The establishment devil recoils from the Ted Cruz holy water
by digby
I want to laugh over this stuff and would really enjoy it if the alternative wasn’t that messianic Pompadoured Bond Villain:
“I think we’ll lose if he’s [Cruz] our nominee,” said Orrin Hatch, the most senior Republican in the Senate.
“There’s a lot of people who don’t feel he can appeal to people across the board,” Hatch said. “For us to win, we have to appeal to the moderates and independents. We can’t just act like that only one point of view is the only way to go. That’s where Ted is going to have some trouble.”
It’s not just Jeb Bush supporters like Hatch who are speaking out more aggressively. A large number of GOP senators say Cruz’s divisive tactics, which have included describing his colleagues as part of a corrupt “Washington cartel,” will make it hard — if not impossible — to get behind him if he’s the nominee.
“It would be a major challenge because of the wounds that are deep,” said Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, who is neutral in the race so far.
“An awful lot of us really didn’t like to be targeted as corrupt, establishment bought by the lobby establishment,” Coats added. “It sure looks like someone was using it as a way to gain notoriety as the only true conservative in Washington.”
What a bunch of whiners.
But man, they are making some people really, really mad. Get a load of this from Red State:
Their dislike of Cruz is simply personal. They expected him to arrive in the Senate as an empty receptacle into which they could pour their Failure Theater and stupidity. Instead, they found that Texas has actually elected a man who believed what his constituents did and took seriously his duty to represent them.
While Donald Trump is a member of the establishment, our self-anointed ruling class, and the establishment is warming to his candidacy, the same is not true for Ted Cruz.
Indeed, some in the party establishment do believe that Trump would have cross-over appeal, despite his incendiary comments.
“I’ve come around a little bit on Trump,” Hatch said Thursday. “I’m not so sure we’d lose if he’s our nominee because he’s appealing to people who a lot of the Republican candidates have not appealed to in the past.”
The establishment reacts to Cruz like the Devil to Holy Water. He is the clear anti-establishment choice in this race.
Hatch has a point though. Trump is appealing to some new potential voters out there. Stormfront Nazis weren’t all that keen on Romney and Mccain but they’re doing robocalls for Trump. Could be big.
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