In the waning days of September, the focus of American political theater will once again be on the U.S. Capitol, and there, center stage, will be Sen. Ted Cruz, fighting to defund Planned Parenthood, even at the risk of a government shutdown.
Whether he is the hero or villain will be in the eyes of the beholder.
But in a crowded Republican presidential field in which every candidate but Donald Trump has been starved for attention, it presents Cruz with an enormous opportunity to reprise the role the Texan played in the 2013 shutdown over his failed effort to defund Obamacare — only now, in the throes of a dramatic GOP nomination struggle, he faces a more intent and receptive audience.
Cruz’s chances of success in the funding battle are virtually nil, despite the summer release of undercover videos purporting to show that Planned Parenthood and its affiliates are improperly selling fetal tissue for a profit — and talking about it in a callous and cavalier manner — charges that Planned Parenthood denies, describing the videos as deceptively edited.
Nonetheless, politically, Cruz can win by losing, galvanizing tea party and evangelical conservative voters who are crucial to his emerging from the pack. He will be Daniel in the lion’s den. The longer the odds, the lonelier his fight, the more scorn heaped upon him — especially from the mainstream media and leaders of his own party — the better.
“The grass-roots response will be, ‘here’s a guy who is actually willing to take some shots, who is willing to do something even if it means shutting down the government over saving a baby’s life,’” said Michael Demastus, pastor of Fort Des Moines Church of Christ in Des Moines, Iowa, and an avid Cruz supporter. “There are a lot of people who will rally behind that.”
“Ted Cruz is a very talented demagogue, although right now he is being eclipsed by Donald Trump,” said Jason Stanford, a Democratic political consultant and columnist who has worked as a strategist for Planned Parenthood.
“Ted Cruz needs to get into the top tier,” he said, and being identified as the most unyielding enemy of abortion among the GOP contenders is a good way to get there — although deadly to Republican chances in the general election, Stanford said.
“Shutting down the government to defund Planned Parenthood could win him Iowa,” Stanford said.
So far, 2015 has been the year of the political outsider.
Trump is leading in all the polls, followed next by Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon. Neither Trump nor Carson has ever been elected to anything. There isn’t a day of government experience between them.
Cruz, on the other hand, is the outsider within the Senate, his mettle tested.
“Cruz is positioning himself as the outsider who knows what he’s doing,” Claremont McKenna College political scientist Jack Pitney said.
A shutdown showdown on Capitol Hill at the end of the federal fiscal year, Sept. 30, is perfectly in sync with Cruz’s political calendar.
“He will reach a lot of grass-roots voters and activists who may not have paid as close attention in the past,” said Brendan Steinhauser, an Austin-based Republican consultant who played a pivotal role in launching the national tea party movement.
“I think it will elevate him in the minds of a lot of grass-roots folks. They don’t really care about the shutdown, they don’t think it did any harm last time,” said Steinhauser, who managed the 2014 re-election campaign of Cruz’s fellow Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn. “He’s inevitably going to face some criticism and parting of the ways with a lot of other folks in the Republican Party, including in the leadership and other folks who disagree with his tactics or style.”
But, said Steinhauser, “he knows that this is what the party is longing for — they want a fighter.”
In August, Cruz had a conference call with about 1,000 pastors facilitated by David Lane, the founder of the American Renewal Project, whose mission is to rouse an army of politically active conservative pastors across America.
Demastus, who was on the call, said Cruz asked the pastors to preach about the importance of cutting off Planned Parenthood’s federal funding, to lead their congregations on the second Sunday in September in praying for Congress to see the light on the issue, and to follow those prayers with phone calls to their representatives.
“Preach about it, pray about it and phone about it,” Demastus said.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that Cruz is circulating among colleagues in hopes of gaining their support, the Texan wrote: “In light of recent and horrific revelations that Planned Parenthood is trafficking in fetal tissue and body parts from abortions, we urge you not to schedule or facilitate the consideration of any legislation that authorizes or appropriates federal dollars for Planned Parenthood.”
Cruz’s office said it won’t release the names of co-signers until the letter is sent, but Politico reported last week that it has been very slow going, with Cruz’s Senate colleagues showing little appetite for another showdown.
“We’ve seen this movie before, and it doesn’t end well,” Cornyn, McConnell’s second-in-command in the Senate, said in a conference call with reporters Thursday. “I don’t believe a shutdown is what I got elected to do. I think I got elected to govern.
“I think, if the government is shut down as a result of a standoff involving life issues, that it actually threatens to discredit and to harm our ability to pass important legislation like the 20-week pain-capable abortion ban,” which McConnell “has made it clear that we will be voting on … the week after next,” Cornyn said.
“We all know he is running for president, so I’ll let people reach their own conclusions there,” Cornyn said of Cruz. But, he added, “any strategy that might lead to a potential shutdown is a flawed strategy, one that’s been demonstrated not to work, and there’s a better, more constructive strategy that will actually help to advance the pro-life agenda, not stymie it.”
Politically, Cornyn said, it took a full year for Republicans to recover from the last shutdown.
That recovery included taking majority control of the Senate in 2014, but, Cornyn said, “we won in spite of the shutdown, not because of it.”
“It’s completely revisionist history,” said Amanda Carpenter, a conservative commentator who in June left her jobs as communications director in Cruz’s Senate office, and now, as a CNN contributor, isn’t endorsing a candidate.
Carpenter said the lesson of 2014 is that when Republicans “are willing to stand up and fight for something, they win.”
On a potential shutdown, Cruz campaign spokesman Rick Tyler said, “Sen. McConnell and Sen. Cornyn have said there won’t be a shutdown. In the end, it’s under their control, and they will have to decide whether they will accept taxpayer funding of an organization that engages in practices that are abhorrent to most people.”
Cruz has been facing predictions of his imminent political demise since his first brazen days in the Senate but instead has emerged as the pre-eminent Texas Republican. Although still lagging far behind Trump and Carson, he also is perhaps the most sure-footed candidate in designing a strategy and sticking to it.
Trump’s success couldn’t be foreseen, but Cruz is seen as having played it adeptly, emerging not so much as the mogul’s adversary as his understudy and, such as when he invited Trump to join him at a rally against the Iran nuclear deal outside the Capitol Wednesday, even his ally.
“I think he thinks there is little to be lost at this point in adopting that strategy,” Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker said. “For the time being, he’ll be the second banana, but if Trump implodes, I think he feels he’ll be there to collect the debris.
“I think he’s played it very astutely,” Baker said, offering “Trumpism without Trump.”
“I think he’s fast on his feet and can adapt very readily to changing situations,” Baker said. “He’s shown that in some ways he is, among the rest of the Republican field, probably the one who is in the best position.”
Cruz accentuated another signature cause Tuesday, rushing to Rowan County, Ky., to meet with Kim Davis, the county clerk jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses just before her release into the waiting arms of a rally organized by another GOP presidential rival, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
In contrast, Trump expressed sympathy for Davis but said, “The Supreme Court has ruled. It is the law of the land.”
“Here in Iowa, we like to say it separated the wheat from the chaff,” said Demastus, who with two other pastors and a member of his congregation drove to Kentucky to show their support for Davis.
Demastus doesn’t discount Trump’s appeal. “His brashness with the press, the way he handles himself,” Demastus said. “He doesn’t apologize for who he is. That’s something appealing to hear.”
But, he said, “when it comes to a moral compass for our nation, he’s as lost as lost can be.”
Now, Demastus said, all eyes will turn to defunding Planned Parenthood.
“I think all of us are aware this is a kind of kairos moment in time, and we need to capitalize on a perfect storm that we’ve never had before,” Demastus said, explaining that “kairos” was how the ancient Greeks referred to an especially ripe or opportune time.
For Cruz too, it might be a kairos moment.
Republicans, in Steinhauser’s view, aren’t going to nominate the low-key Ben Carson for president and are still very unlikely to nominate the over-the-top Trump.
And then, Steinhauser said, there stands Cruz with “money, real organizational and grass-roots enthusiasm,” the candidate best poised to benefit from what could be Trump’s and Carson’s “long, gradual decline.”
If Cruz can finish in the top three in Iowa and do well in South Carolina, next up is March 1, when Texas and seven other Southern states are set to vote.
If Cruz rides into March 1 with a head of steam, Steinhauser said, “it’s his to lose.”
