This week we found out that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a fervent defender of "traditional marriage," is
courting gay donors in Manhattan Penthouses. Meanwhile, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, an avowed true believer in border security first, is
wooing pro-immigration reform billionaires in Florida. Never has it been so clear that Republicans, and perhaps tea party Republicans in particular, have zero chance of winning the GOP nomination unless they deliver wholeheartedly conflicting messages depending on who's in the room.
Simply put: Republicans need the cash and they need the votes. And in order to appeal to a broader class of donors, they must shed the skin they inhabit for voters at public events and, behind closed doors, morph into something altogether less fiery and more palatable to the more affluent donor class.
Of course, there’s nothing new about politicians doing whatever it takes in a cynical ploy to win elections. But it does raise interesting questions about who are the bigger chumps. Is it the donor class for believing that because they have special access they can also divine what’s really in a candidate’s heart and thus, how he or she will actually behave in office? Or is it the tea party voters who seem so hermetically sealed from reality that they either don’t realize or don’t believe their candidate is double-crossing them?
On the one hand, there’s someone like Florida businessman Norman Braman, who’s a first generation immigrant, like Rubio, and pro-immigration reform.
The Miami billionaire added that he’s known Rubio for a long time and always liked him, but that the senator’s dedication to taking on the messy immigration battle in Congress — particularly while so many other Republicans shied away from the fight — demonstrated his White House worthiness. “Isn’t that what leadership is all about? … Marco is not the type of person in all the years that I have known him who will put his finger up in the air to determine which way the wind is blowing.”
This statement just defies all logic. Rubio was one of the "gang of 8" senators who negotiated the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill and then, once it miraculously passed the Senate and went to the House (where it never got a vote), he started trashing it. That’s because his approval ratings
among Republican voters tanked. If that’s not the very definition of putting your finger up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing, I’m not sure what is.
For more on the split personality primary, head below the fold.
A similar type of selective amnesia seemed to be at work at the Penthouse gathering of gays and Ted Cruz. Here’s Ian Reisner, one of the attendees recalling Cruz’s remarks:
“Ted Cruz said, ‘If one of my daughters was gay, I would love them just as much,’” recalled Mr. Reisner, a same-sex marriage proponent who described himself as simply an attendee at Mr. Weiderpass’s event.
Well, isn’t that liberating. Ted Cruz would still love his daughter. C’mon, seriously, Ted Cruz has built his career on targeting gays and immigrants for second-class treatment in America, which would include his daughters if they were gay. Beyond talking to this small group of wealthy gays, Ted Cruz
also introduced two new bills this week designed to ensure that same-sex couples would not have full marital rights nationwide even if the Supreme Court rules in June that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right.
Which brings us to the other side of the equation, social conservative Bob Vander Plaats, who heads up the Iowa Family Leader.
Vander Plaats said he wanted to hear specific strategies from the Republican candidates on how to fight gay marriage. Any attempts to straddle the issue would be a problem for him, he added.
Okay, Bob, Cruz has now delivered specific strategies in the form of two bills—neither of which has a chance in hell of becoming law. So is that good enough to get your vote? It’s pandering that won’t amount to a hill of beans from Ted Cruz, who just sat around a table with a bunch of gay guys jawing away about foreign policy because he needs their money.
So who’s really getting swindled—the donors, the voters, or a little of both?
I tend to believe it’s the donors more so than the voters. If a politician can’t make an argument publicly for her or his position that will win votes, they’re never going to stake their presidency on it. And if they really believed in that issue in their heart of hearts, they would make the case for it with the public regardless of whether it was unpopular.
On the other hand, if the Bob Vander Plaatses of the world are truly looking for ideological purity, what they’re really getting is an ideological sales job. Even so, it’s likely a better indication of which way someone’s policies will lean in office. The only downside of the sales job is that it's a terrible indicator of whether a candidate would actually prioritize that issue once in the Oval Office. And priorities matter in one of the most demanding jobs on the globe.
But either way, it's clearer than ever that most Republican candidates are going to have to lie through their teeth this cycle in order to be viable.