Cruz Candidacy Will Help Democrats

Ted Cruz tossed his hat into the race for the Republican presidential nomination. He is the first Republican to do so. I think he did it because all the recent polls have him trailing badly, and he knows if he is to have any chance at all, he has to get started right now.

Since Cruz's declaration, my e-mail and social media page have been filled with Democrats talking about how horrible this is, and urging me to join them in stopping his candidacy. I have a different take on a Cruz candidacy. I welcome it.

Cruz is very likely the most extreme of the possible Republican candidates. He's so far to the right that he makes Attila the Hun look like a compassionate moderate -- and he is the perfect teabagger candidate. They will love him, and because of that, all of the other Republican candidates will be forced to move even farther to the right than they already are -- and that will paint the eventual nominee (whoever it might be) as an extremist.

Republicans like Cruz (and many of his cohorts) think the American public is right-wing. They are wrong. Most Americans are moderates, and they want a moderate in the White House. The Cruz candidacy will show the public how extremist the Republicans are currently -- and make the eventual Democratic nominee look moderate by comparison.

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The Republican Dream Team for 2016 (for Democrats)

My favorite take on the Cruz candidacy is by humorist Andy Borowitz in The New Yorker. He writes:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – A disturbed Canadian man wants to try to get into the White House, according to reports.

The man, who was born in Calgary before drifting to Texas, has been spotted in Washington, D.C. in recent years exhibiting erratic behavior, sources said.

In 2013, he gained entry to the United States Senate and was heard quoting incoherently from a children’s book before he was finally subdued.

More recently, he was heard ranting about a plan to dismantle large components of the federal government, such as the Internal Revenue Service and the nation’s health-care program.

Despite a record of such bizarre episodes and unhinged utterances, observers expressed little concern about his plans to get into the White House, calling them “delusional.”