Mr. Cruz goes to Washington

Texas has a new senator… one who illustrates just how far from reason and reality the modern Republican Party has strayed. His misbehavior over the few weeks since Mr. Cruz went to Washington has prompted even cranky old white men like John McCain and Lindsey Graham to slap the this insolent newcomer down.

There was a story by Robert Draper in The New York Times magazine this Sunday that focused on the problems and internal divisions of the modern Republican Party. Among the rafts of issues upon which Draper focuses, Cruz gets some special attention.

Of interest is that when Republican pollster’s recently interviewed Ohio voters, one of the questions had respondents playing word association games. When asked which of a list of words they associated with “Republican,” the answers included some of the descriptions that have proven problematic for the Party, such as “rich” and “white,” but “rigid” and “polarizing” appear as well, as does “all-or-nothing.”

After losing the White House for the second straight election a humbled GOP turned introspective and started efforts to overcome this image. The Party powerbase set about ensuring there would be no more crazy wingnuts like Sharron Angle, Alan West, or Christine O'Donnell.

With Ted Cruz the Republicans were not successful. Yet another crazy teabagger is loose in halls of Congress, and because of this I fully expect to see the great State of Texas turn blue in my lifetime.

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