Group items tagged

Although the Texan Senator Ted Cruz has been the focus of much blame for the government shutdown, many Texans appreciate his strong conservative effort in Washington, much less to defund the ACA. Still, moderate and establishment Republicans in Texas disapprove of Cruz, and question his real purpose for stalling the government. While quieted, there a divide within the red state among Republicans. But is this political divide a bigger issue than the divide between Texas and other liberal states?

"But the continued support for Mr. Cruz among Texas Republicans illustrates something larger: the cultural and political divide that continues to widen between a red state that President Obama lost by nearly 16 points in the 2012 election and the blue or even purple parts of the country where Mr. Cruz's tone and tactics have caused outrage and consternation"

I was surprised by how measured this article was and how much I agreed with the analysis expressed in it, given that it was written by Pat Buchanan, whose views I find reprehensible. He offers a smart and historically conscious analysis of the political moves Obama is making right now, moves he believes might allow the president to create a Democratic coalition that will outlast his tenure. Buchanan says that Obama presented the Fiscal Cliff negotiations in such a way as to divide the Republicans and make them look bad whatever they did, and that he has engineered similarly divisive and damaging strategies for the upcoming fights over the Chuck Hagel nomination, gun control, and the debt ceiling.