Follow @ontheissuesorg

2016 Election:

Hillary's book

Trump's book

Bernie's book

Ted Cruz's book

|

2016 Senate   Debates

A Time for Truth
Reigniting the Promise of America
by Ted Cruz


(Click for Amazon book review)

BOOK REVIEW by OnTheIssues.org:

This is Ted Cruz's memoir, written in 2015 in preparation for his presidential campaign, and hence defines Cruz's campaign philosophy. Let's start that definition with the title Cruz chose: "A Time for Truth." Cruz defines the term in the introduction: "In the Senate, I've tried to do two things: tell the truth, and do what I said I would do.... Today is a time for truth. That is why I am writing this book." (p. xxvii). Cruz believes fervently that clear and unambiguous policies, implemented as promised with clear and unambiguous leadership, would transform America for the better.

Specifically, Cruz's introduction describes his Senate filibuster against raising the debt ceiling. Cruz's actions on the debt ceiling in early 2014 earned him national attention, but also alienated most of his Republican colleagues in the Senate. The "debt ceiling" defines the self-imposed limit on the national debt, which Congress routinely raises every year -- until October 2013 (a previous debt ceiling crisis took place in 2011, but Cruz had not yet been elected to the Senate). At that time, Senate Republicans blocked the debt ceiling increase, which would shut down all new federal spending and hence shut down a lot of the federal government. Cruz followed up that battle with another one in February 2014 -- much to the disagreement of most Senate Republicans. Cruz applied his mantra of demanding clear and unambiguous leadership, which in this case meant no compromise and a potential federal shutdown. He made few friends by doing so, which Cruz summarizes: "I didn't go to Washington to join a club. I didn't ever intend to become part of the 'fraternal order' of Republicans. Our country is in crisis. We cannot keep on doing what we're doing. There comes a point where the hole is too deep, where the debt is too much. It is now or never." (pp. xxvi-xxvii).

Cruz hence established his reputation as an uncompromising believer, who has few allies in the Senate or in the Republican Party. Cruz is ok with that, and counts on support from voters who prefer uncompromising believers to those who go along to get along. Others have taken on the mantle of the uncompromising believer before Cruz -- Senator Russ Feingold comes to mind on the Democratic side, fighting an uncompromising fight against corruption within the Congress; he too became massively unpopular in the Senate and unpopular within his own party. Feingold became so unpopular that he lost re-election in 2010 (but is running for his old seat in 2016). Cruz became similarly unpopular, but now is attempting to parlay that internal unpopularity into voter popularity -- and his strong early primary results indicate he's managing to accomplish that.

The sum of the philosophy above is that Cruz portrays himself as the hardest of hard-liners, lambasting moderates as losers (p. 330) and favoring "moral clarity" over moderation (p. 304). That sort of purity makes Cruz unpopular among Senators and the Republican leadership -- but will it translate into popularity among voters? Maybe so, if enough voters believe that "ObamaCare is failing badly" (p. 385;) that "America's international standing [is] in tatters" (p. 288); and that, in general, America is on the wrong track and needs a complete turnaround. Cruz's strategy relies on that anti-Obama worldview in the primary electcion, and then in the general election persuading the American public that Hillary Clinton is co-responsible for Obama's negative outcomes.

Cruz uses each chapter to outline the success of his no-compromise stance throughout his career. As of this writing, Cruz stands as the alternative to Donald Trump in the Republican primary. That race has come down to Trump as the dealmaker (requiring compromise) vs. Cruz as the hard-liner (no compromise). Cruz's strategy is to win a contested Republican convention -- which means winning over the Republican Party establishment that he has so alienated in the past. Cruz is only acceptable to the GOP leadership because Trump is even less acceptable to that same Republican Party establishment!

-- by Jesse Gordon, jesse@OnTheIssues.org, March 2016