As noted here, the Cruz campaign folded its saintly little hands last night in apotropaic prayer — ante-caucus, so to speak — rather joylessly informing the Lord that it would "not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious toward wrongdoers." This morning, post-caucus, with the evildoer done smote, the Cruz campaign has returned to the joyful fold. Praise be! it announces in its latest email, the initial portion of which I faithfully reproduce:
Our prayer focus this week is Campaign Events, beginning with yesterday’s Iowa Caucus.
Pray selected verses from Psalm 35, remembering that David’s motive for his earnest appeal to God was not personal vengeance, but rather asking God to execute His righteous justice. Verse 24 reads, “Judge me, O Lord my God, according to Your righteousness . . .” David understood the covenant promise that the battle belongs to the Lord.
From The Message
Verses 9-10: “But let [Ted and staff] run loose and free, celebrating God’s great work, Every bone in [their] bod[ies] laughing, singing, “God, there’s no one like you. You put the down-and-out on their feet and protect the unprotected from bullies!””
The email goes on, "quoting," for instance, Psalms' Verse 4: “When those [out to trap Ted] try to knife [him] in the back, make [him] look foolish."
The brackets are original.
It's a mystery (to me anyway) how such blasphemous cynicism and affection can be both transparent — and effective. But, I guess that's why the Lord created the word "rube."
It's not that hard to understand. The Evangelical crowd that fawns on Ted are predisposed to believe in things that are demonstrably not true, and trained, sometimes from birth, to swallow whatever their pastors or other chosen leaders tell them. Quite uncritically. If they had any capacity for critical reason, they would long since have bailed on Evangelicalism and the GOP.
Posted by: shsavage | February 02, 2016 at 09:39 AM
I am repelled by the very image of Ted Cruz and I have a very difficult time understanding the appeal of him. Yet I'm still rooting for him over Donald Trump to win the nomination. He'd be more of a WMD to the republican party than Trump would be.
Posted by: Anne J | February 02, 2016 at 10:35 AM
Have faith, so is almost everyone else. The overarching theme of this election cycle seems to be that offensiveness pays. It does seem to engender passionate loyalty doesn't it? But only from relatively small minorities. The competition to establish who is the bigger shit head, Ted or Donald, is now inevitable and their fans don't strike me as the type to go along quietly with whoever wins.
If you listened to his victory speech wherein he congratulated the courage of those that supported him then you get Ted. If you don't support him you aren't courageous. Now I think Ted imagines that sort of talk will inspire the two thirds of the voters who didn't vote for him to think that they might too now aspire to be courageous and should join the swelling multitude. But that's not how real people think. What they think is, Cruz you are a smug asshole.
Posted by: Peter G | February 02, 2016 at 10:51 AM
A mind in which Ted represents righteousness seems impossibly cheesy.
Posted by: Bob | February 02, 2016 at 01:36 PM
Behold the power of cheese.
Posted by: Neon Vincent | February 02, 2016 at 03:51 PM