“To understand Cruz’s role in 2016, one must recognize that the Tea Party in Washington today is a not an insurgency from below. It is a realignment within the Republican establishment that has committed the party to a position of extreme non-compromise.” The rest here.
Cruz appeals to libertarian voters by saying taste in art should follow ideological imperatives.
The floral aesthetics smackdown at the White House continues to get more intense.
Natan Sachs will be joining The Hive to chat (sub req) about the Israeli election results, Israel’s reactions to the Iran negotiations and the future of U.S.-Israeli relations.
Sachs is a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy. His focus is on Israeli foreign policy and the Arab-Israeli conflict — he taught a course about the conflict in Georgetown’s Security Studies Program — and he is currently writing a book on Israeli grand strategy and its domestic origins.
Please get your questions in early and then join us at 1 p.m. Friday in the Hive. TPM will moderate the chat.
I’m excited about this. Today we’re debuting the first in a five part Prime Longform series (sub req) on the rapid rise of renewables in the global energy market. Far faster than one might have expected only a couples years ago. Don’t miss part one in our series.
Meet Cleveland’s new Gentrification King. And you may not hate him.
There are few people I do not take seriously in politics. Or to put it more specifically, there are few people I fully discount in the context of national elections. Ted Cruz is one of those people. By contrast, I think it is highly unlikely that Rand Paul can make it in the GOP primaries, let alone a national election. There are so many intra-party disputes, so many iffy stories lurking in the background for him and his father and a lot more. But there are enough unexpected and cross cutting aspects to Paul that I can’t be sure. Always important, many people who don’t agree with anything Paul says find him somehow appealing. Cruz is entirely different. It is hard to think of someone who has been accorded such press attention as a presidential contender while being so certain to go down to defeat. It is extremely unlikely that Cruz could ever win the GOP nomination. And as certain as one can ever be in this fallen world that he cannot win a national election.
This is for three reasons.
Starbucks ends “Race Together” movement after seven painful days.
If Obamacare were your friend, it would be your friend with borderline personality disorder with histrionic features. Here’s a brief history of Obamacare’s endless number of near death experiences and crises.