a runoff was required. Cochran openly courted Democratic voters during the runoff (Mississippi has an open primary system) and was able to pull out the victory.
McDaniel, his team and other Tea Party activists have openly complained about the tactics used by Cochran and have contended that the vote results are illegal. McDaniel has refused to concede and has promised to go to court over the results. Mississippi’s Republican Party has already certified the vote totals and sent the results to the state’s Secretary of State, which declared Cochran the winner. McDaniel’s lawyers have claimed they have found at least 5,000 voting irregularities, and that was before they got a chance to look at absentee ballots. They have declared that this election was rampant with voter fraud. The campaign has offered a $1,000 reward to the first fifteen people who can show proof of fraud at the ballot box.
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Cruz decided to weigh in and offer his support to McDaniel on Monday night’s broadcast. During his conversation with the conservative radio host, Cruz complained multiple times about the Washington, DC machine and its “appalling” decision to attract black voters to come out for Cochran by making promises to “expand the welfare state.”
“Primaries are always rough and tumble, but the conduct of the Washington, D.C. machine in the Mississippi runoff was incredibly disappointing…All of us want to grow the party. But what the DC machine did was not try to grow the party. Instead, the ads they ran were racially charged false attacks and they were explicit promises to continue and expand the welfare state. And nobody has suggested that the Democrats who voted in the primary will actually vote Republican in the general. Instead they were just recruited to decide who the Republican nominee was and that’s unprincipled and wrong. These allegations need to be vigorously investigated.”
Never mind the blatant race-baiting by Cruz. That is just standard Tea Party talk. The thing that stands out to me is the unchecked hypocrisy from Cruz in his comments. What Cruz doesn’t want anyone to know, and why he has tried to stay quiet during the primaries, is that he is a Vice Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He is a huge part of the very “machine” he is complaining about. Come this fall, he is going to be organizing and attending fundraisers for all of these so-called ‘establishment’ Republican candidates that he likes to whine about.
Back in March, Cruz stated that he was not going to do any real fundraising or campaigning during the primaries. Why? Because he didn’t want to have to explain his siding with incumbents at the time, especially if some might find themselves defeated by good ol’ grassroots Tea Partiers. OK, fair enough. Then why didn’t he just resign his Vice Chair post with the NRSC and allow someone else to take his place? Well, you see, Cruz still wants to go out and raise funds for candidates and help them win when the midterms really pick up steam this year. Basically, he wants to get all the glory and credit in the end, while not having sullied himself during the primaries. I guess this is his way to keep his Tea Party/anti-establishment cred.
The thing is, he isn’t anti-establishment. Not one bit. He is just opportunistic and craven. Cruz does whatever is going to get Cruz the most in the end. He is just as intertwined in the GOP/DC machine like any other player on Capitol Hill. He just wants to be seen as the biggest of all the bigwigs. He wants to run the show. He doesn’t care what he says and if it is contrary to things he’s done and said in the past, or what he will do or say in the future.
Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).
