The retired senator from Archer Daniels Midland
would like to share his views:
Bob Dole, the former Kansas senator and 1996 Republican presidential nominee, has never been fond of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. But in an interview Wednesday, Mr. Dole said that the party would suffer “cataclysmic” and “wholesale losses” if Mr. Cruz were the nominee, and that Donald J. Trump would fare better.
“I question his allegiance to the party,” Mr. Dole said of Mr. Cruz. “I don’t know how often you’ve heard him say the word ‘Republican’ — not very often.” Instead, Mr. Cruz uses the word “conservative,” Mr. Dole said, before offering up a different word for Mr. Cruz: “extremist.”
That's a tell. So is this:
But Mr. Dole, 92, said he thought Mr. Trump could “probably work with Congress, because he’s, you know, he’s got the right personality and he’s kind of a deal-maker.”
Dealmaking isn't a big problem in Washington. They make deals all the time. Most of the time the citizenry isn't cut into the deals, but that's nothing we need to worry our pretty little heads over. So why is Bob Dole so mad? Perhaps this might be the reason:
The animosity between the two men began after Mr. Cruz invoked Mr. Dole’s name as an example of the missteps the party had made with past presidential nominees — as in, “Remember President Dole? Remember President McCain? Remember President Romney?”
“In other words, we weren’t right wing like he is, and I didn’t like that very much,” Mr. Dole said in the interview. “It kind of hurt, because we worked hard, we did the best we could. We are conservatives, we are traditional Republican conservatives. And then, of course, he doesn’t have any friends in Congress. He called the leader of the Republicans a liar on the Senate floor.”
Maybe we could give Bob Dole a participation trophy -- after all, Bob Dole did the best he could. If you want to know why Cruz called Mitch McConnell a liar,
click this link. I think this was the quote that got ol' Mitch upset:
We had a Senate Republican lunch where I stood up and I asked the majority leader very directly, what was the deal that was just cut on [trade legislation, and was there a deal for the Export-Import Bank? It was a direct question. I asked the majority leader in front of all the Republican senators. The majority leader was visibly angry with me that I would ask such a question, and the majority leader looked at me and said, "There is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal."
"Like Saint Peter, he repeated it three times," Cruz added.
The other message? Apparently Donald Trump is more acceptable to the dealmakers in Washington than Ted Cruz is. You can draw your own conclusions about what that means.
