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A Tale of Two Senators
He was the most conservative of senators; He was nearly the most conservative of senators. He rode to office on a wave of anti-establishment support; He also rode to office on a wave of anti-establishment support. He supported amnesty (or lied about it); He also supported amnesty. Really, there wasn’t a dime’s worth of policy difference between them. Yet one was the darling of the right, and one was the establishment hack.
Narratives can take on a life of their own. Nowhere is this more evident than the contest between Senators Cruz and Rubio. By any objective measurement, the two are remarkably similar in terms of voting records and preferred policy positions. Despite this reality, it has become almost a cliché that Cruz is the anti-establishment hero of the right, while Rubio is a puppet of GOP leadership.
Cruz boasts an impressive 100% rating from Heritage Action. Rubio holds a meager 94%. For reference, the average Republican in the Senate scores a 60%. Perhaps you feel the Heritage Foundation is just an arm of the illuminati establishment, and uses these score cards to trick you into voting for their preferred lapdogs. We can instead look at the American Conservative Union’s ratings if you prefer, though they rate the contest closer. Rubio’s 98% lifetime rating is technically lower than Cruz’s 100%, though in practice you need a magnifying glass to detect the differences. Club for Growth has Rubio at 93%, to Cruz’s 96%.
Rubio’s detractors often point to National Journal’s ranking of him as only the 17th most conservative senator as a sign that he is not far enough to the right to get their support. “Establishment tool!” they exclaim, seemingly unaware that the National Journal bases it rankings on how members vote in relation to party leadership. Rubio’s low rating is innately tied to how often he disagrees with Mitch McConnell. Scoring poorly on a loyalty ranking is now considered evidence of being too deferential to party leadership.
Rubio’s problem with many voters on the right is no mystery. He supported the Gang of 8 immigration bill, which included amnesty for illegal immigrants. It is a black mark on his record matched only by Cruz’s support for the same bill. Cruz promised to support the bill once certain amendments were made. None of the proposed changes altered the bill’s amnesty.
Cruz’s defense is rather amazing to behold, as he claims the amendments were a poison pill. He says he knew the Democrats would find them unacceptable, and their passage would kill the Gang of 8 bill in the Senate chambers. This leaves Cruz in the humorous position of claiming he was lying in a half dozen television interviews when he said he wanted the bill to pass. Try this is court if you ever find your own words being used against you. “But Your Honor, I was lying when I said that.”
Of course, Rubio is not off the hook for his support of this bill. He deserves criticism for being so thoroughly played by Chuck Schumer. And yet, these facts have not affected the narrative all that much. Rubio is considered the amnesty traitor, while Cruz is presented as the conservative stalwart. Both are presently incredibly hawkish on border security. If I could detect an actual difference between their present positions, or their past positions, perhaps this issue would prove useful in choosing between them.
If the two are so similar on substance, how does one choose between them? The answer is Style.
Rubio is clearly the more electable candidate. Nearly every poll over the past year has shown that Rubio scores better against Clinton than Cruz does. His likability ratings also score significantly higher. The liberal wonks at FiveThirtyEight.com have consistently raised warning bells that Rubio is the biggest threat to the Democrats holding the presidency in 2016.
If Republicans nominate Rubio, they would have an excellent chance to beat Clinton by broadening their party’s appeal with moderates, millennials and Latinos. The GOP would also have an excellent chance to keep the Senate, hold onto a wide margin in the House and enjoy more control of federal government than they have in over a decade.
If they nominate Ted Cruz, Clinton would probably win, the GOP Senate majority would also be in peril and GOP House losses could climb well into the double digits.
This chart proves FiveThirtyEight’s point. Across nearly every category of voter, Rubio outperforms Cruz. Republican voters often must choose between an electable candidate and a conservative candidate. It is extremely depressing. Today, we have the opportunity to choose a man who is both electable, and extremely conservative. This is called having your cake and eating it too.
Stop telling me that the chocolate sprinkles don’t taste as good as the rainbow sprinkles, and eat your delicious cake.
Published in General
First, I understand the strategy of a poison pill, and that you can’t sell a poison pill by calling it such. But beyond that, Cruz did not sponsor nor vote for the bill. How does that make their actions equivalent?
My issue with Rubio is far less that he supported amnesty, than that he ran against it then sponsored it. He has lost credibility, which is far more important than any single issue, including amnesty, to me.
Also, even if this is 100% correct, from a symbolic point of view it does not matter. To a lot of people Gang of 8 = Treason to the conservative cause.
You cannot reason people out of a position they did not reason themselves into. Symbolism matters a whole lot, to all of us, no matter how objective we want to believe we are.
People who do not like Cruz’s style are making an argument on symbolism (I love the Nixon crossed with a Preacher previously). It is what people vote on.
And Rubio really, really, really, really screwed up on the Gang of 8. It looked bad in so many ways. It was a horrible misreading of the political landscape. He was rolled by a Democrat conservatives *hate*. He was more loved, nationally, than Cruz to start with, and thus, people were more likely to feel betrayed.
I can go on and on, why it matters, but I think you get the gist. It matters, and all the posts, all the talk, all the cake in the world will not change the fact that Rubio was part of the Gang of 8. For some people, he might as well have joined the Legion of Doom
I do believe it makes the actions equivalent. When you say you want to vote for a bill, you are saying you support it’s language.
As for the poison pill argument, I believe it falls flat when Cruz admitted the the existing bill would not pass the house, and that his changes would only make it more likely to pass there.
Rubio did screw up in the gang of 8. The point of the post is that Cruz gives you no useful distinction.
People are making the ‘electablilty’ argument with Rubio. And they cite things like youth, optimism, etc. True, people are drawn to these things, but they are still superficial.
On substance, I’m saying that I find this man superficial.
If one views the two men and weighs them out and says “On this issue, which is very important to me, my preference is Cruz.” Then I think we’d all be fine with one another.
But that those who prefer Cruz find his very close neighbor wildly unacceptable is upsetting. Particularly since the issue that puts Cruz in the preferred category is unlikely to be resolved in the next 4 years.
Based on what evidence? Not his voting record.
I’ll try and link article later. (Never mind, see LilyBart)
We are truly being asked to chose between sub-optimal candidates.
Part of me thinks I should just turn off the TV / Radio / Computer and ignore these proceeding for my own health and happiness. My heart is heavy with the direction of our country and the choices we have to make…..
Rubio means amnesty or its equivalent–legalization followed soon by naturalization when Democrats scream that we can’t have second-class citizens in the US. Either way, game over with Rubio–one-party state.
When asked by your kids and grandkids what you did to stop this, what will you say? You followed the advice of the amnesty shills at Ricochet?
Said thing, I’m not sure that Cruz is much better.
And my point, which you are not refuting is that they symbolism of being on the Gang of 8 is a distinction.
Frank Soto might not find it useful, but it is, symbolically, to a whole lot of voters. And that matters, just as much as, symbolically, Rubio does not have that whole Nixon/Preacher thing.
It may make no sense at all to you, but it is meaningful to others. Gang of 8 is a worse sin than supporting the bill. You disagree. You cannot change minds about this sort of thing.
Which is thin.
Who is optimal?
I mean, we’re talking about Presidents. At least 30 of them have been complete duds.
Would that it were so. But there’s a distressingly high amount of emotional behavior in all the candidates camps on Ricochet. (And I do mean all.)
OK: Chocolate sprinkles really do taste worse. They especially taste worse if you love chocolate, because they taste like waxy dirt instead of chocolate. Also, not all cake is delicious.
(Though admittedly, if a cake is otherwise delicious, it’s not exactly hard to avoid eating the sprinkles.)
I cited several groups that rate voting records. He is one of the most conservative Senators, close to Cruz in all of the ratings.
They are so close with each other, it comes down to just thin things, like two champion swimmers.
You are left with small distinctions that people blow up big. Humans are not rational, Frank. No one is rational when it comes to choosing a President. None of us are.
#1 Complete duds are not as big a problem when government is small. Their ‘dud-ness’ was not as critical to the country in the past as it is now! (times of war excepted, of course)
#2 While no one is perfect, its not out of the realm of possibility that a candidate can be close to your personal ideal. Unfortunately, with the growth of government power, the profession appears to attract all the wrong people!
When I say sub-optimal, I don’t mean less than perfect, I mean ‘need to make a hard choice, would much rather have another choice’ sub-optimal.
If Rubio is near your ideal, I congratulate you! Please vote for him with enthusiasm.
But do rainbow sprinkles not taste like waxy dirt?
FWIW, I don’t see hostility at all–from anyone in the thread–just tightly focused arguments. That’s a style of argument that, as a Myers-Briggs NT type, I happen to appreciate. People more on the feeling side of the spectrum might see it otherwise.
I just want to emphasize that I think the question of tone is very much a matter of perception in this case.
UPDATE: Not that there weren’t other places where it got out of hand …. Boys!
How do these groups calculate a vote for amnesty? For some ‘conservatives’ that counts as a “+” not a “-“.
How does not voting on the latest Omnibus score? Warrant less Meta-data programs? Sugar subsidies?
But who is your optimal choice overall? Among all the candidates in or out? And what makes them optimal?
I’ve been asking around. There seem to be a reasonable number of Crubio supporters ’round these parts. A fair number may also be predisposed to not getting too excited over politicians to begin with.
Red ladybugs are easier to spot than brown ladybugs. It’s hard to avoid undercounting the brown ones.
If it changes none of the outcomes and does something productive like working to get a republican president, I would think it inconsequential.
As an ENTJ myself, I understood, and appreciated the pith of the line.
No, they taste more like sugary wax. There’s a specific tendency for allegedly “chocolatey” items to taste like dirt, not shared by items that avoid pretending to be chocolate.
Well, let me engage in hypotheticals as well. If Cruz’s amendment had passed as he was encouraging, then he would have proposed further amendments to make the reform bill something he could support.
“-”
Heritage Action is a handy example.
This is true, and I cannot claim I’m immune to this. However, perfidy is a problem with me – and I call promising NOT to support amnesty, then supporting amnesty within a few months of taking your seat in the Senate as Perfidy. I spoke to someone who lived in Florida during Rubio’s last election. She said there was no ambiguity on his ‘amnesty’ promises. He was very clear during the election, then jumped in with Gang of 8 right after. And he didn’t just vote for it, he helped CREATE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I live with a teenage girl, and have been instructed in the use of exclamation points)