Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and the Tea Party's 2016 problem

An internecine spat threatens to undercut the movement's White House ambitions

Cruz, Paul
(Image credit: (Tom Pennington, Alex Wong/Getty Images))

As the The New York Times detailed over the weekend, and as The Week's Matt Lewis predicted in July, a rivalry is brewing between Tea Party favorites Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. Each side is bad-mouthing the other, saying its rival is unelectable in the 2016 presidential race. Cruz reportedly trashed Paul as fatally linked to his extremist father, while Paul's aides call Cruz "the chief of the wacko birds."

Intraparty scraps are nothing new, and often the survivor emerges stronger. Barack Obama went the full 12 rounds with Hillary Clinton, and came out the other end battle-hardened. But for conservative insurgents hoping to take over the Republican Party from inside, a Paul-Cruz throwdown is the absolute last thing that they need, because it risks knocking them both out of the ring.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us

Bill Scher is the executive editor of LiberalOasis.com and the online campaign manager at Campaign for America's Future. He is the author of Wait! Don't Move To Canada!: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America, a regular contributor to Bloggingheads.tv and host of the LiberalOasis Radio Show weekly podcast.