Imagine a Washington Post blogger writing that in his recent endorsement of Hillary Clinton, HUD Secretary Julian Castro could “hardly be more solicitious of Hillary without offering to mow her lawn.” Would that get past an editor without being flagged as at least racially insensitive? A landscaper joke?
But that’s exactly how Jennifer Rubin started her latest screed against Ted Cruz: “Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), without offering to mow his lawn, could hardly be more solicitous of Donald Trump.” Raising a flag of insensitivity should be twice as easy for references to Donald Trump, regarded in liberal newsrooms as a flagrant exploiter of racist voters.
Rubin’s headline was "Is Ted Cruz playing to win?" She says no. “Trump and Ben Carson (whom Cruz chooses largely to ignore) are cultivating the low-information, angry far-right. So long as they are there — running 10 to 15 points ahead of Cruz and pulling in the anti-Washington crowd, there is no place for him to move.”
To Rubin, there's apparently no one on the "angry far right" who is well-informed or worth any consideration for the presidency. She still probably believes Mitt Romney was eminently electable in 2012, despite the reality.
So Cruz, whom she previously enjoyed describing as "justifiably hated by his peers," is just playing “martyr” and seeking book sales:
[P]erhaps Cruz is not playing to win, at least not win the presidency. He knows he has no hope of attracting moderate, mainstream conservatives. He relishes infuriating them. Certainly he can do the math and figure out even if all his right-wing competition disappeared he probably could not win the nomination. So what is he doing?
He is doing what he always does, seeking fame and fortune from being the martyr of the right. First wronged by the GOP leadership, then wronged by the “establishment” (that would be the voters, but never mind) who “forced” the party to select someone else. Woe is he, so send more money. Woe is he, so invite him to more gatherings. Woe is he, so buy more books.
Sure, but doesn’t he want to win the presidency? Eventually, I am sure but there is no rush to do it now. Building a donor network and getting national practice are tried and true ways of coming back a second time, to win. And that, you see, may be ultimately why he won’t criticize Trump and tries to avoid Carson. They hold the key to the masses of angry voters who are just the ones to buy his books, send him cash and remember him next time around.
Cruz’s schemes never work out if he “wins,” as in the shutdown. Then he has to be responsible for the outcome. What he excels at is losing noisily. That seems the most likely outcome in this race.
This kind of attack can easily be thrown right back in Rubin's face. She excelled in losing noisily in blatantly advocating Romney in 2012. She's the one who earns a check being a pseudo-conservative female version of David Brooks at The Washington Post. For someone who disparages the overly "angry" people, she's quite bitter whenever she's writing about actual conservatives.
