It is not often that a freshman senator makes many waves at the beginning of his term. It is typically a period of time reserved for learning about how things work, learning where the bathrooms are, and making some new friends.
Ted Cruz is not here to make friends. In fact, the list of people whose feathers are being ruffled by the new senator from Texas is beginning to look like a “Who’s Who on Capitol Hill” list of Democrats. Chuck Schumer. John Kerry. Chuck Hagel. Barbara Boxer. What is even more surprising are the members from his own party that Cruz is rubbing the wrong way. John McCain felt in- clined to yank on Cruz’s leash when he attacked the character of Senator Chuck Hagel during his nomination hearing for secretary of defense. Ac- cording to Politico, Republican Sen- ator Lindsey Graham remarked, “the one thing I will say to any new senator—you’re going to be respected if you can throw a punch but you also have to prove you can do a deal.”
Judging by his actions thus far, Ted Cruz is not interested in making deals either. As of the end of January, Cruz was on the losing side of every single vote placed in front of him, a striking 0-11 record. That number includes votes against the nominations of both John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, suspending the debt ceiling for four months, and the federal aid package for victims of Hurricane Sandy. Cruz later explained this vote, saying that “[e]mergency relief for the families who are suffering from this natural disaster should not be used as a Christmas tree for billions on unrelated spending.”
Senator Cruz’s brashness has also made him a prime target for the media. Chris Matthews compared Cruz to noted communist-chaser Joseph McCarthy for his attacks on Hagel. Joe Scarborough compared him to a “carnival barker at a local Republican event.” Cruz has been ripped apart by The New York Times, Politico, Forbes, and numerous other outlets. The question at hand is this: by using this aggressive approach, is Senator Ted Cruz helping or harming the GOP?
Senator Cruz has stated that he considers going 0-11 in a Democrat-controlled senate to be a perfect 11-0 record in defense of conservative values, and in a sense he may be right. But what happens when he needs to make deals to push forward his bill to repeal Obamacare? At some point, he is going to need the cooperation of a handful of Democrats in order to make progress on anything he puts forward. Being on the wrong side of prominent Democrats such as Chuck Schumer may make that difficult. However, if there is one thing that we have learned over the years, it is this: if the mass media so actively hates a conservative, then clearly he must be doing something right.
Maybe Cruz is exactly what the GOP needs to wake up from its current stupor. Maybe his fervor will remind old-school Republicans that they are in office to fight on behalf of their constituents and the sanctity of the Constitution, not to roll over and play dead for the arrogant, would-be-king that the President is more and more revealing himself to be. Maybe we don’t need a Senate filled with Republicans that act ex- actly like Ted Cruz, but we need Ted Cruz to remind Republicans to start acting more like Republicans.
Mike Navarro is a junior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sci- ence. He can be reached at mln62@ cornell.edu