There are parts of this Michelle Cottle piece that I like and admire, and parts that make me cringe. I am beginning to wonder if my cultural antennae are malfunctioning because I am totally not getting this fascination with Senator Ted Cruz.
I was warned early on by Adam Bonin, who debated Cruz at Princeton, that Cruz was one of the finest debaters in the country. I know that the man has crazy natural talent. But I haven’t really seen him use it effectively since he got to Washington DC. From my perspective he has distinguished himself by being, alternatively, extremely rude and aggressively wrong.
I also don’t see him as having a lot of natural appeal. Being smart can be a turn-off, especially when it isn’t accompanied by basic manners. Insofar as he has some kind of Texas swagger, it really just seems like excessive self-regard. Even his wardrobe seems somewhat contrived, like he’s wearing a costume and playing a part. I felt that way about George W. Bush, too.
But Chris Christie is another matter. I’m from Jersey; he’s from Jersey. I totally get Chris Christie. I don’t like his politics at all, but I like everything else about him. If there is a characteristic that defines the prototypical Jersey boy (and it’s pretty true about the girls, too), it’s that they don’t suffer fools gladly. It’s almost not even considered rude to call someone an idiot to their face. Having lived in many different places, I have learned firsthand that Jersey personas come off as rude, curt, and condescending in most of the country. All that does is make Jersey folks value each other more. I’d much rather have an argument with Chris Christie than someone in Iowa. They’re too damn polite and liable to take offense where none was intended. With Christie, we share certain cultural assumptions, among which is that it perfectly acceptable to denounce an argument as moronic without it being a personal attack.
Chris Christie’s swagger strikes me as genuine, and I ought to be able to sense any sense of fakeness in his routine. He lies a lot, but that’s not the same thing as being fake. Not quite.
Cottle says, “Whether you prefer Cruz or Christie likely depends on your political and cultural leanings,” and that’s probably true. I like Christie better both because I have a cultural affinity for him and because he’s more moderate than Cruz. But, I think it’s more than that. I think Christie is more honest. I think he has better character, even though it would be hard not to.
Cottle is raising a different question, though. She’s trying to predict which of these two men will have more appeal to the Republican base. On that score, I think it’s obvious that Cruz has the advantage. He’s more conservative; he’s more combative; he has less reason to worry about appealing to moderates; he can explore the outer reaches of wingnuttia without consequences. And, as a racial minority, he gives permission to countless racists to compensate by supporting him.
If it’s true that rank-and-file Republicans crave a daddy figure, either of these men will do, but only one of them will speak unapologetically to their lizard brains. And that man is Ted Cruz. It’s not that he won’t suffer fools gladly, it’s that he’ll gladly be the fools’ Pied Piper.