What Hath Cruz Wrought?

With very little time remaining until the U.S. government technically goes into default on its debt, Senate Republicans and Democrats struggle to reach a short-term solution that would end the partial government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling. Of course, both parties say they are fighting for the American people, yet the American people are the biggest losers no matter the outcome of this latest skirmish. 

How ridiculous was it that Texas Senator Ted Cruz decided to lead an effort to defund the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, in exchange for keeping the government open and raising the debt ceiling. Senator Cruz knew full well that the Senate would not take the matter up, and the president would not go along with overturning his signature achievement. Even leading Republicans in both houses acknowledge it was the wrong strategy.

Now, in the height of hypocrisy, Senator Cruz joined his close friend, Utah Senator Mike Lee, and several Republicans Sunday to protest the government closing of the World War II Memorial in Washington. A small crowd gathered at the barriers chanted, "Tear down these walls." Senator Cruz said that the Obama administration was using veterans as pawns. What phony outrage! Cruz and Lee are the architects of the shutdown.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 53 percent of the public blames Republicans, while 31 percent blame President Barack Obama. The poll shows that Republicans are getting more blame this year than they did when the government last shutdown in 1995-96. And the poll shows Cruz with a 14 percent favorable, 28 percent unfavorable rating. Surprisingly, the poll shows that while the government debate has gone on, Obamacare has gotten more popular, although it is still under water overall.

Utah's Senator Mike Lee has been a loyal and ardent supporter of his close friend Ted Cruz. He has received warm praise from his colleague for being a great leader and public servant. Lee even helped fill in during Cruz's fake filibuster on the Senate floor last month. But even Lee should be privately asking himself, what hath Cruz wrought? 

Senator Lee's favorable/unfavorable rating has taken a big hit according to a Brigham University poll released last week. A majority of the respondents now view Lee unfavorably, a twenty point swing since June. And a poll from Utah's Deseret News revealed that most of the state's voters don't believe that interrupting government functions to stop Obamacare is a good idea. 

A recent report estimates that the shutdown is hurting Utah 14th worst when compared to the other states and the District of Columbia. In fact, the report, by WalletHub, found, "States won by the Republican Party in the 2012 presidential election could be hit disproportionately hard by a prolonged government shutdown, as 15 such Red States ranked in the top 25 in the study's overall 'at-risk' rankings." 

So it is no wonder Lee is losing support. Kirk Jowers, head of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics, told Time Magazine, "Utahans expect effectiveness and efficiency and results out of their government, not ideological tantrums." But Washington has devolved into nothing but ideological tantrums and trust in government is at an all-time low. 

From its very inception the Tea Party's goal has been to blow the federal government up. Close the place down. Default on the debt. Whatever it takes to get federal deficits under control, including "starving the beast." Tea Party Congressmen are all from gerrymandered districts that are 100% safe. They do not have to worry about what is best for America, and most Americans. Meanwhile, the House leadership fears the Tea Party.

Only in Washington would the very people who caused the government shutdown, and possibly a catastrophic government default, demonstrate against the shutdown. Confused? Well there is no better practitioner of perception deception than Senator Ted Cruz. 

One citizen at the WWII Memorial perhaps spoke for most Americans, "This is ridiculous. This is not just and fair. It's just not fair."
 

Stop Whining, Republicans

President Barack Obama handily won a second term largely because he ran a superior campaign. Republicans expected a late Reagan-esque surge to propel Mitt Romney to victory. This made Tuesday's defeat an even more crushing blow.

As Romney was conceding defeat, already indignant Republicans were pointing fingers and assessing blame. They were intensely angry, overwrought, and consumed with personal animus for the president. Highly paid Republican consultants cried foul. After all, consultants must protect their reputation and future income.

Republican strategist Mary Matalin blew a fuse and personally attacked President Obama in an article for the conservative National Review. "What happened? A political narcissistic sociopath leveraged fear and ignorance with a campaign marked by mendacity and malice rather than a mandate for resurgence and reform," Matalin wrote. "Instead of using his high office to articulate a vision for our future, Obama used it as a vehicle for character assassination, replete with unrelenting and destructive distortion, derision, and division."

Her hate and bitterness toward the president oozed through every word. To call him a sociopath is to call him a person whose behavior is, "often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience." Outrageous.

Perhaps Matalin suffers from a case of Romnesia because the Republican primary was filled with negative and personal attacks on Romney. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich even called the governor a "liar" on CBS. All the Obama campaign had to do was repeat the attacks on Romney from fellow Republican candidates earlier in the year.

For Instance, last year Texas Gov. Rick Perry told the National Journal, "There is something inherently wrong when getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business, and I happen to think that's indefensible." Gingrich told Mediate last December, "If Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he's earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years, then I would be glad to then listen to him." And last March Rick Santorum told CBS This Morning, "He doesn't have a core... He's been on both sides of almost every single issue in the past 10 years."

But when it comes to mendacity, Gov. Mitt Romney set the standard. Apart from the constant flip-flopping on issues, Romney regularly leveled dishonest attacks against the president throughout the campaign. The worst lie, which probably cost him a win in Ohio, was the false ad about Jeep moving its operations to China.

Matalin's vituperation was not the least of the GOP blowback to President Obama's reelection. Donald Trump's Twitter response was emphatic: "We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty... Let's fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us." The aging rocker Ted Nugent tweeted, "Pimps whores & welfare brats & their soulless supporters hav (sic) a president to destroy America... Goodluk (sic) America u just voted for economic & spiritual suicide. Soulless fools."

Tuesday's biggest loser, Republican strategist Karl Rove, who spent $365 million of donor money trying to defeat the president, had the best excuse. He actually accused the Democratic and African American president of interfering with the election. "He succeeded by suppressing the vote, by saying to people, 'you may not like who I am, and I know you can't bring yourself to vote for me, but I'm going to paint this other guy as simply a rich guy who only cares about himself," Rove told Fox News Thursday.

But the most disturbing reaction to the president's reelection may have come from Peter Morrison, the Hardin County Texas Republican Party Treasurer. "We must contest every single inch of ground and delay the baby-murdering, tax-raising socialists at every opportunity," he wrote on his Facebook site. "But in due time, the maggots will have eaten every morsel of flesh off of the rotting corpse of the Republic, and therein lies our opportunity." That "opportunity" is secession, "Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government? Let each go her own way in peace."

Everybody hates to lose. Yes, the Republican party went though a brutally divisive primary that nominated Mitt Romney. Yes, Romney was gaining momentum, while President Obama remained vulnerable because of a weak economic recovery. But somewhere along the line Republicans lost touch with reality. Their expectations blew way out of proportion. And suddenly their balloon popped on election night.

President Obama's resounding victory has exposed a core problem within the Republican Party: It is filled with anger and hatred brought on by an identity crisis. Republican leaders will be meeting over the next few weeks and months to determine what went wrong this election and what can be done to fix the problem.

Perhaps a great first step would be to stop the whining and the ridiculous personal attacks. Tantrums and snit fits will not win over any converts. Nobody likes a sore loser.

All Hair, No Cattle?

Now that Texas Governor Rick Perry has thrown his hat into the ring for the GOP presidential nomination he is beginning to get more national scrutiny. While conservatives may like what they hear, he will likely have to temper his views if he wants to do well with independent voters who are essential to winning the White House.

On paper, Rick Perry has a compelling life story. He was born Paint Creek, Texas, about 60 miles north of Abilene. As a child he worked hard on his family's ranch, he joined the Boy Scouts and later became an Eagle Scout. He graduated from Texas A&M University and served in the United States Air Force flying C-130's.

Governor Perry began his political career in 1984 when he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives as a Democrat from his home county of Haskell. He supported Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries as chairman of the Gore campaign in Texas. Then in 1989 Perry announced that he was joining the Republican Party.

Governor Perry then ran and was elected Agriculture Commissioner twice. In 1998 he decided to run for Lieutenant Governor and narrowly won, becoming the first Republican to hold that office since Reconstruction. In December 2000 he assumed the state's governorship when then Governor George W. Bush resigned. Governor Perry was subsequently reelected twice as governor.

Texas has had a rapidly growing population throughout Governor Perry's three terms. It has also enjoyed strong economic growth, which the governor calls the "Texas Miracle." And the Texas governor says his state is responsible for "more than 40% of all new jobs created in America" since June 2009. However, critics say that a large number of those jobs came in the state's booming gas and oil industry, fueled by higher prices. And a substantial percentage of the new jobs were in government.

His opponents also say that much of Texas's job growth has been in low-paying jobs. And there are now strong signs that the growth is slowing. Last month, the Texas jobless rate increased to 8.4%, not far below the national average of 9.1%, and higher than any of Texas's bordering states.

The governor cites several reasons for the Texas Miracle: low taxes, less regulation and tightly-managed state spending. Nonetheless, Texas has had to deal with huge deficits. In 2010-11 Governor Perry used $6.4 billion in Recovery Act money (President Barack Obama's stimulus funding) to plug a $6.6 billion state deficit. And in 2011 he pushed through budget reductions of $15 billion, mostly from schools and health care, refusing to instead raise taxes or use some of the state's $9 billion "rainy day" funds. Texas is already ranked 37th among all states in "per-pupil" education spending, and 5.8 million Texans do not have health insurance, a quarter of its population. So is it a miracle or myth?

Governor Perry is known for his swagger and straight talk. For instance, when recently speaking of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke he said, "If this guy prints more money, I don't know what you all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas." He concluded, "Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous or treasonous in my opinion." Republican strategist Karl Rove responded on Fox News, "You don't want to accuse the Federal Reserve chairman of being guilty of a crime punishable by death, which is what treason is."

In April 2009 Governor Perry raised the possibility that Texas could secede from the United States. "When we came into the nation in 1845, we were a republic, we were a stand-alone nation. And one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want. So we're kind of thinking about that again." A spokesman later denied that the governor advocates secession.

Last week the governor spoke to a young boy about creationism at a campaign stop. "In Texas we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools, because I figured you're smart enough to figure out which one is right," he said. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that teaching creationism in public schools is unconstitutional because it amounts to the endorsement of religion. Later Governor Perry addressed the issue again, "God may have done it in the blink of the eye or he may have done it over this long period of time, I don't know. But I know how it got started."

The governor immediately turned to God when commenting shortly after last year's devastating BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He said, "I hope we don't see a knee-jerk reaction across this country that says we're going to shut down drilling in the Gulf of Mexico...From time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented."

Last week, Governor Perry's spoke about climate change while in New Hampshire, "I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects." He continued, "I think we're seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change." But, in fact, several surveys of climate researchers show that as many as 98% of them believe in the concept of man-made climate change.

In a book he wrote last year, "Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington," the Texas governor is blunt about Social Security, calling it an "illegal Ponzi scheme." His spokesman recently said that the governor will do nothing to cut Social Security. In Fed Up! Governor Perry also writes about states' rights, "If you don't support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don't come to Texas." During his 11 years as governor there have been 234 executions in Texas, far more than any other state.

Over the next few months, Republican presidential candidates will vigorously compete for their party's nomination. So far, according to polls, Governor Perry is among the front-runners. Now a spotlight has been intensely focused on his record and his statements. He is also being attacked by his Republican opponents.

Should Perry get his party's nomination he will have to appeal more to voters in the center to prevail in November 2012. And he may be haunted by the memory of a recent president from Texas who walked with swagger and ushered in a great recession.

The country's rapid economic recovery is certain to be the key issue in 2012. And that may actually call for a real miracle.