The one way Ted Cruz really did beat a 'Washington cartel'

In his Iowa victory, the 2016 candidate really did defeat a powerful special interest: ethanol

Ted Cruz: Cartel killer
(Image credit: AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt)

I am not a Ted Cruz fan and can't imagine ever voting for a man so vainglorious. But the junior senator from Texas pulled off a rather remarkable feat in Iowa this week: Not only did he come from behind and win the Republican caucus, but he did so despite dissing the Hawkeye State's beloved ethanol fuel mandate. No candidate — Republican or Democrat — had touched this senseless boondoggle and lived to tell the tale.

But was this a freak stunt by a freak politician that can't be replicated? Nyet! Cruz's campaign offers some lessons to politicians wishing to take a principled stand against welfare for powerful lobbies — what he time and again refers to as the "Washington cartel."

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Shikha Dalmia

Shikha Dalmia is a visiting fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University studying the rise of populist authoritarianism.  She is a Bloomberg View contributor and a columnist at the Washington Examiner, and she also writes regularly for The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications. She considers herself to be a progressive libertarian and an agnostic with Buddhist longings and a Sufi soul.