In the End, Daddy Did Him In: The Ted Cruz Campaign Wake
Ted Cruz’s will to continue fighting for the Republican nomination ended in Indiana. The Texas Senator could take the attacks on his wife, he could take the relentless berating from the party establishment, he could even take the increased, blatant loathing of the general electorate- but he couldn’t take an attack on his father, Rafael Cruz.
[I]n The New York Times’ April 2015 article on Cruz, “Ted Cruz Showed Eloquence, and Limits, as Debater at Princeton,” the Texan is described by his peers as a tough rhetorician and always up for a fight. But Cruz had an Achilles heel:
Mr. Goolsbee and other top debaters on the circuit who frequently beat Mr. Cruz discovered it was easy to get under his skin, especially with humor. “It would unravel him,” Mr. Goolsbee said.
In one round, Mr. Goolsbee said the story of Mr. Cruz’s father coming to America, though compelling, was not entirely relevant to, say, the federal deficit.
“How dare you insult my father!” Mr. Cruz replied.
That this technique was enough to “unravel” a man in his early twenties suggests layers of reactive attachment disorder. It’s possible the root cause of this over sensitivity is the elder Cruz’s abandonment of the younger when Ted was a young boy. Rafael would later return to the family, an evangelical convert.
[T]he elder Cruz’s belief system has gotten more and more radical over the past decades. Rafael Cruz is a devoted dominionist preacher, adhering to a rigid and fantastical Christianity that positions his son as the lightbringer in a battle against the darkness of hell.
he “wicked” are now ruling the country, and they must be defeated by the “righteous,” whom he defines as those evangelical Christians who embrace the literal truth of the Bible… The righteous, he urges, must be guided by pastors across the nation to rise up and “take every position in office, from dog catcher all the way to the highest position in the land.” In a 2013 sermon, according to a partial transcript obtained by Mother Jones, he proclaimed that Satan “rules in the halls of legislation,” and said, “We have a responsibility to preserve the biblical foundations of this country.”
Thrilling stuff.
[O]f course, he wasn’t always like this. Before his conversion, Rafael was a Marxist and a sympathizer with the Castro regime in his native Cuba (Cruz left the country to escape the Batista regime in 1957). In fact, his conversion would not come until the mid-1960s. That time period was the subject of some discussion the morning of Ted Cruz’s last day on the campaign trail.
The morning of May 3 marked the moment that Indianans made their way to the polls to vote in the Republican primary. It was also the moment that Donald Trump called into his favorite morning show to deliver a chain letter email conspiracy theory about the elder Cruz and Lee Harvey Oswald.
“His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being — you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous,” Trump said Tuesday… “What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody even brings it up. They don’t even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it.”
There’s as much evidence for the elder Cruz being involved with the Kennedy assassination as there is of the younger Cruz being the Zodiac Killer.
[T]hat didn’t stop Ted from absolutely losing it at a hastily called press conference at mid-morning. Insulting the Senator’s father was a bridge too far. Cruz berated and insulted Trump for close to 30 minutes, calling him a narcissist, a philanderer, and a carrier of venereal diseases.
But, just as in his debate days, once his weakness had been exposed there was no way to recover. Cruz could see the writing on the wall. For any candidate, losing your cool is bad enough. When you face off against Trump and give him an opening, he will exploit it again and again.
Cruz conceded on Tuesday evening after his meltdown and after seeing a particularly disappointing double-digit loss in Indiana.
It might have just been Indiana. It might have been the increasing likelihood that the rest of the campaign would be an utter disaster for his political future. Hell, it might have been his concern for his family as a whole.
But given the chain of events, it’s just as likely that Cruz’s Daddy issues were just too much for the Senator to bear.
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