Just two nights ago, Ted Cruz seemed to have “won” his mini-debate with Marco Rubio (full disclosure: I support the latter for the Republican nomination). The Texas freshman’s hard-line on legalizing the status of 11+ million unauthorized immigrants was supposedly more in line with Republican voters than Rubio’s insistence that legalization after border security should not be dismissed. Cruz then tried some legalese of his own: “I have never supported legalization and I do not intend to support legalization.”
At first, some wondered how well “intend to” would withstand the test of time. As it turns out, Cruz had more trouble with the first part, as Charles W. Cooke (National Review Online) noted (links in original).
As one might imagine, the veracity of Cruz’s statement rests heavily upon what he means by “legalization.” … Over the last few years, that word has been wielded by border hawks as a catch-all criticism of any proposal that would yield governmental recognition of those who are in America illegally. By that standard, Cruz’s asseveration was clearly false. And, one suspects, he knew it.
In 2013, Cruz told the New York Times that his amendment to Rubio’s Gang of Eight bill “removed the path to citizenship, but it did not change the underlying work permit.” Was this “legalization”? Evidently, that depends. Now that he is running for president, Cruz insists that his amendment should not be counted against him because it was nothing more than an ingenious ploy to expose the Gang of Eight’s flaws and kill their bill stone dead. In 2013, however, he was filmed characterizing the offering in completely the opposite manner. Addressing “rightly concerned” immigration advocates, Cruz portrayed his amendment as a guarantee not only that “those 11 million under this current bill would still be eligible for RPI status” but that they would be “eligible for legal status and indeed under the terms of the bill they would be eligible for LPR status as well, so that they are out of the shadows.” Moreover, he explained bluntly that if his offering were “to pass, the chances of this bill passing into law would increase dramatically.” “I would urge the committee,” he said flatly, “to give it full consideration and to adopt the amendment.”
The bottom line? Somebody is being lied to here.
Thus does Cruz’s “victory” dissipate into a he-said/he-said-earlier battle with himself.
I would humbly submit that events like this should give us a healthier perspective on the impact of these “debates.” Contrary to what media from all sides (and several candidates) would insist, debates that actually impact an election campaign are few and far between. I count three in total: the first 1960 debate; the Nashua 1980 GOP nomination debate, and the 1980 general election debate. The first had the novelty effect of being the first debate of any kind; the other two involved Ronald Reagan – which says more about him than the debates themselves.
More often, debates are remembered for candidates to make mistakes. Al Gore became “the serial exaggerator” after one of his ordinary-people-sources contradicted him in 2000. Reagan himself stumbled after the first general election debate in 1984 (and quickly recovered during the second one). Mike Dukakis’ answer to Bernard Shaw’s death penalty question is still considered a primer in what not to do during a debate.
As for Cruz, he may soon find out that whatever “victory” he achieved Tuesday night is Pyrrhic. The more attention is brought to his 2013 statements, the more trouble it will bring him in Iowa…and beyond.
