Cruz An American Voice on U.S. Senate Floor

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Texas Senator and GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz increasingly stands as a man who will not back down to the GOP Establishment and Democrats.

On Tuesday, Cruz stood before his colleagues in the Senate and said all the things the American people are saying to each other about Congress, former Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.



“We noticed how much energy leader McConnell devotes to attacking conservatives. You notice how much energy Speaker Boehner devotes to attacking Conservatives,” Cruz said. “But when has leadership ever showed that level of venom, that level of animosity to President Obama and the Democrats who are bankrupting this country, who are destroying the Constitution and are endangering the future of our children and grandchildren? Who are retreating from leadership in the world and have created an environment that has led to the rise of radical Islamic terrorists.

“It’s Republican leadership that leads the onslaugt attacking conservatives saying: ‘No you can’t and we won’t do anything to stop Obamacare.’ ‘No you can’t or won’t do anything to stop amnesty,’ ‘No we won’t do anything to stop
Planned Parenthood,’ ‘No, we won’t do anything to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.'”

Cruz’s speech ranged on for an hour. In the end, his caustic remarks toward both parties led to him getting cutoff and ending his time. His request for an extension was roundly denied.

The truth hurts, apparently.

Cruz’s speech runs against Senate decorum. It’s an old-boy’s club where dirty laundry is best kept from the open cameras of C-SPAN.

Fellow Conservative and part-time ally Rand Paul said Cruz’s latest speech has killed any chances he had of making friends within Congress.

“Ted has chosen to make this really personal and chosen to call people dishonest in leadership and call them names, which really goes against the decorum and also against the rules of the Senate, and as a consequence, he can’t get anything done legislatively,” Paul said on Fox News Radio. “He is pretty much done for and stifled and it’s really because of personal relationships, or lack of personal relationships, and it is a problem.”



On the other hand, Paul decided to support fellow Kentuckian McConnell in his fight for re-election last fall. Paul lags behind Cruz in primary polling and he’s traded barbs with frontrunner Donald Trump who said he’d be the next candidate to fold his campaign.

Cruz, on the other hand, lurks in the middle of the pack and sits on the fringes of accepted “outsiders” along with Trump, Dr. Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina. He is the only sitting politician who consistently qualifies for this group.

If we assume candidates after Jeb Bush — Mike Huckabee, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum and Paul — do not have enough interest from GOP voters, we can classify the remaining candidates into two camps: Outsiders and GOP Establishment favorites. As it stands now, a pair former Florida legislators — Bush and Marco Rubio — fall into the Establishment category.

As primary season ramps up, Cruz will continue to distance himself from Senate colleagues. He will continue to say the things American people are saying to each other. And that will ultimately help him long term if any of the three candidates in his cohort should falter.