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It’s Ted Cruz day. We start with Thomas Sowell’s critical comments from last week.
Freshman Senator Ted Cruz says many things that need to be said and says them well. Moreover, some of these things are what many, if not most, Americans believe wholeheartedly. Yet we need to remember that the same was true of another freshman Senator, just a relatively few years ago, who parlayed his ability to say things that resonated with the voters into two terms in the White House. Who would disagree that if you want your doctor, you should be able to keep your doctor? Who would disagree with the idea of a more transparent administration in Washington, or a President of the United States being a uniter instead of a divider?
There are many things like this that freshman Senator Barack Obama said that the overwhelming majority of Americans — whether liberal or conservative — would agree with. The only problem is that what he has actually done as President has repeatedly turned out to be the direct opposite of what he said as a candidate.
Senator Ted Cruz has not yet reached the point where he can make policy, rather than just make political trouble. But there are already disquieting signs that he is looking out for Ted Cruz — even if that sets back the causes he claims to be serving.
Those causes are not being served when Senator Cruz undermines the election chances of the only political party that has any chance of undoing the disasters that Barack Obama has already inflicted on the nation — and forestalling new disasters that are visible on the horizon.
ObamaCare is not just an issue about money or even an issue about something as important as medical care. ObamaCare represents a quantum leap in the power of the federal government over the private lives of individual Americans. …
Sowell added a Part II.
… However unjustified Senator Cruz’s actions, the very fact that a freshman Senator can so quickly gain so many supporters, with so much enthusiasm, ought to be a loud warning to the Republican establishment that they have long been a huge disappointment to a wide range of Republican voters and supporters.
One of their most maddening qualities has for decades been their can’t-be-bothered attitude when it comes to explaining their positions to the American people in language people can understand. A classic example was Speaker of the House John Boehner’s performance when he emerged from a meeting at the White House a while back. There, with masses of television news cameras pointed at him, and a bank of microphones crowded together, he simply expressed his disgust at the Obama administration, turned and walked on away.
Here was a golden opportunity to cut through the Obama administration rhetoric and set the record straight on the issues at hand. But apparently Speaker Boehner couldn’t be bothered to have a prepared, and previously thought out, statement to present, conveying something more than his disgust.
Unfortunately, Speaker Boehner is just the latest in a long line of Republican “leaders” with the same disregard of the need to explain their position in plain English. …
Kimberley Strassel has more.
… On Thursday, Mr. Cruz told me his debt procedure was a matter of principle, though he acknowledged an “additional benefit” was the “transparency” he’d forced on Republicans. He told me he had not “spoken to anyone at SCF in months.” However, when I asked if anyone on his staff had been in contact with outside groups about his debt-ceiling procedure, he acknowledged: “My staff periodically speaks with people across the conservative movement.” He added, “But the debt ceiling vote occurred suddenly and it was a surprise to everybody when Republican leadership asked every Republican senator to consent to letting Harry Reid raise the debt ceiling.”
In addition to Mr. McConnell, conservative groups are targeting senators John Cornyn (Texas), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Thad Cochran (Miss.), and Lindsey Graham (S.C.). While the primary challengers aren’t likely to win (Mr. Bevin is trailing by 25 points), the attacks are hurting incumbents’ general-election prospects.
None of this is about substance. If political principle were at stake, one would assume these outside groups—so keen on purity—would have already dropped Mr. Bevin. It came out recently that he had once praised the very bank bailouts that he has been slapping Mr. McConnell for supporting.
Mr. McConnell holds the same positions as Mr. Cruz on spending, ObamaCare, gun control, etc. His sin? He has refused to ask Republicans to run into the Obama fixed bayonets, a la the Cruz shutdown. Groups like SCF and Heritage Action want to replace the leadership with more of their own kamikaze caucus. They also understand there are far more fundraising dollars and media attention in attacking fellow conservatives.
Republicans have fumbled their last two Senate takeover chances, mostly thanks to infighting. But this latest movement—to take down incumbents over tactics—is a new low. If the GOP remains a minority, this will be why.
Jennifer Rubin compares Cruz and Cassius.
… Cruz is not a dumb man, so surely he knows what he is saying is patently false and unhelpful to his party. But he is, more than anything, an ambitious man. It is wrong to label him a McCarthyite, as some on the left do (for one thing, there were actual communists to worry about in the 1950s). He is, nevertheless, reminiscent of another figure, Shakespearean in fact, with “a lean and hungry look.” He plots, he schemes and he cloaks it all in self-righteousness.
What to do about a man like Cruz? For one thing it’s a farce to have him as a vice chair on the National Senate Republican Committee. He would more properly be placed on the Democratic counterpart. But really, the best Republicans can do is ignore him and support mainstream and responsible candidates. They can reject the grab-bag of flaky and unqualified candidates who would emulate Cruz (Matt Bevin in Kentucky being the prime example). And if Cruz should run for president on a platform of — hmm, grandstanding? — the voters can tell him what they think of him. There is nothing like getting 5 percent of the vote in New Hampshire to take the wind out of a pol’s sails.
This is a shame, not only because he does damage to his party, which has a real chance to take the Senate, but also because it is a waste of actual talent that could be used to win policy arguments. Cruz can be a positive and intelligent force on the right, as he has shown on foreign policy. By doing this, however, he reveals himself to be a two-bit operator for whom ambition crushes principle. He makes far too many enemies for too little positive result. That doesn’t get you to be president, no matter how many talk show hosts demagogue on your behalf.
Daily Caller posts that even Ann Coulter has had enough.
First conservative icon Thomas Sowell turned on Ted Cruz, now it appears that Ann Coulter is souring on the Texas Republican as well.
Sowell published two columns this week slamming Cruz for being self-serving. Coulter praised the first of Sowell’s columns in a tweet Wednesday.
Later, in an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” Wednesday night, Coulter doubled down on her praise of Sowell’s anti-Cruz column: ”I never push anyone else’s column but mine. Today everyone has got to read Thomas Sowell’s article.”
During the “Hannity” segment, Coulter attacked tea party groups for being filled with “shysters” and “conmen,” naming specifically the Senate Conservatives Fund as an example. The Senate Conservatives Fund was a key outside group that supported Cruz in his fight to “Defund Obamacare” last fall, which ultimately led to a government shutdown.
“And these people are just trying to get money off good Americans by saying we’re going after ‘establishment Republicans,” Coulter complained about tea party groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund. “How about going after Democrats?”
“Do not trust anyone who says they are trying to defeat ‘establishment Republicans,’” she added.
Without mentioning Cruz by name, Coulter railed against tea partiers who fail to understand that the “only way to repeal Obamacare is to elect Republicans.”
“It is not to be fighting against Republicans,” she said.
Wired tells us about the systems (algorithms) used by UPS to plan the routes of their drivers.
Let’s say you’re a driver for UPS. You have an hour and a half left before your shift ends and you still have 12 packages to deliver. Your challenge is to find the shortest route that takes rush-hour traffic, the higher priority of premium packages, the construction zone up ahead, and a slew of other variables into account. Should you try to shave a few miles off your regular route (better mile optimization) or deliver a high-priority package early (higher customer satisfaction)?
In the past we would have used our experience as drivers and our knowledge of local conditions to make a call based on our instincts. But what if we have a technical resource that can help make that call for us? Far from our workforce fearing automation, we need to embrace it — especially if we focus on designing the technology as a coach. …
… The answer lies in data. Take UPS’s On-Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation, or ORION, as an example. The brainchild of Jack Levis, UPS’s director of process management (he worked on it for nearly a decade before the first test implementation in 2008), it uses a variety of data streams — map data, customer information, business protocols, and work rules — to calculate the most streamlined and efficient delivery route … better than any mere mortal ever could. The system uses so many algorithms — nearly 80 pages of math formulas — that Levis describes it as “something Einstein would have on his blackboard.”
Many of us are a lot like UPS drivers in our daily lives: The only difference is we spend our days shepherding virtual bits between destinations rather than driving physical boxes around. But we still face many of the same prioritization and optimization challenges.
Yet one of the biggest misconceptions about software-enabled decision making is the idea that it’s far removed from us. Many people think of data as something technical that only accountants, warehouses, data scientists, or the latest slew of tech technology-as-a-coach startups need to worry about. We don’t recognize the strategic connection between information collection and decision making, or see how data can help increase our own performance. …