Interesting take. I don't agree with it, exactly, but there have been times I've wanted to say to Cruz "Chill out, dude."To hear the pundits and experts in Washington tell it, the problem with Ted Cruz is that he doesn’t play well with others in the Senate, he’s too hardheaded and he doesn’t compromise. In other words, he’s exactly what the Republican primary voters want.
On this score, I side with the Republican primary voters. If Cruz’s problem is that he is a conservative who has no regard for senatorial decorum and fights too hard for the right things, I’m all in.
But there is a far bigger problem with Cruz: Donald Trump is not the most self-absorbed Republican running for president—Cruz is. Whether you like Trump or not (and I don’t), at least Trump makes no effort to hide his narcissism. In that sense, Trump is oddly genuine.
Cruz, on the other hand, takes great pains to be whatever he thinks you want him to be. And the troubling thing is he’s really good at it.
Occasionally, he offers a glimpse of his vanity and his need to be loved—such as the hilariously painful 15 hours of B-roll footage his campaign put on the Web for use by his super PACs. My favorite part of that footage is the multiple times he and his family practiced the prayer scene before a meal … once more, with feeling. There is nothing quite as genuine and humble as a rehearsed, made-for-TV prayer.
The other revealing scene is when Cruz is sitting on the couch with his mom and he says, “Not a day goes by that my mom is not lifting me up in prayer.” Then mom agrees saying, “It’s true.” But then, Cruz can’t help himself and he adds, “for hours at a time,” after which mom can’t take it anymore and very tellingly gives us a roll of the eyes that says it all.
My dad was a preacher for 40 years—a great one I might add. He gave me some sage advice: “Never trust a preacher who wears makeup.” There it is. Cruz is the televangelist candidate. (To be clear, not all televangelists are phony, just most of ’em.)
There is no denying that Cruz is a smart and gifted orator. But if you listen closely you will find that he sells everything with the exact same level of zeal. Whether he is condemning the Islamic State or ordering a ham sandwich, the invective is identical. When a speaker oversells everything, it calls everything he says into question, and it begs questions regarding authenticity and genuineness.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/12/ted-cruz-2016-ego-213460
