Ted Cruz makes panic move as Beto O’Rourke closes in on him

| 8:04 pm EDT June 29, 2018
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Earlier this month, Palmer Report highlighted Ted Cruz’s oddball decision to introduce a bill in the Senate which would have freed the immigrant kids from their cages and reunited them with their parents, without giving Donald Trump anything in return. We pointed out that Cruz knew his bill wasn’t going anywhere, and that the stunt was more of a panic move, as he faces an upstart Democratic Party challenger in November. Now Cruz has made what can only be described as a desperation move.

Here’s what Ted Cruz posted today about a Republican candidate Arthur Jones, who is a Nazi and a Holocaust denier: “This is horrific. An avowed Nazi running for Congress. To the good people of Illinois, you have two reasonable choices: write in another candidate, or vote for the Democrat. This bigoted fool should receive ZERO votes.”

To be clear, Jones is going to lose anyway. Ted Cruz knows that by taking this stand, he costs the GOP nothing. What stands out is that he’s saying this at all. When people do the right thing for the right reasons, we try to give them proper credit for it, whether we like them or not. But based on Ted Cruz’s consistent record of craven hyper-partisan dishonesty and cruel ideological extremism, this can only be seen as Cruz saying the right thing for the wrong reason. What stands out is that he feels compelled to say it at all.

Democratic nominee Beto O’Rourke is mounting a popular and resonant campaign against Ted Cruz. O’Rourke has momentum, funding, and he’s just a few points behind Cruz in the polls. Now that it’s become clear that O’Rourke has a real shot of winning, Cruz is frantically trying to paint himself as being a reasonable moderate by making symbolic gestures of judiciousness. But based on Cruz’s record, there is nothing reasonable or moderate about him. All this tells us is that Cruz is on the run. He’s trying to run to the middle, but it’s far too late for that.