Cruz and Sanders

Ted Cruz sends me stuff daily.   I attended a rally of his in Dorchester, South Carolina and got onto his lists.   He calls me “Peter”.  He calls himself “Ted” when he writes me. It is nice we are so friendly. He says that since we are such good pals I should send him money.   

Here is what he says to me in his letters:

   ***Voters will stay unmotivated if a mere “pretty good” person is nominated but the voter rolls will swell enormously if someone really uncompromising is nominated.   It isn’t an issue of being extreme; its one of motivating voters.  Therefore, he can and will win.

   ***Don’t chicken out and settle for “pretty good” because there is a gigantic voting bloc waiting to be motivated by someone uncompromising, like him, who shines pure beacon of ideology.

Does any of this sound familiar??    Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders are writing me emails telling me exactly the same thing. 

Pure and uncompromising

In their senate voting records Cruz and Sanders are near the two extremes, as judged by conservative and liberal scorecard groups.   In the presidential campaigns Cruz has tilted more ideologically right, leaving no place for someone to run to his right.  Cruz IS the pure trusted uncompromising conservative.   Similarly, Sanders leave no room for someone to run to his left.  No Green Party or Ralph Nader accuses Sanders of compromise.

An idea circulating among my progressive friends is that maybe, possibly, the Republicans will commit electoral suicide and nominate Ted Cruz, someone so extreme he is unelectable.   Conservatives say they hope Democrats will do the equivalent by nominating Sanders.    

No room for Nader to his left

Each side accepts half the premise.   My Bernie-supporter friends think that Bernie excites and will motivate the masses and they hope Republicans nominate the unelectable Cruz.  And vice versa.

I see this as the problem of environmental bubbles.   Progressives in college towns compete with one another over who is the most pure.  They reject "corporatist NPR" in favor of community radio and "Democracy Now." (FYI: People on the ideological right consider NPR to be obviously and unabashedly liberal.)  Everyone they know likes Bernie.  On the right, in the Fox News and talk radio circle, the equivalent takes place.  (Note to progressives: much of talk radio is angry at Fox for being way, way too liberal.  White identity talk radio says Cruz is conservative but not sufficiently race oriented; conservative talk radio says only Cruz is conservative enough and that Rubio and Trump are moderates and that Kasich and Bush are the same as Democrats.  Talk radio is positioned as an alternative to Fox rather than an augmentation of it, and it is to Fox's right.   More nativist, more angry, more conservative.    Fox is understood to be establishment Republican, a bad thing.  Establishment Republicans are dangerously liberal, from the view of much of talk radio.)

Voters live inside their own political environments and do not always have a good sense of the overall political landscape--something I attempt fix in my own case by spending time at Tea Party conventions and watching some Fox News.   I think some magical thinking is taking place among both Cruz and Sanders supporters.   They perceive that their man will bring out the unmotivated non-voters on their side and that ideological purity of their own inclinations is a winning strategy while simultaneously looking at the other party and thinking they are about to make a foolish choice by nominating an unelectable extremist.