Cruz—alleged man of the people who is attacked for his elite credentials and lack of common sense

The Populist Egghead

Sen. Ted Cruz is a rare political species—a supposed man of the people who is attacked for his elite credentials and lack of common sense.

By John Dickerson

Sen. Ted Cruz may be the conservative movement's first populist egghead—a grassroots leader who is attacked for being too smart to have common sense. In political theater, you're usually allowed to wear only one of these costumes.

The populist claims to possess the horse sense of the electorate and has no need for fancy schools, with their eating clubs, trays of sherry, and debating societies. That was Sarah Palin's posture. It was also true of the men to whom Cruz has recently been unfavorably compared—Huey Long, Joe McCarthy, and George Wallace—and those conservative luminaries he aspires to join—Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

Cruz came to Washington as an anti-establishment bolt from the blue, having defeated the GOP’s preferred nominee in his first Senate race. In the recent Obamacare fight, he sharpened his populist credentials against the elites. After his bid to defund the Affordable Care Act failed, Cruz took to the microphones and aligned himself with the “millions of Americans” harmed by the president’s pet project—people who he claimed the GOP establishment had forsaken.

The establishment usually scorns the populist as a dummy, full of overheated rhetoric for the masses but not much more. When the smarty-pants set attacked Cruz for his Obamacare grandstanding, it looked like a familiar script. The elites thought it was dumb, but "real Americans," thought Cruz was a hero, said former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Mike Gallagher, the conservative talk radio host, said in an interview with Cruz, “You’re not getting the credit you deserve from the intelligentsia, but you sure are from the American people.”

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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/10/ted_cruz_is_a_populist_egghead_the_texas_senator_has_elite_credentials_but.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content