– Republican Sen. Ted Cruz blasts ‘party bosses’ in homecoming rally (CNN, Oct 21, 2013):
Sen. Ted Cruz was greeted by a screaming crowd of supporters and cheers of “Thank you Ted!” and “Welcome Home!” Monday night in Texas.The freshman senator said he was happy to be back home in Houston, and wasn’t afraid to be honest about his feelings on Washington.
“It is terrific to be back in America,” said Cruz as supporters waved homemade signs promoting “#MakeDCListen,” a hashtag that was a prominent part of Cruz’s 21-hour speech on the Senate floor in late September.
In the opinion of many on Capitol Hill, Democrats and Republicans, that speech was the kick-off of an irresponsible and destructive campaign to defund Obamacare at the risk of all else.
With the White House and Congress unable to settle their budgetary differences, the federal government was partially shut down for more than two weeks, and came very close to running out of money to pay its bills.
Cruz’s colleagues in the Senate didn’t stay quiet. “It was a fool’s errand to start with. It was never going to succeed,” Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said, “Shutting down the government, in my view, is not conservative policy.”
Back in Texas, Cruz was quick to admit that he had made some enemies when he told the crowd a story about his two young daughters.
Catherine had announced at a family outing that she wanted to grow up to work in the Senate “like daddy.” However, Cruz’s other daughter, Caroline, immediately dismissed that as “boring.” She also pointed out the fact that “by then daddy will be dead anyways.”
Cruz went on to say, “I kind of wondered if Caroline had been talking to Republican leadership in Washington, if she knew something I didn’t know.”
If this isn’t evidence enough that Cruz isn’t too concerned with the “voices in Washington,” when asked whether he was hoping to repair his relationships with Republican leaders, Cruz laughed. “I don’t work for the party bosses in Washington. I work for 26 million Texans.”
Cruz had some fun with the problems plaguing HealthCare.gov as well, saying, “the Nigerian e-mail scammers” had been hired to run the site.
The senator also had some harsh words, laying the blame for “a lousy deal” squarely at the feet of the Senate Republicans who didn’t “unite with House Republicans.”
The deal that ended the shutdown and raised the debt ceiling was passed with 87 House Republicans joining 197 Democrats to vote ‘Yea’ and 144 Republicans voting ‘Nay.’
“We didn’t ultimately win this battle,” said Cruz. “But listen, no one in this room started this fight thinking it would be easy. We all knew that if we took on the Washington establishment the establishment would fight back.”
Cruz assured the crowd that the past two months had seen enormous progress and that if they “follow the model” of grass-roots campaigns and citizen engagement they would “change the debate” in Washington.
Movements such as the constituent support of Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s filibuster on drones, and the backlash against gun control legislation after the shooting in Newtown, Cruz said, were evidence of effective campaigns Democrats and the White House were forced to listen to.
Cruz said the message of the rally was clear: Texans and the American people don’t want Obamacare and they’re fed up with Congress.
But for all his talk of blowing off the party bosses, Cruz acknowledged that success for the Republicans lay with a unified message.
“I’m hopeful, with a little bit of time and reflection, that Senate Republicans will decide to come together again,” Cruz said.
“I would love to see Republican unity, to see all of us stand together against this train wreck that is Obamacare and with the American people.”